I opened my mouth, but Kroven shook his head. “You don’t have to say it back. Actually, I’d rather you wait.” He craned his face away. “I shouldn’t have said anything until you were out of the hospital.”
“Hey.” I squeezed his hand, earning me a look of sadness from him that I needed to replace with reassurance. “I don’t care that this is where you told me. I just care that you feel the same way about me that I feel about you.”
Kroven’s eyes flared with the appearance of more tears, hopefully more happiness based ones. “You do?”
“Of course I do,” I laughed, shaking our conjoined hands. “I love you too, Kroven.”
I grabbed his face with both of my hands, our lips melding together in an accurate portrayal of our feelings for one another. His mouth opened and our kiss turned sensual, but our tongues remained coy as we expressed the love thrumming beneath our chests.
We broke apart and Kroven rested his forehead against mine. “I’m so relived you’re okay, Sebastian.”
A smirk curved my lips. He usually reserved my full name for when we were getting down and dirty. I was pleased to learn that my dick had remained unaffected by my accident as it plumped with arousal.
“Thank you for being here after I woke up.” I nodded. “I was worried that I’d scared you off or something.”
“Never,” Kroven reassured me. “There’s no place else I’d rather be than by your side.”
Chapter 27
Three days passedbefore the doctor gave me the okay to be discharged from Piper Memorial. After being asleep for over eight days, the last thing I wanted to endure was more bedrest, but I stuck to the doctor’s orders and spent most of my time reading on my iPad.
Kroven came to visit me the most, especially since he didn’t have work to occupy him that often. Thayer hadn’t been back and I had a feeling he was avoiding me because of the Oh-by-the-way-I-have-a-twin-brother-that-I’ve-never-mentioned issue. I had every intention of getting down to that particular mystery.
I learned from Kroven’s visits that Exo and Wallace were still in Piper and sticking around given what had happened to the blood centers. To make matters worse, the blood center that I worked at wasn’t the only one that had been attacked that day. Five other blood centers up and down the east coast had been attacked by protestors, some sort of coordinated assault that had been pre-planned to, I guess, get their point across. Ours was the only blood center that had been set on fire though. Apparently, we were the lucky ones to have todeal with fire damage along with interior and exterior destruction.
After I was officially discharged and free to leave the hospital, Kroven was helping me get dressed in the clothes that Thayer had dropped by the day I’d woken up, finally free of the hospital gowns, when a knock came at the door. I was in my jeans when I turned to see Babs waving at the door. I gestured for her to come in and realized that she didn’t know about Kroven.
“Bas,” She stopped a few feet from us, looking between Kroven and I and back again.
As I grabbed one of my favorite graphic tees and slid it on, I placed a hand on Kroven’s shoulder. “Babs, this is Kroven.”
“I recognize you,” Babs smiled, putting out her hand as she walked forward. Kroven took it with grace and amended the gesture. “You’ve come to the blood center.”
“I did, yes.” Kroven beamed. “Bas talks about you a lot.”
Babs’ question buzzed from her eyes, and I just added, “Kroven’s my boyfriend.”
Surprise checked in on her face but it checked out just as fast. “Well, then it’s very nice to meet you, Kroven.”
“Thank you.” He smiled, patting me on the shoulder. “I’ll give you two a minute while I order us a car.”
Nodding, I watched Kroven saunter out of the room and regarded Babs with a wide gaze. She looked normal to me, like she hadn’t been through this horrible traumatic thing like I had. I walked over and wrapped my arms around her shorter stature, feeling her limbs reciprocate in earnest.
“Thank you, Babs, for helping save me from those monsters.”
I felt her nod, and tears brined the rims of her eyes as we parted. “I’m just glad you’re okay. It was absolutely horrible, Bas. I thought you were…”
She didn’t need to finish the sentence. The doctor had told me after I’d woken up how seriously lucky I was to be alive.There was a reason people died when being trampled, and how close I had come to being one of those people. I didn’t like to focus on just how close death had had me in its grasp, because it scared the fuck out of me. To think that I’d almost lost my life being at work, trying to help people…and that people had wanted to stop me from ever doing so. It hurt too much to dwell on. This world needed healing and I wanted to try and be a part of that healing process as much as possible.
“I’m glad you’re okay too.” I agreed. “They told me you had smoke inhalation.”
Babs waved me off. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
I pushed forward with the kinds of questions that had been bubbling up inside me like a volcanic gas but ones I hadn’t wanted to burden Kroven with. “And the sangamar that were with us? Marquinn and Jolsten, they were okay?”
“They’re fine,” Babs smiled, seeming like I was crazy for worrying about them when I’d been the one to almost die. “Grateful for us shielding them from the protestors. Marquinn sends her undying gratitude, by the way.”
Now I was the one to wave her off like it was nothing. “What about the protestors? Kroven mentioned they ran. Did the police catch any of them?”
