Will you let me see my favorite color? Get lost in their depths? Ground me as the world becomes more unsettling, more weighty, more impossible?
After a moment, Ronen lifted his golden gaze. One look. A soft, breathtaking sigh. Then he pulled me off the bed and onto his lap, clutching me close to his heart.
“We didn’t do it…” He paused, coming to terms with something. “You did, gorgeous.”
“Hell’s princess saved the day.” I huffed a weak laugh.
“Too close. Too fucking close,” Ronen whispered, almost to himself. “I won’t lose you. Not like that.”
I turned my face into his neck and stayed there for a moment, inhaling him. The addictive scent that had guided me in battle, that had kept me going.
“There’s a different way you plan to lose me?”
He held me tighter, and I felt… I froze. Everything. The incessant poking of his worry, his suffocating fear, an almost feral determination, and his utterly consuming, warm, radiant?—
Tears stung my eyes.
“There’s no more block,” I breathed, saying it aloud as if the words would somehow change whatever reason he’d had for bringing it down.
“No,” he replied, just as soft and unsure.
I should let it go. Marvel at it. Pick apart every emotion, match it to every gesture, every facial twitch, every heartbeat. But…
“Lucille, I need to tell you something,” he said over my, “What changed? Why now?”
Alexei opened the patient room door, cutting off any response. “Did you tell her?”
“I told you to stay with Aspen and Oliver,” Ronen barked.
“Yeah, I know. I left MJ, Rune, and Hadrian with them. They’re protected.”
That answer pleased Ronen even less. I thought it’d prompt a response from the guardian bond. Instead, it opened one eye and then fell back asleep in its dark hole.
“Tell me what?” I pressed, removing myself from Ronen’s lap and cinching together the patient gown. Ronen snagged the front of the fabric, keeping me close as if he couldn’t help himself. I ignored what that did to my heart.
Alexei shut the door, and Ronen coated the walls in thick, black, undulating masses—an ominous but necessary soundproofing.
“We had Vanessa, one of the kitchen staff, watching your father.” He glanced at Ronen. “She seems better, by the way. That is, until she recounted her story about Sam. Then she became all confused and sweaty.”
Whoa. Hold up.
“Someone was spying on my father?”
“Yes.” Alexei paused and shot Ronen a solemn look, something silent passing between them.
“Just tell me!”
“There was a reason we were late to the battle,” Ronen admitted, his voice dark and grim. He explained what the spy told him and his conversation with my father. “Then he attacked me.”
“He attacked you?”
“We would’ve been there sooner if he hadn’t.” Ronen took my free hand. “I think your father’s been bitten.”
Sudden nausea hit my gut. Blood rushed from my head and away from my face.
“I knew it.”
“What?” Alexei demanded. “You knew he was bitten?”
