Chapter 8 The Present
“Okay, I didn’t want to say anything at first because I didn’t want you to feel pressured into wearing this,” Talon says, casually pinching the waistband of my sweatpants as we climb the concrete steps back into the hospital, “but I literally had to win a race just so this guy I know would make this. For you.”
I glance down at the bright, aggressively cheerful block letters plastered across my hips, then slowly back up at him.
“…What?”
I slap his shoulder. “No, you didn’t. That is the dumbest lie I’ve ever heard come out of your face.”
“I absolutely did,” he says. “Three laps. In the rain. Against a guy who drinks raw eggs like they’re tea.”
“That’s—” I gag a little, then make a face as if my soul is leaving my body. “That’s disgusting. Also, fully unnecessary. I would’ve worn whatever.”
“Yeah, but ‘whatever’ isn’t custom, babe.” He flicks the edge of one of the letters. “That’s quality ink right there. Artisan. Hand-painted.”
I stop at the landing and just stare at him.
“Artisan,” I repeat flatly. “Did the sex turn you into a salesman or something?”
He shrugs, deeply pleased with himself. “Listen, Little Grim, the things you wear say something. Dress for who you want to be and all that shit.”
“Talon,” I say slowly, “I want you to take a good, long moment and really think about what message you’re trying to send me by branding me as property of a morgue.”
He just grins. “You’re ours.”
“Did you—” I inhale. “Did you hear anything about that conversation we had about ownership?”
“I did.”
“And…?”
“Alright,” he breathes, nodding solemnly. “Shared, not owned. Yeah?”
“Exactly.”
He hums and rocks back on his heels. “Cool. Should I race for a correction? How do you feel about ‘shared by the county morgue’ instead? I can get reflective lettering.”
I snort so violently it echoes off the nearby forest. Something in the trees panics and flaps off.
“Stop it,” I wheeze.
“No way,” he beams. “I’m gonna book that race first thing this evening. Maybe neon pink. We’ll workshop fonts.”
I have to walk over to the railing and hang onto it like I’m riding out an exorcism, because the bubbling happiness in my chest is threatening to turn me into a balloon.
This must be it. Happy sex, feeling accepted and wanted, and fresh air. My brain has gone soft. I turned into an airhead.
“You’re ridiculous,” I tell him between breaths. “And what is this—like—a system? Racing for clothes? Did you also race for these socks or what?”
He leans in, glances down at my ankles where the skulls peek just slightly above the black sneakers from my ICU room.
“Nah,” he says. “Those were Nathaniel’s doing. Man’s got a theme. Overall, we, uh…” He gestures vaguely in a circle. “Wanted you to feel welcomed. You know. As a unit. If you woke up. When. I never doubted you, of course.”
“Of course,” I narrow my eyes, deadpan.
He doubted me so hard he had an outburst later.
But that’s fine.
I suppose I’d have an outburst too if the girl I—whatever-this-is-with—turned into a near-corpse.
Still—
There’s something about the idea of them working together that hooks a claw under my ribs.
Because the last time we sat down to discuss “teamwork,” the subject was group sex logistics, and none of us were particularly happy about it.
Talon had been jealous. Cassian had wanted to kill him. Nathaniel was pushing it all away, trying to focus on the problem at hand.
So how did they just come to a conclusion to prepare a room for me? Together?
I want to know.
“How did that happen, by the way?” I ask, glancing toward the hospital doors.
We’ve been out for a while already. The guys are probably waiting, but something tells me things are going to get serious again when we go back in—and I don’t really want that.
This… me and Talon right now… it’s easy.
Surprisingly, comfortably easy.
He scratches the back of his head, expression turning more serious. “It wasn’t exactly planned. Cassian was pacing like a caged tiger, Nathaniel was doing his creepy quiet-thinking thing, and I…” He pauses, glancing at me from under his lashes. “I couldn’t stop worrying.”
I tilt my head. “About what?”
“You know,” he says.
“Maybe. I want to hear you say it.”
His gaze sharpens. Something in it flashes back to the alley wall, to his breath hot against my ear when he told me he’d tear the world apart for me.
“You make me want to take you back to that alley again, Little Grim,” he says.
My pulse stutters.
I arch a brow, aiming for casual. “And here I was wondering if you could repeat the things you say during sex without the blood already pounding in your ears.”
He takes a step forward.
Déjà vu.
“I was losing my mind over you,” he says. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t break the stare.
“Oh, that’s what you meant,” I taunt.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
My fingers curl against the railing.
“So,” he asks, “you want to know how it happened? Or are you just gonna tease me again?”
