“Sophia?”
Disoriented, my gaze traveled toward that voice, the one that had coaxed me back to life again and again.
Unkempt and brittle, Lucas Scott stared with a blank expression and a rainbow of emotion in his eyes. “Can you hear me?”
At my slow nod, he released a breath.
He sank to his knees by the bed, where I lay tucked under covers in his master bedroom. His forehead fell onto the mattress beside me.
“Thank you,” he whispered to the floor.
Stiff and sore, I lifted my hand to scratch my fingers into his hair, counting his breaths.
One, two, three…
We stayed like that for a long time, one of his hands resting on my leg, the other on my ribs.
After a while, he shifted onto the bed, his weight dipping the mattress. “Can you speak?”
“I—I think so,” I said, my voice rusty.
“Will you tell me how this happened?” The lethal calm in his voice prickled along my spine, surging my veins with adrenaline, but I still tripped over the memories thanks to the drugs in my system. Frozen beside me, Lucas stared at the wall above my head while I stuttered out a mess of a story. When I finished, my eyes fluttered closed, fatigue dragging me back toward the void.
“You were almost dead by the time I got here,” he said, tone lifeless. “I was sitting in my living room, and the light turned red, and?—”
My eyes popped open. Skin flushed, he wouldn’t look at me again. As I set my hand atop his, he turned his palm to grasp my fingers.
“They stabbed yousixteen times. Thank god they didn’t hit anything important because I wouldn’t have— The bleeding—” His words grew harder, angrier. “You were pale as death, your pulsesofaint. I can’t believe I got the bleeding to stop. You’re fucking lucky I’m O negative.”
“Y-you gave me your blood?”
He ignored me. “You left a trail of red breadcrumbs leading here, so I had to wash away the evidence. When I made it back, you were burning up. I had to steal antibiotics.” He lapsed intoa long silence, staring down at my hand on his. “You’ve been in and out forsix days—and I—” He shook his head. “But I had to leave so no one suspected.” His gaze lifted to mine. “What if you’d died while I was away?”
The fear in those words reminded me of a caged animal, threatened and feral. His voice wavered, then neutralized. “Can you please tell me why you were sent on a raid like that?”
I swallowed against my thick tongue. “It was a rescue mission. They needed medics.”
“And they were willing to sacrifice you for it?”
My heart lurched a slow, throbbing beat, and I fought against the narcotized confusion. “Theo wasn’t there. He couldn’t?—”
“Is your life worthnothingto them?” he hissed, like a cornered cat. “Itoldyou. I told you I wouldn’t tolerate threats against your safety.”
I blinked heavily at him.
“They’re supposed to protect their vulnerable, not throw them out to be eaten by wolves.”
“Lucas, it was a misunderstanding.”
His gaze turned sharp, his voice cutting. “You will not leave this house until I say so. You’ll stay until you’ve recovered.”
Nerves tickled my insides. The same danger I remembered from those first weeks with him radiated toward me, but it formed an invisible shield around me. Protective. Possessive.
Those intense eyes focused on mine, furious and devastated. “When you go back to them, you can tell Harrison my continued loyalty depends entirely on your survival. If something happens to you, Sophia, I will kill him.”
I blinked as his words filtered through my brain and settled into the place I processed dangerous things.
Because this… this was perilous. If I told Theo that Lucas was issuing threats…
