“He’s not dead.” Decker’s voice rasped from his throat. He’d screamed for Safine longer than he remembered.
“Decker.” Sympathy was a tone he’d rarely heard from Safine; still, there it was, bittersweet.
Wordless, Decker tilted Laurie’s head to the side. Four fang marks left faint pink scars in his skin.
She paled. “What happened at the chapel?”
“Elias.”
Questions snapped at him, battering his senses, blooming pain behind his eyes, and Decker clutched at his head, muffling the shrieking. “He brought the plagues, I let him go, I couldn’t let Laurie go—”
Distantly, he registered Sister Inez pausing her last rites. She twined her rosary around one slender, brown finger. “Will he wake?”
“I don’t—” panic gripped his throat. “I don’t know, I tried to remember, I can’t remember—”
“A lifetime of sucking blood and getting sunburnt.” Willa crossed her arms over her chest. “I reckon I’d take the other option.”
Anger sparked, hot and sharp, Decker’s mind clearing for a single moment. “Laurie didn’t have a choice.”
“Because you didn’t give him one.”
Safine pursed bitten lips and looked away. Willa only raised an eyebrow, her challenging words lingering between them.
“Did you give Grace a choice when you took her and ran?” he said lowly.
She’d been dazed and medicated when Willa slung her over the back of her horse and deserted the wedding to a man she didn’t want.
“She would’ve rather died than stayed with him,” Willa bit out.
“I am a selfish man, is that what you want to hear?” Decker trembled, his voice rising. “I am a selfish man, and I would do it again to save him. I am selfish but no more thanyou—”
“Enough,” Willa said, and the rest of Decker’s words died in his throat. She twisted the wedding band on her finger. “If he doesn’t wake up from this, we’re done.”
“His notes—”God, he couldn’t remember. “His notes are at his chapel.” Decker grazed his thumb over grey, dry skin.
Safine cleared her throat. She didn’t reach for him, or brush shoulders with the easy closeness they’d become accustomed to.
Decker didn’t want her to. Her understanding was enough.
“We’ll get what we need before Elias comes back. Stay with him,” she said softly.
Life moved on, desperation nipping at their heels, and Decker kept vigil with Laurie.
