“Help her,” Daniel choked out.
Then there were Bouchers all around me. The pain was constant, excruciating, but I held Daniel’s gaze with my own as they pressed against my wounds.
“I’m going to have a scar,” I informed him.
“You’re going to have a few.”
“On my face,” I grimaced and then winced.
“It’s not so bad,” he soothed, his hands shaking as he rubbed his thumb over my temple.
“It’s bad,” Chance argued. “Think I can see your teeth.”
I let out a shocked huff of laughter.
“Gods, Chance,” Beau barked. “Shut the fuck up.”
“You got this?” Ambrose asked, falling back on his heels. “I’ll go get Lucy and Reese.”
“Take Beau,” Erik ordered as he gently wrapped something around my shoulder. “No one goes anywhere alone.”
I gasped and dug my fingers into the dirt, pressing upward. “My pop,” I wheezed as Daniel tried to push me back down without hurting me.
“He’s fine,” Erik assured me, though there was no way he could’ve known. My pop was out there somewhere in the dark without Thunder to watch his back.
“We need to go get him,” I argued, shoving weakly against their gentle hands.
“I’m here,” Pop called, breathless.
A few moments later, he stumbled into the clearing, his face so pale that it practically glowed in the dark.
“How is she?”
“She’s fine,” I replied, coughing as I choked on blood.
“Yeah, looks like it,” he said, barely making it to my side before dropping. He landed awkwardly, like his legs had simply gone out from under him.
Thunder scooted closer, nudging Pop’s arm.
“Good boy,” Pop praised, his eyes still on me as he scratched Thunder’s bloody fur.
“We need to get her home,” Erik said as the sound of the brothers and their mates filtered through the trees.
“I can walk,” I said in protest as Daniel gathered me into his arms.
“Let me hold you,” he murmured in my ear.
The rest of the Bouchers reached us just as I realized that my pop wasn’t rising to his feet.
“I’ll meet you,” he said, his voice reed thin. “You go.”
“Pop,” I whispered.
I’d thought that seeing Seamus with a gunshot wound in his belly had broken me, but I’d been wrong. Seeing my pop on the ground, unable to rise, was the final hit that shattered everything inside me into thousands of sharp pieces.
“Unacceptable,” Erik replied. He didn’t wait for permission. He just took two steps, crouched, grabbed my pop’s arm, and yanked him over his broad shoulders.
“All set?” Chance asked, for once, not making any snide comments.
