“I’ve agreed to your little demands about leaving the property. I’ll even secure the hotel so his whiskered beast can go with you. I’ll even agree to stay out of the doctors’ way until he’s stable, but that’s as far as my leniency goes.” He smiled thinly. “The moment he’s no longer on death’s door, he’s coming home.”
The feel of Rook’s arms around me, the sound of her voice breaking as she bargained for my life...it hollowed me out and left me in ashes.
I wanted to look at her, kiss her, thank her but...
Death opened its arms and snatched me—
Chapter Eleven
I PRESSED AGAINST THE CHEAP WOODEN door as the doctors turned calm into chaos. In the time it took to cross the threshold into the honeymoon suite in the nearest accommodation, they’d already placed Lucien on the king-sized bed—leaving him splayed out like a corpse ready for burial—and tore around in unison, preparing for surgery.
Whisper pressed against me, equally horrified as the older doctor—a man with silver-brown hair and black-framed glasses—swept the phone, complimentary notebook, pen, and handy guide of what to do around town straight off the desk with a single swipe.
“Help me drag it under the main chandelier,” he barked at his colleague. “It’s the brightest light in this gloomy place.”
The other doctor—a slightly younger man with dark blond hair that’d been cropped close to his skull—dumped his heavy medical bag and went to help.
Together, they dragged the large oak desk into the middle of the room, shoving aside the cream linen couch and glass-topped coffee table.
“I’ll grab the towels,” the blond doctor said, vanishing into the bathroom.
The other doctor completely ignored me and Whisper, busily dragging the coffee table to the head of the desk and dumping both bags onto it. Without a word, he pulled out a green surgical sheet, flattened it out, then started layering it with wickedly sharp implements.
I staggered against the door as my headache pressed from all directions.
Whisper nudged me, his golden eyes brimming with fear. I reached to pet him—and stopped breathing. Red. Everywhere. Lucien’s blood on my fingers, beneath my nails, up my wrists.
The image slingshotted me back to the awful drive here—
My bloody hands gripped the steering wheel as I drove through countryside hell. Blood covered every inch of my fingers. His blood. Blood from stabbing him, threatening him, hurting him to save his life.
He’s alive.
He won’t die.
Drive faster.
Gritting my teeth against the ice-picks in my skull, I made the mistake of looking in the rearview mirror.
Marcus and his guards followed not far behind.
He’d allowed the doctors to gather Lucien from the driveway, carry him to one of the G-wagons, and hadn’t said a word as they’d clambered into the backseat. He’d even waved politely as I’d begged a very reluctant Whisper to jump into the front seat and pleaded with my broken system to stay awake long enough to drive us the hell away from here.
My gaze shifted from being hunted by Marcus to the two doctors who sat on either side of Lucien. He’d been propped up, head lolling, entire body slack and lifeless. Neither doctor askedwhat was going on, why Lucien was so hurt, or why there was a jungle cat in the front seat.
They just took turns holding cotton pads to Lucien’s bleeding chest, all while arranging an IV line and snarling at me to drive smoothly so they could get it in his vein—
The memory shattered, dumping me back into the honeymoon suite as the two doctors placed a very dead-looking Lucien onto the towel-draped desk.
His legs dangled off one end, his arms loose and splayed over the sides. The silver around his wrists made him appear as if he truly was an escaped convict, still wearing the handcuffs.
He didn’t move as the blond doctor grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off his blood-soaked shirt. The shock of congealing crimson all over his chest sent a flood of sickness into my mouth.
I grabbed my raindrop pendant.
It triggered another memory—
The rain had stopped, leaving the world wet.
