Chapter 28
Fuck, my head hurts…
The absolute last thing I wanted to do was open my eyes. I’d been in a deep sleep, and I wanted to get back there. But slowly my memories started to come back to me.
I wasn’t at home.
An obnoxious beeping came from the machine next to me. Bright, fluorescent lights had me squeezing my eyes tighter instead of fighting to open them. I stirred, wincing against a pain in my right arm. I peeled my eyes open, looking down to see an IV sticking out of the vein. The smell of disinfectant made my stomach roil. I tried to look around, but moving my head wasn’t the best idea. Plastic covered my nose and mouth, and I grappled for the offending material, the beeping growing more erratic with my increased heart rate.
Where was James?
I opened my mouth to call out, but a voice said, “Shh, love. I’ve got you.”
“You’re here,” I panted.
He shushed me again, taking my hand in his. “I am. You’re safe. I’m safe.” James brushed my sticky hair away from my forehead. He continued stroking until my heart rate returned to normal.
With a calmer hand, I pulled the mask away so I could talk. “How long have I been out?”
“All night. You have a grade four concussion and a broken nose, but the doctors say you’ll be fine.”
“Kian?”
“Alive. He’s going to live.”
“I want to see him.” I tried to sit up, but James guided me back down to the pillow.
“You need to rest, love,” he told me. “He’s out cold. He’s not going anywhere today.”
When James removed his hand, I snatched it out of the air. Thankfully, he let me. Something peeking out from the edge of his sweater caught my eye, and I wanted to inspect it further. I pushed his sleeve out of the way, revealing deep burns around his wrist. I could make out each distinct link of the chain wrapping up his arm. Dropping his hand, I reached for the other, finding the same thing.
“You’re hurt,” I said, stating the obvious.
“They’re around my ankles too. And…” He straightened, glancing toward the door before he lifted his sweater. The same marks danced across his stomach. “But I’ll be okay.” He dropped the fabric and leaned over me again. “I’m already healing. You need to do the same.”
“I want to see Kian,” I reiterated. “I need to see him for myself.” My throat grew tight. “I need to call Hannah.”
“She’s been bouncing between your rooms all night. Finally passed out in Kian’s about an hour ago.”
I attempted to sit up again. “I need to see her— oomph . That’s not fair!”
James held a hand tenderly in the middle of my chest, but it was en ough vampire strength to keep me on the pillow. “I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “You sleep for two more hours, and I’ll break you out of here so you can see them.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” I asked, words muffled as he replaced the oxygen mask over my face.
James dropped his voice to a whisper, his eyes sparkled with mischief. “Same way I got them to stop asking questions about the wooden stake through Kian’s back: a little mind manipulation.”
“You can do that?”
“Yes. It’s also how Gabriel ensured every person on my street ‘slept through’ that explosion.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “And I promise if you get some rest, I’ll tell you more about it.”
I wasn’t sure whether it was James or the medication dripping into my IV, but I started to feel more relaxed. He pulled up a chair and held onto me, his thumb softly stroking the back of my hand until I drifted off to sleep again.
James stayed true to his word. When I woke up that afternoon, he shamelessly flirted with a nurse to get me into a wheelchair that I promised not to leave. I had no doubt that there was some vampiric magic worked in there, but I wasn’t going to question it.
The nurse told me she was removing the IV that fed me pain medication, so I was likely to get more uncomfortable. I didn’t care. The painkillers made me foggy, and I didn’t want to feel sleepy anymore.
We had to take an elevator to see Kian in the ICU. James wheeled me there himself, and I relaxed into the chair, my head resting against his chest as I watched the numbers climb.
“It’s okay, love,” he said, leaning down to kiss my cheek. He laughed, making me turn my head to look at the adorable way he was scrunching up his nose. “We really need to get you cleaned up.”
“Does that mean I get a sponge bath?” I asked as the elevator dinged and the doors opened.
James shook his head and muttered, “What am I going to do with you?”
“Love me?” I countered, wondering if that single word would ever feel normal in my mouth.
“That I do.” James stopped at a closed door, rounding the chair and crouching in front of me. “Remember what we agreed on.”
I rolled my eyes. “My ass is not to leave this chair under any circumstances.”
“Good boy.”
I narrowed my eyes but couldn’t resist the fluttering that kicked up in my belly.
Damn praise kink.
James straightened to his full height and nudged the wide door open. My heart pounded against my ribcage, and he looked back at me. “Are you ready?”
Not really, but I nodded anyway. I wanted to stand so badly my legs itched: needing to be pushed around in a chair made me feel helpless. I resisted the urge to look around the corner, forcing myself to sit back in my seat. The only light in the room was the one directly over the bed, and Hannah sat in a chair to Kian’s side, holding his hand and resting her head on his arm. She sat up when we entered, twisting around to look at me with red-rimmed eyes.
