Chapter 48 Xander, Asher, Nitro, Fallon, & Kane
XANDER, ASHER, NITRO, FALLON, I told myself fiercely. Won’t let anyone else either.
If she survived this, I vowed I would repair what I had broken. I would buy her a new necklace, and I’d put it on her gently. I would prove to her that I could be a better man, an Alpha deserving of her.
I glanced around at my brothers. I’d never seen them this tormented. At different times in our lives, each one of us had walked the line between life and death. We’d had moments of mourning, thankfully relieved by survival. We’d existed in a state of wildness, always throwing caution to the wind.
Losing one of us was always a possibility. Losing Lucy wasn’t an option from the very start. Her brightness was driving away the shadows we’d grown used to living under. We shouldn’t have tried to blot out her sunlight.
All I could do was cling to the hope that she’d live through this and give us a chance to atone for our sins.
ASHER.
I stood at the threshold of the waiting room. No matter how many times I blinked, everything looked muted and fuzzy. This was what the world sometimes looked like to me. Perpetually out of focus. When this happened, the only thing that cleared my vision was fire.
But no matter how many times I brought my lighter’s flame to life—gaining me repeated warnings from nurses about calling hospital security—my eyes didn’t correct.
Lucy was in surgery. It had been too long.
Even if I couldn’t see the clock clearly, I felt it in my bones.
Something happened. Something that might take her from us.
How had we ever considered driving her away?
Fuck, I’d nearly killed her and now I felt like the biggest idiot in the history of mankind.
She had to live. I wanted to show her the fire staff. I wanted to show her everything I knew about befriending flames.
My fingers fidgeted with the lighter again, flicking it on and then instantly extinguishing it again.
The nurses were watching me like hawks. I caught their furtive glances in the corner of my vision; they thought I was unstable, a loose cannon ready to go off.
They were right. But what did they really know?
Did they understand the inferno raging inside me?
Did they get how her very existence made me feel sane?
Lucy was the match, waiting to strike. Lucy was the embers, waiting to ignite.
Lucy was the wood that transformed to ash.
She was everything, somehow contained within such a small body.
I shoved the lighter back into my pocket, gritting my teeth against the frustration building within me.
Just hours ago, Lucy had stood next to me on stage, curiosity sparking in her emerald, gold-touched eyes.
Now, her life was at risk. I should have followed her into the tent.
I wasn’t an Alpha. I wasn’t a worthy mate.
She should have left us when she had the chance.
“Goddammit!” I growled, backing into the hallway and slamming my fist into the wall. Pain blossomed across my knuckles. The sting didn’t fade, meaning I likely fractured something. But it didn’t matter. My body had no value. Let it fall apart. Let it bleed and break.
Lucy’s pain was something I couldn’t accept.
Not anymore.
It was the worst kind of cruelty to connect with someone so deeply and then lose them. The uncertainty of her survival was driving me fucking insane. I needed to show her how I really felt about her, beyond the manufactured cruelty and the maniac who’d tried to burn her.
Unconsciously, I took a step forward, hovering in the threshold again. Then another step. Another. It took me ten steps to realize that my inner Alpha was driving me towards the double doors that led to the surgery suites. It didn’t matter that they were locked. I’d find a way to bust through.
“What the fuck am I doing?” I muttered under my breath, turning around and stalking back to the hallway.
I was losing it, reality slipping through my fingers. If Lucy died would the world stay blurry forever? Would fire ever again snap the pieces of me back into place when I fell apart?
I needed to get the fuck out of here. I turned on my heel and strode away from my brothers, from Lucy’s life hanging in the balance, and from all the damn regret eating me away inside.
I slammed the down button when I got to the elevators.
When the left one slid open, I rushed inside, chest heaving.
As the doors closed, I began to feel suffocated, like a fire robbed of oxygen.
I was dwindling, flames dying, with nothing left to catch spark and renew life.