Brylee flinches, her fingers tightening around mine like she’s bracing for impact.
I scan her again, cataloging injuries with the ruthless efficiency drilled into me by years of training. “She could have internal bleeding. A concussion. Shock. And you let her sit here?”
Kylian opens his mouth—probably to deflect or joke or both—but Luka cuts in smoothly.
“She was examined,” Luka says. Calm. Measured. “Full assessment. Imaging. Bloodwork.”
“That doesn’t look like ‘examined,’” I bite back, nodding toward the bruises.
“She refused admission,” Colter rumbles.
One sentence. Gravel and steel. End of discussion.
My head snaps back to Brylee. “You refused?”
Her chin lifts, defiant even now.
“You were unconscious,” she says quietly. “I wasn’t leaving.”
Something fractures in my chest, sharp and irreversible.
“Brylee—”
“No,” she interrupts, gentle but unyielding. “I wasn’t alone. They made sure I was okay. I just…” Her voice softens. “I needed to be here when you woke up.”
The anger drains out of me like someone pulled a plug. What replaces it is worse—cold, clawing fear that makes my hands tremble as I pull her closer, careful of the wires and IVs. I breathe her in.
She smells like adrenaline and fear and that sweetness that’s been haunting me since the first day I met her.
Mine.
“Get out,” I tell my brothers without looking at them. “Give us a minute.”
Kylian hesitates, jaw ticking. Luka studies me, weighing something I don’t have the energy to dissect. Colter doesn’t move until Brylee gives a small nod.
Then they’re gone.
The door clicks shut, sealing us into the quiet.
I lift my hands to her face, careful, reverent, thumbs brushing just beneath her eyes. “You scared the hell out of me.”
Her lips tremble. “You got shot.”
“I lived,” I say softly. “I wouldn’t have if I lost you.”
She exhales a broken breath and presses her forehead to mine.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she admits. “Be in a relationship with alphas, I mean. Not again. Not after… Not after before.”
The honesty guts me.
“But I know this,” she continues, voice shaking but sure. “I can’t walk away. I tried to imagine it while I was gone, and it felt like suffocating. Like tearing something vital out of myself.”
I swallow hard.
“I want to make this work,” she whispers. “With all of you. Even if I’m terrified.”
I rest my forehead against hers, breathing her in like oxygen, like survival.
