Chapter Forty-Five
AURELIA
The steady hum and beep of the machines surrounding the hospital bed is the only confirmation that Thorin’s alive, but the real question that plagues my heart is if he’s still in there.
Coma, they’d uttered after he was finally brought out of surgery.
Among other things like skull fractures, brain injury, broken ribs, a ruptured eardrum, and a shattered left arm.
Thorin may never walk again. He may never talk.
And his doctors won’t know a thing about how bad it is until he wakes up. If he ever does.
Isaac didn’t do this.
My uncle did.
He’s the one who told Isaac where to find us. He knew what would happen. He’d banked on it.
I cannot allow him to get away with this.
I can’t.
It’s been three days since Isaac burned down the cabin and nearly killed Thor. Three days of sitting by Thorin’s bedside, wishing he would open his eyes and call me songbird or wolf and being disappointed every time.
Right now, I’m alone in the room. Khalil and Zeke left a little under an hour ago to go for a run and quell their aggression, which rises to new heights each day that Thorin doesn’t wake up.
But there was no way for me to dull mine, which was quieter but no less furious.
I refused to leave Thor’s bedside for longer than a few minutes, so I sat and I thought of nothing but revenge.
Khalil and Zeke will be back soon, which means I don’t have much time left to say goodbye.
Tucked inside the overnight bag next to my feet are the results from my own doctor’s exam, but I can’t bring myself to look at the damning sheet of paper for longer than a glance.
Instead, I shift forward in my seat next to the bed and I take Thorin’s hand in mine, wishing I could feel him squeeze it or link our fingers together like he always does.
“I love you,” I whisper through my tears as I rest my cheek on his lap and rub the blanket covering him.
“I love you so much. And when you come back to me, I pray that you can find what’s left of me in your heart to not hate me.
To forgive me for not being here when you wake up.
I don’t know what else to do since I can’t forgive him.
Not for hurting you. Never for hurting you. I can’t.”
Sobs rack my body because I know it’s a pipe dream. I’m already imagining the look in his eyes when he wakes up and finds me gone. I can feel his hurt and confusion and the hate that will inevitably come since I promised, I swore I’d never leave.
And to them, I know it will look like I’m choosing vengeance over being here for them when all I can think about is how long before my uncle tries again.
How much will he take from me this time until he’s stopped?
I’m constantly watching the doctors and nurses like a hawk, wondering which of them has been paid off, which of them will finish the job.
We’ve never been more vulnerable than we are right now.
My uncle is a calculating man. He knew there was a possibility Isaac wouldn’t succeed.
How long before he tries again? Not long.
I know that. This paranoia festering inside of me is whispering that my men will never be safe as long as I’m here.
Even if I fail, Uncle Mars will have no reason to come after Khalil, Thorin, and Zeke.
All he wants is me—back under his thumb or dead. It makes no difference.
“I have to go back, Thor. I have to. And I’m sorry it has to be without you. Khalil and Zeth need you, and you need them. Take care of each other. Forget me if you can.”
Sniffling, I grab my bag and rise from the chair I’ve barely left in three days, and I force myself to walk away before I lose my nerve. The beep of the machines keeping him alive follows me to the door, and then I look back one last time before I walk through it.
Five minutes.
It’s all the time I have before they return, and this gets a lot more complicated.
Not to mention hard. I won’t deny that I’m a coward, but I also know that if Khalil and Zeke ask me to stay, I will.
And then my uncle gets away with what he did to Thorin.
Marston George’s wrongs against me and everyone else fade into the background.
Every day he’s left unchecked, my uncle grows more powerful.
It has to be now.
The elevator comes and I ride it down. Thorin wasn’t taken to the hospital in Hearth. His injuries had been too severe, so he was flown to the nearest city with a hospital equipped to deal with them.
In a weird twist of fate, it’s also where the airport is.
Down in the lobby, I keep my gaze forward as I walk toward the automatic sliding doors and the chauffeured car already waiting at the curb.
Standing next to it is sharply dressed woman in a tailored pantsuit and high heels with dark hair, brown skin, and a phone in her hand that she’s typing furiously on.
Oni Sridhar, former A&R rep at Savant Records.
The same label my uncle used to work for before he quit to manage me once my name meant something.
Now Oni has her hands full co-managing the biggest band in the world, but just as she promised me all those years ago when she saw the vise grip my uncle had on my life, she came when I called.
“Oni,” I greet once I walk through the doors. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Nonsense.” She waves me off and then looks me over but doesn’t remark on my bruises, dark circles, and tearstained cheeks. “Ready to go, my dear?”
“Yes, I—” My ears pick up the sound of rapid footsteps pounding the pavement, and when I follow it, I spot Khalil and Zeke running an easy pace side by side on the sidewalk leading up to the porte cochere.
Their faces are tense as they talk with one another, but they haven’t noticed me yet.
Go! Go! Leave before they do.
But my feet are rooted to the ground, and I can’t move. Oni is saying something to me that I can’t hear. I’m stuck staring at my most volatile mountain man and my most loyal.
I can’t move because my heart that bleeds for them won’t let me.
Khalil notices me first. His brows inch down, and he slows to a stop when he sees me standing there. Zeke, realizing Khalil isn’t running next to him anymore, stops too.
“What’s up?” I hear him ask. When Khalil doesn’t respond, Zeke frowns and follows the direction of his gaze until his own lands on me.
“Princess? What are you doing out here?” And then he notices my bag, the car, and the chic exec, who doesn’t look like she belongs within a thousand miles of here, and his chest expands with a deep inhale that he releases with a shake of his head. “No.”
“It’s like that, Goldilocks?” Khalil shouts with a sneer.
I turn my head.
Out of the three, Khalil is the least likely to understand me abandoning them when they need me most. And I don’t blame him when I remember all he’s sacrificed.
At my nod that I’m okay, Oni rounds the car with a curious but wary look thrown at Khalil and Zeke and then climbs inside the car.
“I’m sorry,” I say once it’s just the three of us.
“What did we do?” Zeke says as a wild look enters his eyes, and he reaches up to grip his sweat-slicked hair with both hands. “What did we do? What did we do?”
For a moment I could easily mistake him for Seth, but the alter hasn’t been awake since the night of the fire. He won’t wake, and I think I’m the reason why. Seth’s heart just barely finished mending when I unwittingly broke it all over again by asking for Bane.
Maybe I’m not built to love.
It’s a flaw that I can’t blame my uncle for. No, this one has me written all over it.
“You didn’t do anything, Zeke. It’s what I have to do.”
“We can do it together. Please. Don’t go. Not now.”
“Nah. Don’t beg her,” Khalil says with hard eyes filling with tears trained on me. “If the bitch wants to go, let her go.”
Even though he’s already looking like he’s regretting those words, something shatters inside of me at hearing them.
“Goodbye.” Head down, I step toward the car and Zeke explodes.
“You promised!” I hear him shout as I climb inside.
I’m immediately taken aback by the lavish interior.
“You said you wanted to bleed!” Khalil grabs Zeke when he tries to run after me, and I force myself to close the door.
I don’t look back, but I can see their reflections in the glass of the hospital windows.
It’s taking all of Khalil’s might to hold Zeke back as he wrestles to get free.
The car jolts forward, and I hear Zeke’s heart-wrenching scream once more as I leave. “YOU PROMISED!”
Those two words clang around inside my mind, heart, and soul the entire drive to the airport, and they don’t leave me as I climb the steps onto the private plane that ferries me back to reality.