“Have you told him you love him yet?” she asked, indicating where James stood behind me.
His hand squeezed my shoulder, drawing my eyes to his. “Yeah, I have.”
“Good.” I looked back to Hannah, who was standing from her se at and walking over to me, arms outstretched. “Then I don’t need to feel guilty.”
She held me close and buried her face in my neck. I joked by calling her kid, but in that moment she’d never felt so small. As my arms closed around her, she fell into my lap and I had to suppress a groan. I guess I’d done more physically than I thought. I didn’t dare move her, letting her sob into my neck and feeling tears soak my hospital gown.
“What did you mean?” I asked. “What do you have to feel guilty about?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she hiccupped.
“She means she loves you,” Kian rasped from the bed. I hadn’t realized he was awake. “You forgot the most important words, Han.”
I was still bewildered, but James spoke before I could ask, a gentle hand placed on Hannah’s back. “Why don’t I take you to get something to eat?” he suggested. “Let’s give these two a minute.”
Hannah pulled back, nodding and patting her eyes dry with the sleeves of her sweater. “Thank you,” she whispered, pressing a wet kiss to my cheek.
I resisted the urge to wipe my face dry—I really did. But my childish nature won out in the end. “I thought I skipped the phase where you’d snot all over me—” She smacked me in the chest. “Ow! Hey, I’m injured!”
Hannah said nothing, but I caught the hint of a smile as James ushered her toward the door. “Let’s go before you end up putting him in the bed next door.”
I jolted when James pushed me closer to the bed. He pressed a silent kiss to my hair before he and Hannah were out of the room.
Kian spoke first. “I’m with her.”
He sounded like his throat was coated with sandpa per. I looked around, and thankfully his cup of water was within reach. I didn’t want to face James’s or Hannah’s wrath if I was caught out of my chair. “What do you mean?”
“She loves you. We both do. What you did for me…”
“Was what anyone would have done,” I finished.
“Still… Thank you.”
Instead of going through the whole dance of “no need to thank me,” I went back to what Hannah said. “Why would she feel guilty about telling me that?”
He reached for his water again and after taking a sip said, “She didn’t want James to hear you say it to her first. Not when it’s so blatantly obvious you’re in love with each other. Yours and Hannah’s relationship is a little more complicated.”
I scoffed. “Complicated, right. Because falling in love with a vampire was easy.”
“You’re lucky I’m too drugged up to smack you.” Kian fought against shutting his eyes. “I’m sorry, by the way. I never should have taken those stupid diamonds.”
That made me sit up straighter. “So it was you.” I wasn’t angry. I probably should’ve been, but I wasn’t. I was too exhausted, too full of pain. “Why’d you do it?”
Kian picked at a loose thread on the hospital-issued blanket that covered him. “I knew,” he admitted. “I knew about Luke—about James—before I came to you. Six months after Luke disappeared, I was approached by Dani. I didn’t know who she was at first, not until you said her name back at the house. I mostly met with the twins. I met Dani once—to get the diamonds—and she kept her features hidden from view. Dark clothes, hood pulled up. She stayed in the shadows so I couldn’t tell you the first thing about her. And… she told me everything: about vampires, about hunters. She said that James was responsible for Luke’s disappearance, and if I did what she asked, she’d help me find him. At first, I told her no, but the more time tha t went on, the more I missed him. I wanted my brother back. I never expected to find those adoption papers.”
Kian took a shaky breath before continuing. “That’s when I agreed to do it. I was confused, I was angry, and if doing it would get Luke back here to answer my questions, then I said I’d do anything.”
I wrung my hands in my lap. “Did you know those gems were cursed? Or what that silver would do to James?”
“No!” Kian shook his head emphatically. “I never wanted anyone to get hurt. She only told me that I needed to place one in the bar, and one at your place. I figured they were trackers of some sort, and if James really was a vampire, it wasn’t a terrible thing to know what he was up to. Only… I lost one.” He finally looked at me. “After the night I spent at your place, the one with the silver chain went missing.”
“Carlos, the thieving little bastard,” I muttered. He must have taken it from Kian while we were sleeping and buried it in the backyard.
“I’m sorry,” Kian repeated, tears falling down his cheeks. His heart rate spiked, the beeping on the monitor increasing with it.
I lunged forward to grab his hand, wincing with the movement. “It’s okay. You were vulnerable, and she took advantage of that. That’s not your fault.”
I wanted to grill him, to keep him talking until I figured out what those horror twins meant.
