“Get me a fucking doctor!” someone shouts.
A loud groan overpowers the voice. “I said no. Get out. All of you! Out!”
I don’t wait to hear more. I bolt down the stairs, expecting the worst. And when my bare feet touch the last stair, I see him around the corner. A whimper leaves my chest at the blood on my husband’s body as he lies there on the floor with a grimace of pain.
I rush toward him, pushing large, solid bodies away as best I can.
“Victoria… don’t,” Ivan says, extending an arm forward to stop me. He can try all he wants. I’m not going anywhere, no matter what threats he wants to make. “You have to leave.”
I look him dead in the eye. “I’m his wife! You’re insane if you think I’m leaving him. What the hell happened?!”
He runs a bloody hand through his hair, cursing out loud.
“We were attacked, and then… he just went fucking crazy, all by himself. He got shot, and now he won’t let us call a doctor.”
“Call the doctor,” I say, leaving no room for debate. “Now, Ivan. And take everyone out.”
I don’t know what else happens around us because the moment I shift my focus to Wolf, everything else fades away. His face has new cuts, lines in which the blood is still fresh but stagnant. His eyes are closed, but he’s breathing. Grunting as he pushes into the floor, trying to get himself up.
“Tell them no,” he says. “No doctor. The bullet only grazed me.”
I shake my head, my vision blurring at seeing him in this state.
“A doctoriscoming,” I snap. “You’re not dying. You hear me? Be mad at me all you want, but you arenotdying!”
The faintest smile pulls at the corner of his lip. He groans, and more panic floods me.
“Wolf, what did you do? What did you do…?” I put my shaky hands on him, gently, so I can unbutton his shirt and see exactly where he was shot. “You’re bleeding too much,” I whisper.
He doesn’t say anything.
But then his eyes finally open—and for the first time in days, he doesn’t just look at me. He finally sees me again.
32
WOLFGANG
She’s here. And she’s touching me with shaky hands, soothing my pain as she drags me back under her fucking spell. The scent of iron fills the air, but I can still feel the fragrance of those flowers emanating from her hair. Lilies. What is she doing here, so soft and clean, and perfect, smearing herself with my blood and descending into my hell?
Tears wet her pretty face, and whenever I open my eyes, she’s all I see. All I want to see right now, when I’m bleeding all over this fucking floor. The pain… I don’t really feel it. I don’t even remember what I did to get to this state. All I remember is thinking about her—constantly, like a thorn in my back that I could never pull out.
I told her she meant nothing to me anymore, and maybe I meant it at that moment. But the truth is, there hasn’t been a single second when I didn’t want her. I still feel her on my sheets late atnight. Breathing behind that closed door. When I look up at the fucking sky, her blue eyes blink in the dark of my mind. Showing me I still want her.
“You’re bleeding too much,” she whispers. “Please… let me help you.”
Her sweet voice keeps me awake and I cling to it, not because I’m dying—I’ve been dodging death for way too long now, and this isn’t going to be the night it takes me—but because I want us to pretend there’s still something left. That she didn’t gut me in front of the world, and I didn’t throw all my anger at her.
“Then you do it,” I grunt, and her worried gaze locks with mine.
“W-What? I… I don’t know how. I’ll hurt you.”
“You won’t. Listen to me, love,” I say, and her watery blue eyes brighten at hearing her nickname again. Fuck. I love seeing her so raw. Maybe she’s starting to care. And I hate that I cling to that, but it is what it is. She’s already made a home in my heart, and she won’t be going fucking anywhere.
“I need you to take a deep breath, love. Calm yourself down. Yeah, that’s it. That’s my good girl.” Pain shoots through me with every small move, but it’s nothing I haven’t felt before. I can bear it. It’s just the fucking bleeding that needs to stop.
“Put pressure on it, and it will stop. Use your hands. Press as hard as you can. Okay?”
She looks at me, bewildered, but snaps out of it quickly and nods frantically. More pain—thicker, stronger—ripples through my shoulder as I feel her do exactly what I asked. I don’t take my eyes off her. Off the way she leans that perfect body over mine, in her pretty little nightgown, drowning herself in my blood like she’s giving herself over to me willingly.
