I broke into a run.
Behind me, Sexton gasped.
I slid to a stop on my knees in the sand right next to him, and immediately jammed my fingers to his neck, my digits clumsy and too fucking slow and useless.
There was a pulse.
Thready and weak, but there. He was pale and limp, but his heart was beating. He was wearing fucking rags that might have been clothes once, but looked more threadbare than any actual rags I’d seen in my life.
But he was there.
My hands fluttered uselessly over him for a moment as I tried to think of what to do next. Finally, I held my fingers just above his mouth and nose. One soft warm breath. Two. Steady.
He was breathing and his heart was beating.
Light brown hair. Tall and slender. Slightly elfin, delicate features. Hollow cheeks notwithstanding, he was a handsome man who looked no older than twenty or thirty.
He was alive.
And he was my father.
CHAPTER 10
Iwas still staring uselessly down at him when Davin came up next to us, already pulling his jacket off. He spread it over my father’s torso, and that was when I realized he was trembling. They were both trembling, but my father more so.
From the cold? It wasn’t all that cold out, but he didn’t exactly have a lot of fat stores to insulate him.
For the second time in two days, Davin leaned down and scooped up a member of my family, then he motioned with his chin toward the house. “Let’s get him inside. Find him a bed. Maybe wake him up long enough to get some food in him, if we can.”
I practically sprinted ahead of us, despite my deep dislike of running. I had to get to the house. Find a place for my father to sleep. Get him food. He needed...something small. You couldn’t just go from no food to all the food, that was bad. What could I feed him? Chicken soup, maybe. That was good. We’d bought some of that—among other things—to send with Sexton last night. It was the canned kind, so not the world’s healthiest thing, but it...it was fine.
Everything was fine.
Or it would be.
It had to be.
My father was alive.
I paused at the door that led into the living areas, panting—no, gasping for air.
Gasping.
Panic.
I was panicking.
Nope, no time for that.
I forced all the air out of my lungs and held it out for a moment, then sucked in a slow, deliberate breath. That was all the time I had to deal with my feelings right now.
My father needed me to not be panicking.
Cool head.
A warm body came up behind me just as I opened the back door, and a second later, light kitten feet were landing on my shoulders. Then, Twist was marking my neck, my cheeks, and the back of my head as she paced along my shoulders, while I led Davin to the nearest bedroom.
It didn’t matter which one, they were all the same.