I lean back against the railing, pretending the cool metal is what’s keeping me steady. I don’t think there’s a thing in the world that could.
“Go on, then.”
He rubs a thumb along his jaw, like he’s deciding how much to tell me.
“Cassian was driving himself nuts,” he says.
“Nathaniel was pretending to read but really listening for any sign you were waking up in the room we had you. And me…” He gestures loosely, as if the space between us could explain the rest. “I couldn’t sit still.
So I told them we should make sure you had something decent to come back to. ”
“It was your idea?”
“Yeah.” His mouth curves into that wolfish half-smile. “I figured if you woke up, you’d need stuff. Comfort stuff. You went through hell for us. The least we could do was make sure something good was waiting when you came back.”
I drop my gaze, tracing the edge of one skull on my sock with the toe of my sneaker.
“You say ‘we.’”
Talon’s smirk softens.
“Yeah, we. I pitched it, but Cassian made sure the place was actually safe before you set foot in it. Nathaniel did… whatever Nathaniel does to make a place feel like it’s been exorcised and feng-shui’d at the same time.
It was a team effort. But, well, it was mostly Cassian and me.
Nathaniel stayed at your bedside, being a doctor and all. ”
“Ah,” I murmur. “So you had an opportunity to talk things out with him?”
“More or less.”
I can’t help but laugh. “My God, Talon.” I shake my head. “You’re really giving me all the details, huh?”
He tilts his head, grin sharpening again.
“Do you want all the details, Little Grim? Because I can start with the part where Cassian threatened to break my jaw if I made any jokes about you while you were out.”
“That sounds about right. But why would you even joke about me? What did I do?”
“You see, I wouldn’t.” His grin turns sly. “Your whole hero act got me in a chokehold big enough to make me start reevaluating my life choices and shit. But Cassian thought I would.”
Can’t blame him. Cassian’s got a protective streak the size of a warpath. It’s clear by now.
Sometimes I think he’s capable of burning down everything he has with Talon and Nathaniel because of me. Pair that alpha I’ll-stand-for-my-woman energy with his one-track mind and his refusal to bend, and you’ve got a man who’d go to war over a glance.
Talon must see that thought flicker across my face, because his grin turns knowing.
“Yeah,” he says. “Exactly that. He’s not subtle about it, either. But that sexy car situation changed his mind a little.”
I freeze.
“What?” I blink at him.
“You know, when all three of us were in that car with you and—”
My cheeks go hot.
He flicks his eyes toward the entrance, like he’s checking whether Cassian’s about to storm out, summoned like some black cat from hell.
“Cassian didn’t strangle me afterward,” he goes on. “Nathaniel didn’t vanish for a week pretending he had research shit to do like he always does when things get intense between us three. And I...” His smirk softens again, almost thoughtful. “...didn’t feel like I was competing for you anymore.”
That catches me off guard. “Competing?”
“Don’t play dumb.” He steps closer, bracing his hands on the railing behind me. His scent wraps around me again and heat crawls up my neck. My pulse spikes, sliding lower, pooling where I’m still wet from the both of us.
Softly. Softly. Stronger.
“We’ve been dancing around each other since you got here,” he murmurs. “All of us. And I wanted you so fucking much, Little Grim. From the moment you stumbled into that bloody basement.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Because I was just a dead girl with nothing real to give.”
“Maybe.” His voice dips. “But it changed along the way, didn’t it? Then that night in the car, it was like we all stopped pretending there were lines. Nobody was pushing anyone out. We were all... in it. Together. And you—”
He leans in, close enough that the warmth of him fogs my brain. “—you didn’t pull away from any of us. Didn’t act like you had to choose.”
“For the power.”
“Whatever.” His mouth curves. “We all want you. All of us. Those two fuckers, too.”
I swallow hard.
“Well, I want you, too.”
Talon’s gaze flicks over my face. “Yeah. We all felt that back then.”
“So what, we’re just... okay with this now?” I tilt my head, testing him. “No claws? No jealous death glares from Cassian? No Nathaniel staring me into a guilt coma?”
“Maybe not no jealous glares. Cassian’s wired that way. But yeah. I think we might be okay.”
I blink, half mind-blown, half suspicious.
I never even thought an option like this could exist between the four of us.
When I first got close to Talon, it was because of how alive he made everything feel. Back then, I was just a metaphysical Grim Reaper, thrown off my routine, starved for sensation, and Talon fed me in sharp, wicked doses.
Cassian was the opposite. He reminded me how dead I was. And why I should probably stay that way.