Page 9 of Her Angel: Elias

His smile was so full of understanding. He knew I was fighting myself, trying to regain control after so many hours of struggling to stay sane for him. “Take your time, baby girl. No one is going to touch me but you, okay?”

Sucking in a deep breath, I tried to nod.

“Max is unconscious,” Maverick announced. “Chance is bad, but Kingston is worse. Reid, can you walk, man?”

“Not likely,” my brother-in-law gritted out.

I didn’t look at him or anyone else. All I could do was stand there, seeing the physical damage the love of my life had endured.

“Bring the vans,” Vega spoke up. I could hear her moving around, checking vitals, assessing the worst injuries. “Kingston first. Then Max. Chance and Jack can go together.”

“We need to get Elias off that hook,” Kane said, his voice full of caution.

Elias shook his head. “Take care of my brothers. I’m okay. Sammy has me. Don’t you, Sammy baby?”

Every muscle unlocked, and I was in front of him before I could remember deciding to move. Carefully, I unhooked his chain from the hook. One of Ryan’s men appeared at my side with the keys to the cuffs. I snatched them from the man and unlocked Elias’s wrists myself.

Once he was free, he slung one arm around my shoulders with a rough groan. “Missed you so much, little girl,” he said, dropping his head so he could bury his face in my neck.

Feeling him against me was what broke me. All the fear I’d felt for the last two days caught up with me. A sob was pulled from the depths of my soul. “Daddy.”

He kissed my shoulder. “Shh, baby girl. I’m here.”

Elias

Broken ribs were a bitch to heal from. Not being able to take a deep breath made it easy for pneumonia to set in, which made recovery take even longer.

My injuries were nothing compared to Kingston’s, though. Six weeks later and he still had double black eyes going on. At least his tooth was repaired. Meanwhile, Max looked like something out of a horror movie, thanks to all the scars he’d been left with. Jack didn’t have anything visible he needed to heal from, just a nasty headache that took a few weeks to fade.

Reid had a broken leg that required surgery and months in a boot. As for Chance, he had to have reconstructive surgery on his nipples, which no one was going to let him live down, least of all his dad or mine.

“That’s what you get for putting metal where metal doesn’t belong,” Matt said with a smirk as he sat on a stool beside his brother drinking a beer, watching us all play pool.

“Could have been worse,” Bash said with a snicker, shifting his big body on the chair beside his cousins. “He could have pierced his dick. Imagine needing reconstructive surgery for that. Or getting an infection.”

“Damn, and then someone else would have to step in and fuck his pretty little wife.”

Tension filled the entire bar all of a sudden, and all eyes turned to look at the prospect who was playing at the table next to ours. Violence shimmered in Chance’s eyes at the other man mentioning his wife, let alone talking about fucking her.

Chance took one step toward the prospect before Reid shuffled in front of him, stopping him. I narrowed my eyes at the prospect. “If you want to still be breathing by morning, you should leave now.”

Gulping, he dropped his pool stick on the floor and sprinted for the exit. Max shoved another beer at Chance, shaking his head at him when he would have pushed past Reid to follow. “Sleep on it, cuz.”

Muttering to himself, Chance took a deep pull from his bottle and turned to watch me take my next shot. Two pool tables down, a group of tourists whistled and giggled. I ignored the drunk women. They’d been playing and drinking for over two hours and got a little braver with each cocktail they ordered.

Sammy was at her book club with her friends, but she always stopped by the bar when it was over. Since the incident with the Obsidian Souls, she’d been distracted, tense, too quiet. My baby girl was struggling, and I understood why. Getting my brothers and me out of there had been her only focus, but afterward, she’d had no one to take her wrath out on because there had been no survivors.

She needed to unleash a little of the madness that was building more and more within herself. Finding a group of drunk women trying to draw my attention would only make her more unstable, if not push her over the edge fully. I should have moved away, let Reid take my place, finished my beer, and left.

Instead, I kept making shot after shot. My ribs were still uncomfortable, but the pain was manageable. Dad and Matt kept teasing Chance, who was still pissy, but when the door opened five minutes later, the faint scent of peaches filled the bar. Evie, Evy, Delaney, and Nishia came in, giggling about something they’d read that week. Behind them, Sammy followed, her smile not as soft as the other women, her eyes flicking around the bar almost dispassionately.

“Little fairy!” Jack’s voice boomed as he came out from behind the bar. Nishia squealed and threw herself into her husband’s arms.

“Bear,” she chided when he lifted her off her feet, carrying her behind the bar. “You shouldn’t be carrying me. Didn’t you say you still had a little bit of a migraine this morning?”

“Head’s fine, fairy.” He placed her on a stack of crates. “Sit here so I have something beautiful to look at.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she complained with a smile.