Alex glances toward the tractor. “Harlow, you can come out now,” he calls a moment before the dog trots out.
She cautiously sniffs the various pools of blood and bodies littering the ground before going stock-still. Her eyes laser-focus on the door to the outbuilding before she lets out a high-pitched yelp and races to the door. Once there, she scrapes at it while whining and crying.
Alex and I exchange wide-eyed looks before rushing to the door.
“Ollie? Rhys? Are you in there?” I shout as I bang on the door. “Please tell me you’re alive!”
“Open the door, sweetheart,” Alex says, adding to the banging with his own fist.
A second later, the door flies open, and we’re tackled by something small but fast. I stumble backwards with a grunt, my injured leg threatening to buckle beneath me as the beautiful face of Ollie greets me. Tears shine in her emerald eyes as she clings to me and Alex, her body trembling.
“Oh God, I can’t believe you’re here! You’re alive! I missed you so much!” she babbles as she peppers Alex and me with desperate kisses. Harlow bounces around behind her, still whining and wagging her tail.
The feel of her in my arms is like coming home. Everything but her falls away; no pain, no worries, no fear. Just the overwhelming emotions I have for this amazing woman.
I place my hands on either side of her head and pull her face towards me, sealing our lips together. As our tongues tangle together, I pour every ounce of my relief at seeing her alive and my love for her. She moans into my mouth, her hand tightening on my shoulder as she melts into the kiss.
However, it ends too soon as Alex wrenches her away from me to devour her lips with a passionate kiss of his own. The heat alone from the two of them is enough to have my blood burn with arousal and my cock hardening against my jeans. If we were in any other place, I’d have jumpedon that and worshipped Ollie’s perfect body until she was screaming our names.
Unfortunately, we’re in the middle of a blood-soaked battlefield during the night.
“So glad to see that you two missed me, too,” Rhys asks in his usual dry tone from the doorway.
He looks like shit. His face is bruised and slightly swollen, like he got into a fight and lost, and the dark circles around his eyes tell me he hasn’t been sleeping well. The way he’s standing, with his left side slightly protected, leads me to think he probably has injuries beneath his clothes.
“You feeling left out?” I ask him with a grin. “Because I’m happy to give you a hug and a kiss too.” I waggle my eyebrows at him.
He snorts. “Think I’ll pass.”
Alex finally pulls away from devouring Ollie’s lips to glance over at our best friend behind her. “Glad to see you’re not dead.”
“Me too.” Rhys’s gaze flicks to where the shouts and gunshots can still be heard, although far more distant than they were before. “We should get going before whatever distraction you two cooked up wears off.”
“Good idea.” I pry Ollie’s fingers from me, hating that I can’t have her stuck to me like glue due to how fucked my thigh and ass are. I’m pretty sure I’ve torn out at least a couple of stitches.
Alex eagerly takes Ollie from me and practically carries her as the four of us—plus Harlow—rush back to the safety of the trees. Much to our relief, Tobias meets us there, looking a little worse for wear but alive and unharmed. He lights up when he sees his sister.
“Thank fuck you’re not dead,” he says with a sigh.
“Same,” Ollie says, before throwing her arms around him and hugging him like her life depends on it.
The two of them whisper to each other, but their voices are too low to make out what they’re saying. Something like a sob catches in the back of Ollie’s throat, and Tobias’s grip tightens around her in response.
“He’ll be fine,” he says, rubbing her back. “We found the infection in time and he’s doing good.”
Ah, he must be telling her about Andy.
“As sweet as this is, we need to move,” Rhys says, urging Ollie to release her brother.
She does while blinking back tears, and even Tobias’s eyes look a little shiny in the moonlight.
Unable to stomach seeing her crying, I cup the back of her head and press a kiss to her forehead. She sighs as her eyes flutter closed, but the moment is cut short as the yelling gets louder. The Scourge have realised something is wrong and are coming back.
Rhys curses and growls at us to get moving. Which we do without question, the five of us scurrying into the dark forest and towards Haven. The journey is hard and fast, trees and bushes cutting through our clothes and into our flesh as we hurry through dense woods.
We don’t stop running until we see the outline of Haven’s walls in the distance. Only then do we slow to a walk and finally step onto the road. By this point, I’m a panting, sweaty mess and almost hobbling. My ass and thigh are throbbing, and my vision is wavering with each agonising step.
“Uh, Theo? Why is your ass bleeding?” Ollie asks, staring at the area in question.
