Agent Hill visited once to check on Joanna. He revealed Silas’s list had over three hundred names on it and that the Bureau was working diligently to round them all up forquestioning. Rogues who’d escaped the compound were now prisoners of the US government, and I was sure they’d soon be only a figment of someone’s imagination.
Joanna slept most of the day, and that was fine. Because I heard her labored breaths get stronger by the hour. I saw the color return to her beautiful face.
I dozed off in the chair I’d moved to be near her, and when I awoke with a start, my mate smiled at me from the bed.
Her eyes were puffy and red. “Your snoring was so loud.” Her jeering voice was raw and thick, carrying the weight of sleep.
I’d jumped up from the chair and pulled her into a tight embrace before she could say another word. I lost myself in herhumanscent and paid no attention to the passing time. Only when she squirmed did I release my hold around her back, but I took her head in my hands and kissed the top of her head. One kiss for every hour she’d been away from me.
Eventually, I propped her up against the pillow and poured her a glass of water.
“You look… horrible, Blackwood,” she said before I put the glass to her lips.
“Not all of us can make bandages look couture, Miss Sullivan.”
Her cheeks puffed, and she pushed the glass from her lips as she suppressed a laugh.
It’d been a callback to one of the happiest and equally terrifying nights of my life… the night my pack accepted Joanna for the first time. The blood pact ceremony.
She swallowed the water. “When I said those words to you, I barely liked you, you know?”
I allowed one corner of my mouth to rise. “And now?” I teased.
Joanna’s smile fell. “Now…” She placed both hands over her stomach. “I really… really like…” She trailed off, drawing a steading breath. “Marcus,” she whispered. “Is the baby—”
“He’s fine, Joanna.”
The glass left my hand and water splashed onto the nightstand.
I dropped onto the edge of the bed in time to catch Joanna as her body slumped forward in relief. “He’s fine,” I said again. “The baby’s okay, I promise.”
The low thrums of our baby’s developing heart had been what lulled me to sleep.
“He?” Joanna tittered.
“Or she,” I replied with a smile, smoothing down her braids. “It’s not much of anything right now, to be honest.” I kissed the top of her head.
Joanna and I rocked for a while, complacent in the silence.
It wasn’t until the lamp’s shadow appeared on the nightstand that Joanna lifted her head from my chest. “What happened to my sister?” she whispered.
I helped her settle back down onto the pillow. “She’s somewhere here, I’d imagine. I told Hill that she helped stop Silas.”
Joanna gasped.
“He seemed to agree that stood for something. But don’t misunderstand—she’s still a prisoner. Just… treated as more human than werewolf.”
She closed her gaped mouth. “YouhelpedLatoya?”
I shrugged. I wanted to tell Joanna that I only did it for her sake, but I knew in my heart that it wasn’t true; I did it for me. Latoya wasn’t the only one who’d betrayed Joanna’s trust,and if I could vouch for her atonement… then maybe there was hope for me.
“And… James?”
I stroked the back of Joanna’s hand with my thumb. “I’m so sorry.”
Joanna attempted to give me a reassuring smile as tears pooled in her eyes. Her gaze dropped to a random spot on my chest, and she squeezed my hand.
Her lips rolled inward. She sniffled once before closing her eyes and taking a breath. “Was he alone?” Her voice was shaky.
