Chapter 48
“You’ve been holding her for the past hour,” Ronan snarled.
“I help keep her pain away,” Trace shot back.
“She’s completely healed. She isn’t in pain anymore,” Declan argued. “You just don’t want to let her go.”
“Can you blame me?” Trace asked.
Everyone went silent.
I struggled against unconsciousness. With the number of times I’d ended up in this predicament, I should’ve been better at coming back to the land of the living. But it was still a struggle.
I concentrated on Trace’s heat behind me, the buzz I felt from his contact. I let that tether pull me back.
My eyelids fluttered, bringing snapshots of my surroundings. My bedroom. Briar watching with kitty worry from her tower. Dash at the end of the bed, my feet in his lap. His glasses did nothing to hide the dark circles under his eyes.
Declan and Ronan were perched on the far side of the mattress, wearing identical expressions of concern. And Colt looked absolutely ravaged, his scruff thick and eyes red.
“I’m okay,” I croaked.
Colt’s eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees next to the bed, taking my face in his hands. “LeeLee.”
“I promise.”
He brushed his lips across mine and then pressed his forehead to my own. “We lost our minds.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have believed him—”
“Who?” Ronan demanded.
Trace shifted me so that I was propped against the pillows, and so that he, too, could see my face.
I swallowed hard. “Connor. He got me outside, and someone injected me with—”
Trace was off the bed in a flash, Ronan on his heels.
“Stop!” Colt commanded. “I know you want to rip him apart, and trust me, I do, too. But no one can know we’ve found Leighton.”
Ronan let out a snarl, and purple fire danced around Trace.
“Her safety is more important than our vengeance,” Dash said quietly. His gaze moved to me, scanning my face. “How do you feel?”
I breathed deep, testing the action. No pain. “I feel…fine. But I wasn’t…”
A shudder coursed through Declan. “You had broken ribs and a punctured lung. We gave you blood, and Dash worked a healing spell, but if you’d been much longer…”
I knew what he wasn’t saying, what he couldn’t. If I’d been much longer, then I wouldn’t have survived.
I swallowed hard, my nose stinging.
“You smelled of dragon,” Colt growled. “How did you get away?”
A fresh wave of pain coursed through me. “Niall,” I choked out. “He got me out.”
Declan’s eyes went wide. “Niall?”
I nodded. “But one of the guards killed him in the process.”
A tear broke free, cascading down my cheek.
Colt moved then, hauling me into his arms and settling us back on the bed. He rocked me in his lap. “I’ll be thankful to Niall for the rest of my days.”
“It’s so bad,” I whispered.
Ronan and Trace stalked back to the bed.
“Tell us,” Ronan demanded.
“Patrick and Damien are working together.”
Declan’s brows flew up. “Patrick doesn’t play well with others.”
“No, he doesn’t,” I agreed. “I’m not sure this will last long. But he has been helping Damien escape capture.”
“So Alister really doesn’t know where he is,” Dash said thoughtfully.
“I don’t think so. I didn’t see any signs of Alister or hear any mention of him.”
Trace lowered himself back to the mattress. He took my hand as if the compulsion to touch me was too strong. “They hurt you.”
I shook my head. “They didn’t.” I bit my lip. “I tried to climb up my cot to escape through a window—”
“Little Bird,” he growled.
“I wanted to get back to you.” I looked around the room. “To all of you.”
Ronan let out a long breath. “What was their plan in taking you?”
I toyed with the comforter.
“Firecracker,” he pressed.
“I think I was supposed to be a reward. For Damien.”
A series of growls and snarls lit the air. Even Trace and Dash joined in.
“A reward for what?” Colt gritted out.
He was always thinking three steps ahead. It was the pack leader in him.
“They’ve been injecting people with shadow demon venom. Patrick’s creating an army.”
Everyone went silent.
“Chloe,” Dash mumbled, putting the pieces together.
I nodded. “I think she was a test subject. But they aren’t stable. I saw their lab. Some are like feral animals, and some just…die.”
The guys all shared a look.
“What?” I asked.
Dash straightened at the end of the bed. “I’ve been doing as much research as possible, following any thread that might help us figure out what’s going on. Any thread that might lead us to you.”
“You found something?” I pushed.
He nodded. “Those reports from villages being attacked by dark ones. I found a journal from the time period. A caster began doing experiments.”
My stomach twisted. “The same sort of thing.”
“It sounds like it,” Dash said.
“And the new creations turned on people? Just started attacking?”
Declan’s jaw clenched. “It’s worse than that. The venom can increase a supernatural’s ability.”
“But it also leads to instability,” Ronan added.
“Indiscriminate killing machines,” I whispered.
Colt tensed beneath me. “What did you say?”
“It was something Patrick said about his soldiers. That they were indiscriminate killing machines.”
A pained look filled Dash’s expression. “From the journal entries I’ve read, the creatures took out everything in their paths. No thought, no self-preservation even. They simply want to kill.”
And Patrick had an army of them.