I definitely needed some sleep. And therapy.
I watched the numbers pass by until we got to the open door at the end of the hallway with the numbered plate of 1217. But we stopped when we heard Grigori quietly ordering from inside the room, “Open your damn mouth!”
“No,” Ember’s replied, her voice scratchy and hoarse, but very much defiant.
“You sound like shit! And I know your throat hurts. The ice will help,” he argued, sounding just as determined as her.
“No. I don’t want to eat anything.”
Grigori growled low. “Kitten, I’m so fucking pissed right now that unless you want me to force this down your goddamn throat, you had better open it yourself.”
A pause. “Hate you,” she grumbled, but it sounded like she opened her mouth because Grigori murmured his soft approval a moment later.
I hesitated to go inside. Hell, we all hesitated.
But it was quiet for a few moments, and I started to move in, all of us deciding it was the best time, our bodies starting to inch forward until Ember’s voice sounded again and sounding muffled. We halted as one with her saying, “I think,” a pause, “I blew my cover,” another pause, “with your family.”
“Uh-huh,” Grigori murmured quietly, sounding distracted, his own voice stifled. A moment's lull. “You acted like,” another lull, “the trained assassin you are.”
Daniil started to grin.
“Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled. “I’m glad you didn’t have to blow your cover too. The agency would have been pissed to know we both screwed up.”
Grigori chuckled softly. “You have met Papa, haven’t you? I’m sure he already knows.”
There was another long break, and she muttered a little breathlessly, “He looks too much like you.”
Daniil’s shoulders started shaking…but they really started bouncing when a tiny feminine moan came out of the otherwise silent room.
Were they serious?
She just got out of surgery!
Zane rolled his eyes, sighing silently before lifting a hand and loudly knocking on the open door. “Visitors!” He paused a good five seconds before entering the room, and I followed with Daniil and Roman behind me.
The room was huge and spacious, a couch and chairs and a flat screen television with a row of windows against the back wall where Ember lay on a hospital bed with a blanket tucked tight around her bitty frame, looking even smaller on the huge bed. Her face was pale but clean of blood. Her hair was wet, looking a few shades darker than normal, a few freckles she had on her nose and under her eyes on her cheeks standing out starkly. She looked all of, oh, maybe fifteen lying there. And she was one of the three most deadly people I knew. One of the others was standing in front of the windows—now clean of blood, hands in his pockets, leaning back, appearing relaxed and cool, just like Ember.
Christ, I couldn’t say it enough. They were fucking good at hiding who they really were.
Grigori had learned from someone. That man being the love of my life.
And the deadliest man I knew.
“How are you?” Zane asked quietly, coming to stand beside the bed, taking her hand that didn’t hold a cup of ice chips with a spoon stuck in it.
Ember shrugged, and winced, her face paling unbelievably more. “Alive.”
“Are you pressing that damn button for the drugs?” Grigori asked, sounding irritated even though his posture and face didn’t change. “It’s there for a reason.”
She turned her head, somehow managing to pass the cup off to Zane, leaving him blinking down at it in his hand as she grabbed a little cylinder plastic piece with an attached cord that hung off the bed. She scowled at Grigori, muttering, “You’re such a hypocrite. You wouldn’t take them, but I have. A lot. I think I’ve used up all the good stuff.” She pressed the button at the end of the cylinder repeatedly, glaring at it now, and I noticed her eyes were dilated from whatever pain meds they were giving her, even though she was still obviously hurting.
Grigori’s eyebrows snapped together, and he leaned forward, pressing a button on the side of her bed, asking Zane, “How many are allowed in here?”
“Four.”
Grigori nodded. “Tell them she needs more meds.” He slid into the dark bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
I ignored that and went around the side of the bed, saying softly to her, “Seriously badass. You know that, right?” I moved a section of her wet hair over the hickey that was showing vividly against her pale skin, covering it, which she didn’t seem to notice. She grumbled, her face flushing a little, giving her some color, looking embarrassed. I leaned down in front of her, right in her face, so she couldn’t look anywhere else. “Thank you, Ember.”
