Page 77 of Hell’s Half Acre

And make a point.

That was the one lesson he’d learned from his father. Anything worth doing was worth overdoing.

Especially when it came to bloodletting.

Sorcha was still trying to understand what had happened. One moment she’d been heading back to their office.

The next…

Luke had surrounded her with warmth and that incredible smoky-sweet leathery scent. Now, she didn’t see him anywhere. And every time she tried to get up from the stretcher, they made her lie back down.

“Where did Luke go?” she asked Elana.

“I don’t know. He was just here.”

“He said to tell you he’d be back,” Rory said.

She turned her head toward Rory who was, being unusually kind about Luke. No sneer, nothing.

That scared her more than being shot out of the blue. Where could Luke have gone?

Had he seen her attacker or was it demon related? She had no idea.

But the one thing she knew, Luke had healed her. She’d felt several bullets strike her body. One in her shoulder. One in her chest and two in her back when she’d spun around after impact.

Sorcha had barely been conscious when she felt him jerk after two more rounds had been fired.

The next thing she knew, she was on a stretcher inside the blue murder house, with Kyle standing over her.

“I’m really fine,” she insisted, but no one was paying attention to what she said or what she wanted. She didn’t even feel bruised.

Honestly, she couldn’t blame them. She wasn’t really fine. The last thing she wanted to do was call her parents and tell them what had happened.

I’ve been shot…

They wouldn’t be able to handle it. They’d barely survived her sister’s death, and they hated what she did for a living. While her father at least pretended to be supportive, her mother constantly told her that she wanted Sorcha to quit.

The whole time she’d worked in New Orleans, her mother had been near hysteria. At least at Infernal Affairs, she wasn’t supposed to be a target.

It pained her that she couldn’t explain to them who her partner was and why she was safer now than she’d ever been in her life.

Case in point, she’d be dead right now had Luke not been here. She had no idea why he was so protective of her. God knew, he hadn’t been like that with his last partner. A man he’d driven off.

Still, she loved and adored him.

No. She needed him, and that was what terrified her.

Luke was becoming an integral part of her life.

“Can I please sit up now?” she asked.

They all looked at Kyle who’d finally pulled the respirator from his face. “Yeah, sure. You seem to be fine, but you should let the paramedics look you over, too. I don’t normally have to worry about my patients’ health improving.”

That made sense.

As she got up, she saw Helly quietly standing in the corner of the living room in a ghostly form that the others didn’t seem to see.

The imp smiled at her and held up two fingers to her eyes to let Sorcha know she was watching out for her.