“He knows who we are.”
But now wasn’t the time.
Kian sniffled, words slurring. “Whatever happens from now on, I’m on your side. I should have never doubted you.”
“It’s all over now,” I assured him. “Rest. I just had to see you were okay with my own eyes.”
“Thank you, Ryder,” he mumbled again before succumbing to the effects of the pain medication .
Even if I could have moved on my own, I didn’t want to. I sat next to his bed, simply watching the numbers on the monitors and the rise and fall of his chest. I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, but sometime later I heard the door open behind me. Assuming it was James and Hannah returning, I smiled to myself and waited for my wheelchair to be moved.
“He’s alive because of you, you know?”
I flinched and whipped my head to the left—too fast. “ Luke ?” I hissed, wincing at the bite of pain. “What are you doing here?”
He’d darkened his hair and cut it short, and the three-piece suit was gone. It was the first time I’d seen him dressed casually, in nothing but jeans and a light knitted sweater. A coat draped over one arm, supported by his hands in his pockets. He tore his gaze away from Kian, his striking green eyes meeting mine, shining with unshed tears. It was then that I noticed the silver cross he used to wear was gone. “I couldn’t stand to lose him. Thank you for pulling him out of there. It must have killed you to leave your mate behind.”
I didn’t respond, instead picking at my nails in my lap. For a while, the only sounds in the room were the inflations of Kian’s blood pressure cuff.
“I have dyscalculia,” Luke finally said.
My brows furrowed. “What?”
“It’s like dyslexia but with numbers.” At my confused glare, he continued. “That hunt fifteen years ago was the first time they let me lead, and I royally fucked it up. I reversed two of the numbers, and as a result, two humans were killed. It would have been three, but I tracked Kian down to a friend’s house; it was his first sleepover. Right before the house was engulfed, I saw a family picture hanging on the wall.” He paused, a tear escaping the corner of his eye. “That’s why I adopted him. Even if I didn’t disable the fire alarms or set the fire, it was my bad call that killed two innocent people—two parents . When I laid eyes on that little boy, I knew I couldn’t let him go into foster care. I needed to right my wrong.”
“Does he know you’re here?”
“No. I’ve been careful; sneaking in and out when he and Hannah are sleeping.”
“Are you staying?”
Luke’s head slowly bobbed up and down, tears streaking his cheeks. “Even if I’m discovered.”
“You betrayed the hunters who were trying to kill James,” I told him.
“I know.”
I looked at Kian sleeping in his hospital bed, and I knew what Luke’s return would mean to him. “Let me talk to James.”
“About what? Getting rid of me for good?”
“Don’t make me regret being nice to you, Luke. James can protect you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do. Because I’m never letting Kian go through anything alone ever again. And if that means making sure you don’t get taken down in the process, then so be it. Besides: James loves me. He’d do anything for me.”
Luke snickered. “So you two are…”
“Deeply committed,” I answered. “I’d rather not analyze it too much. I’ve learned my lesson about running from him.”
The door swung open, interrupting our conversation. “Look who came to check on you…” James’s voice trailed off as he realized who was in the room. “Wow. I thought it was you, but I couldn’t believe it.”
Hannah brushed past me to sit on the edge of Kian’s bed. I couldn’t quite turn far enough to look over my shoulder, but it wasn’t long before a third person made themselves known: Gabriel. And he wasn’t paying me any attention. Or Kian. His eyes w ere glued to Luke, and I’d seen that look before: it was how Raleigh looked at Angel. It was delivered with an intensity that had the poor human squirming under his gaze. Across the room, James was watching the two of them closely, and I could tell he was fighting a smile.
Did the two of them know each other? Maybe it was the pain meds, but I felt like I was missing something.
“Who’s this?” Gabriel finally asked. He kept his hands in his pockets but I knew that if he took them out, I’d see the burns from the silver chains. As much as I hated to admit it, I owed him for saving James’s life.
“I’m Luke. Kian’s brother.”
Hannah looked between the four of us. I wasn’t sure how much Kian had told her about the adoption, so I kept quiet, wondering if Kian would still accept Luke as his brother. Or as family, period.
I decided, then, that I was done. I was tired, and the room was getting way too crowded for my liking. Thankfully, I didn’t have to say a thing. James was suddenly next to me, wheeling me out of Kian’s room and back to my own. He helped me into bed and took a seat next to it, stroking the back of my hand with his thumb and peppering kisses over my skin. “It was Kian,” I whispered, just before slipping into unconsciousness. “And the hunters th-they’re?—”
“I know, love. I heard everything.” James’s lips found my forehead. “You can rest now.”
“I love you,” I whispered again, before drifting off into a deep sleep.