“You should have sent your dog for help. We could have taken care of you. These two wouldn’t even let me comelookfor you while you were gone, and look at what happened.”
There were a thousand reasons why that hadn’t been possible—he’d been hurt. The location was secure, but I had no idea if something else would roam in and force Phoenix to fight while I was gone.
The thought of leaving, of not seeing his ocean eyes open and knowing he was okay made panic squeeze in my chest, and I didn’t want to admit why.
There were so many reasons, but it was Phoenix who answered before I had a chance to.
“Since when did you start questioning me so much, Cutter?” They were just words, but the thinly veiled threat was there behind the syllables. I’d never realized before that just saying someone’s name could sound so dangerous.
I think Cutter realized it too, because he looked between us like he wasn’t sure what to do. His eyes roamed over Phoenix and the fading bruises on his face.
“He got you hurt, he?—”
“Shut the fuck up, Cutter. He kept me alive.”
My jaw dropped when Phoenix threw his arm out, stepping between me and Cutter with a furious snarl that made the other two raiders step back. I saw the woman who’d been attacked by the bear jerk her head up from where she was lounging in the sun at a distance, and the man who never left her side actually slipped his arm around her.
“Phoenix…” It was Blythe who spoke, her voice softer than it should have been. “We don’t turn on each other.”
His eyes swung to her, and I was shocked when he took a shaking breath before he finally spoke. “That’s right. We don’t. And Aubrey ismine. That means he’s a part of us.”
Her eyes flicked from the collar to myface—from my split lip to the matching patches I’d sewn into our clothes. She nodded once, slowly. “Okay. Aubrey’s pack.”
I was about to open my mouth to argue, to tell her I hadn’t agreed to join anything, but Cutter spoke again.
“He’s not one of us. He’s just Phoenix’s new fuck toy, he—” Phoenix surged forward, but I caught him by the arm, hauling him back against me with a low grunt.
Heavy motherfucker.
“It’s fine. I’m tired. Can we go lie down?” My eyes drifted past the broad shoulder I was holding to Cutter. Zero had an arm around his waist.
Fuck, they’d really been about to go at it. For some reason, I wanted to save them from that. I could tell myself it was because Phoenix hadjusthealed his stitches and it would have been a waste of medication to let him get torn open again.
We don’t turn on each other.
I didn’t want this—whatever this was—to be ruined for Phoenix because of me.
“Yeah, fine. Blythe, Zero… take Cutter and go get the supplies from the theater. It’s cleared out now. They had a whole stash of shit from the Order.”
Blythe nodded, but I noticed all three of them threw me a look as Phoenix wrapped his arm around my waist and half dragged me to our room.
It was kind of fucked up. Even though I’d joined the Order to be a part of something, I’d never felt like a part ofanythingclose to a family before. Starting now with a group of cannibals seemed like a bad idea.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
PHOENIX
I gaveAubrey a few days before I cornered him again. A myriad of emotions played across his features when I reached out and gently traced a long cut across his bicep that had faded to white. This scar looked deeper.
I watched in fascination as the anger on his face was chased away by worry.
Guilt.
His eyes flicked down to my stomach where I’d earned my own newly formed scar, and Aubrey frowned.
“One time, the Order sent us on a mission a few cities over. Far enough away that the people aren’t like we are.” Aubrey’s brows drew together like he was seeing the image of what he was saying as he spoke. “We were supposed to be getting supplies from an old armory, and the entire town was full of infected. We found out later their water supply had been contaminated by rain runoffand they’d been drinking it without realizing. It’s kind of dumb.” He glanced down with an almost embarrassed expression. “I actually got it putting a table in front of a window. The glass broke out and cut me. I couldn’t move back or we would have been swarmed.”
