“You were shot,” I said. “She shot you.”
“Yeah.” Bea wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t factor in how good she was with firearms.”
I propped myself up on one forearm, teeth chattering. “How are you—standing right now? How are you—alive?”
“Easy there, girl.” Nolan put a hand to my spine to help me sit while Dad draped his jacket around my shoulders.
“I’m okay, Nolan.”
Niall added his hands to the mix. “Five minutes ago, you weren’t breathing, sis.”
That set Mom off again. She burrowed her face against Dad’s neck and honked like a goose.
“Niall,” Nolan chided him softly.
The youngest of my brothers grimaced.
“Any chance someone can get these off me?” I held my cuffed wrists out.
Nash’s glassy blue gaze flicked to where Liam had retreated. “Li—”
“Why bother him when the woman who single-handedly cleaved open a frozen lake, is sitting right here?” Adalyn shot me a meaningful look. “I bet cuffs are putty in her hands.”
Bea looked at Liam. When he nodded, giving her permission to undertake the job he could’ve accomplished in a heartbeat, she kneeled beside me. Her slender fingers wrapped around the cuffs and ripped them open.
“Like I said . . . putty.” Adalyn sat back on her heels.
I rubbed the violet circles of injured skin. “Now can you tell me how you’re seemingly fine after being shot in the chest?”
Bea tipped her neck back to look at Nate. “The bullet . . . it sort of . . .poppedout on its own. And then my skin sealed.”
My bloated eyes widened. “Did it injure your rib cage? Or any of your organs?”
She shook her head, her gaze straying to the cabin. When a scarlet tear raced down her cheek, I stopped trying to piece together what had happened.
Later.
I’d get a play-by-play later.
I reached out and covered one of the hands she’d curled atop her thighs. “Bea, I’m sorry about Miles.”
The pop of the shell, the rip of flesh, the dripping organs. I shook my head to rid my mind of the macabre memory.
“My fault.” A tremor raced through her body, blurring all her toughened edges. “My goddamn fault.” She swiped her cheeks, spreading the red paint of her sorrow. “I didn’t deserve to survive that bullet.”
Nate scowled. “Don’t say that, Bea.Don’t. All that happened since the full moon run was entirely Camilla’s fault. Not yours.Hers.”
Her lashes swept down over those peculiar ruby eyes of hers.
Nate crouched beside her and wrapped an arm around her hunched shoulders, drawing her trembling body against his and kissing her rumpled brow.
I squinted at the lake beyond them, at the crowd of shifters in fur and skin milling around. “Is she dead?”
My question had some darting glances my way; one stared steadily—Liam.
She is. “Would you like to see her?”
“Liam,” Mom and Adalyn hissed in unison.
