My whole body aches for him. For this man who loves me so fiercely that he walked through a nightmare to save me. I squeeze his hand. “Hey. Look at me.”
He does, his face pale.
“I’m still here,” I whisper. “You didn’t lose me.”
He leans down, resting his forehead against mine. “You can’t do that again. You can’t almost die like that.” His voice is a rough confession.
“I’ll put a reminder in my phone,” I say, because humor is the only thing that keeps the tears from winning.
He laughs through his nose, and I feel it vibrate against my skin. He smells like smoke and hospital soap.
“I love you,” he says into the space between us.
I don’t say it back right away. I just let the silence stretch until my chest aches, and then I whisper, “I know. I feel it.” I open my eyes, and his green ones are right there, staring straight into my twisted soul. “I love you too, Lucky.”
For the first time since Phoenix grabbed me, my pulse doesn’t sound like a countdown.
It sounds like coming home.
But, it’s us, so the peace does not last.
It starts with voices in the hallway. And they’re not quiet.
A woman says, “I don’t care if visiting hours haven’t started, that’s my daughter-in-law and my son back there, and I’ve already waited two hours.”
A man responds, “Marit, she’s a nurse. You don’t have to threaten her.”
Then the same woman, sharper: “I wasn’t threatening her. I was clarifying the hierarchy of power.”
Lucky groans softly beside me. “Oh no.”
“Oh no?” I echo, already bracing.
“My parents.”
The door opens before I can respond, and in sweeps a woman who looks like she could calm a storm and start one in the same breath. Tall, dark-blond hair in a neat braid, sharp eyes that take in every detail.
“Willow,” she says, sounding relieved, and maybe even a little… emotional? “You’re awake.”
I blink. “You must be Marit, Commander of Nurses.”
Lucky chokes out a laugh. Marit doesn’t. “I am not mean, I promise. Just… impatient, and maybe a little bossy. They were trying to tell me no.”
I smile. I like Lucky’s mom.
Behind her, a tall man fills the doorway. He’s a little broader than Lucky but has the same build, same green eyes. He has Lucky’s exact same platinum blond hair. His expression is unreadable until he steps closer and says, “You must be the black cat with nine lives.”
My eyes flick to Lucky, my brows furrowing. Did he really tell his dad about his Dagger Kitten nickname for me?
“Black cat energy,” his dad clarifies, observing my confusion. “You cheated death. I’m Anders.” He grins, all wolfish pride. He extends a calloused hand, gentle despite the size of it.
“It’s nice to meet you both,” I say, even though I’m still undecided. From what Lucky told me, these people aredangerous. There’s a reason Lucky felt he had to fake his own death and escape them for ten years.
But the energy in the room isn’t bad. In fact, there’s something about them that makes me feel at ease. And I get the feeling that, however I escaped Phoenix’s cabin of nightmares, they had a hand in it.
Marit moves to the bedside, studying me with unsettling precision, the kind of gaze that says she could spot a lie before I even think it. “It’s quite the story, the bad blood between you and that fraud. Lucky kept a few details to himself, but I can use my imagination to fill in the blanks.”
“I’m sure you can,” I say carefully.
