“Then what happened?”
“Life. None of us woke up one day and chosethis, right?”
The philosopher in me was dead. I didn’t have an answer for him, and I didn’t even try. I put my head in my hands and waited until sometimeaeonslater when Alexei called my name.
“Come.” He beckoned me forward. “This way.”
I shot to my feet, joining Alexei at the end of the corridor in a split second. “Is he okay?”
“No.” Alexei shook his head. “Or we would not be here. But he is going to be, and I think he will wake up soon.”
He led me to a closed door and ushered me through it and two more until we came to a full-on hospital room, equipped with everything I could remember from Saint’s time in ICU.
Mateo was on the bed, only an IV hooked up to his arm and an oxygen mask already discarded beside him. He wasn’t awake, but there was colour in his cheeks and a million times less blood and dirt smearing his bruised face.
“What’s wrong with his wrist?”
“Broken. That is why you had to wait. For the X-ray. The doctor will cast it before we leave.”
“What is this place?”
“That, chaplain, is a question for another day. Right now, Mateo must look better than this before we take him home for his daughter, no?”
There was no disguising the ugly marks all over Mateo’s body, but I took Alexei’s point and set to work while he watched over us. Alexei seemed to be waiting for something, but for what, he kept to himself.
I fell into a trance, cleaning Mateo’s skin with a damp cloth. His warmth seeped into me. His tattoos sucked me in. I traced the horses and fairies with new eyes, totally hooked. Obsessed. Wake up and tell me all about them.
“He is not dying, Embry. I promise you.”
I glanced up. Alexei’s gaze speared me, as kind as it ever was. “I know.”
“Are you sure? I should have told you that everything you see is all there is.”
“What does that mean?”
“That his ribs and internal organs are intact. So is his brain. The bruising will hurt, but it will heal. Right now, he is weak from dehydration and displaced from the blows to his head, but he will be okay.”
“When?”
“Soon.” The moment when any other brother, even Saint, might’ve touched me stretched between us, but Alexei stayed on his side of the bed and I stayed on mine, and the predictability of it was more comforting than he’d likely ever know.
I went back to fixating on Mateo’s ink, meandering to how his heart thumped beneath my palm. He didn’t look dead anymore, but that steady beat was the life force keeping me upright.
“Embry?”
I glanced up.
Locke hovered in the doorway, keeping his gaze off Mateo. “Sorry, mate. Just thought you’d want to know Rubi just landed back at the compound, cargo all present and correct.”
“They’re home?”
Locke flashed a peace sign. “Safe and sound, father.”
He melted away.
I took a second to absorb his words, picturing Liliana outside for the first time in more than a month, the wind in her hair, her little face turned to the sky. Loving her was so fucking easy—
The flesh and bone beneath me moved.
