Chapter 19
Marcus drove like a man who knew exactly how much trouble followed him.
The car he had stashed two streets over was nondescript. Dark paint, standard sedan, nothing flashy. No one would remember it. The kind of vehicle that blended into a city’s nervous system and vanished between traffic lights.
I sat in the back with Con’s head in my lap.
He was heavier than he looked. His body felt like stone, all tension and bruised muscle and broken bone. Blood soaked his shirt, sticky and cooling, the scent of it thick in the cramped space.
Every bump in the road made him groan, low and rough. He kept trying to shift onto his side, instinct pushing him to guard his worst injuries. Each time his ribs protested and he stilled again, jaw clenched.
“Stop moving,” I said quietly.
“Stop hitting potholes,” he muttered.
Marcus snorted up front. “You are welcome for saving your life.”
Con’s eyes stayed closed. “You saved the piece. She saved my life.”
“I helped,” Marcus said.
“You annoyed the soldier,” Con corrected. “He hit you first.”
“Fair,” Marcus conceded.
The banter was thin, but I clung to it. If Con had enough strength to insult Marcus, he was not on the brink of death. Yet.
I smoothed a hand through his hair, fingers combing gently through dark strands matted with dust and smoke. The motion calmed my own nerves as much as it did him.
“You are losing a lot of blood,” I said.
“I have more,” he replied.
“Not infinite.”
“I am hard to kill,” he whispered.
“That does not mean they will stop trying.”
He exhaled, the sound half laugh, half pain.
Marcus glanced at us in the rearview mirror. His eyes flicked briefly to where my hand rested on Con’s chest, then returned to the road. “They are waiting for us. I called ahead.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Isra and Raven,” Marcus said. “He was at the club when I left. Jana knew something was wrong. She insisted Isra check on Raven.”
Of course she did.
“He is furious,” Marcus added after a moment.
“At you or the situation?” I asked.
“Yes,” Marcus said.
That made me huff a tired laugh despite everything.
The city lights smeared across the windows. Marcus cut through side streets and service roads with the ease of someone who knew every unofficial route. He avoided main arteries, stayed away from cameras where he could, never lingered at intersections.
I kept my focus on Con.
His skin was too pale, his lips tinged with a bluish cast that made my stomach twist. His pupils, when they cracked open, were sluggish.
“Stay with me,” I said.
“Bossy,” he murmured.
“Annoying,” I corrected.
His mouth lifted at the corners, then fell as another wave of pain hit.
By the time we pulled up in front of Shadow Bone, my hands were shaking.
The mansion loomed above us, all stone and shadow and history. The gates were already open. Light poured from the front steps, harsh and bright compared to the dim interior of the car.
Isra stood at the top of the stairs.
He wore a long coat over a silver shirt, hair pulled back, makeup smudged around his eyes as if he had come straight from the club without bothering to fix his face. His expression, however, was very clear.
Worry. Anger. Fear.
The case in Marcus’ hands drew his gaze like a magnet, but it was Con’s limp form that made his shoulders tense.
Raven stood just behind him.
She looked ashen, magic still threaded around her like hazy smoke. Her eyes met mine, wide and dark. Through the bond, I felt the echo of what she had felt when I had pulled that much fire.
Fear. For me. For Rene. For all of us.
The front doors swung wide before Marcus even killed the engine.
House staff and clan members waited inside, ready hands and wide eyes. Someone had the presence of mind to bring a gurney, but Con grumbled the moment it came into view.
“I am not a hospital patient,” he muttered.
I ignored him.
Marcus opened the rear door. Together we eased Con out, one of his arms over my shoulders, the other draped around Marcus. His legs tried to help, but the effort nearly sent him to the ground.
The gurney rolled closer.
“Do not,” he said.
“Con,” I snapped, “if you argue with me one more time, I will let you fall.”
He shut his mouth.
We lowered him as gently as we could onto the padded surface. The motion had him biting back a groan. His hand shot out, gripping my wrist. He did not loosen his hold until he was settled.
Isra approached, eyes flicking from Con’s torn shirt to the blood smeared along the side of my dress.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Later,” I said. “We need to get him upstairs.”
Isra took one look at Con’s chest, at the way his ribs shifted under the fabric with each shallow breath, and nodded.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s take him to your suite.”
We moved.
Two clan members helped push the gurney. Marcus kept the case held tight to his body. I walked beside them, one hand on Con’s shoulder, as if I could keep his soul anchored through contact alone.
Raven fell into step on my other side. Her fingers brushed mine briefly, a silent reassurance.
The halls of Shadow Bone swallowed us. Familiar portraits and relics blurred past as we headed to the floor where my rooms were located.
Once inside my suite, the energy shifted.
This was my space.
My bed. My weapons. My carefully maintained illusion of privacy.
Now it was a battlefield again.
We transferred Con from the gurney to the bed. He barely helped. His eyes rolled back as we shifted his weight, jaw clenched so tight I feared he would crack teeth.
When he settled against the pillows, he exhaled a broken sound that cut straight through me.
The mattress took his weight without protest. The dark sheets, still rumpled from earlier, now soaked up new stains.
Isra stood at the foot of the bed, arms folded, face carved in harsh lines.
Raven moved to the side, her gaze taking in every wound with clinical precision. She had seen worse. That did not mean she felt it less.
“Broken ribs,” she said quietly. “Possibly a puncture. Certainly internal bruising. He needs blood.”
“We have bags,” someone said from the doorway. “Edward sent a cooler.”
I had not even noticed Edward in the hall. Of course he had anticipated this. He understood how quickly a fight could go wrong.
“Bring them,” I said.
One of the clan runners hurried in with a cooler, set it beside the nightstand, and opened the lid. Inside, several units of stored blood glowed under the cold pale light.
Con turned his head slightly, nostrils flaring.
“Do it,” Raven said.
I hesitated.
All our earlier conversations about blood and bonds and consent echoed in my skull. About what his blood might do to me. About what my blood might do to him. About the schemes of men like his father.
These bags were neutral. Donors he did not know, stored and cataloged. They posed no threat beyond the usual.
No artificial bonds. No unintended chains.
“Fine,” I said.
I grabbed a bag, warmed it quickly between my hands, then pierced the top and guided the spout to his lips.
He resisted for a moment. Pride. Habit. Stubbornness.
“Con,” I said softly. “Do not make me pour this into you.”
His eyes opened a fraction.
Whatever he saw on my face convinced him.
He drank.
The first pull was shallow, tentative. Then his body kicked in. Hunger took over. He swallowed in long draws, throat working, fingers curling into the sheets.
Color crept back into his lips. The gray tint along his cheekbones faded slightly. His breathing steadied, still shallow but stronger.
I watched his chest, the rise and fall. Watched the muscles in his jaw flex as he fed. Watched the tremor in his hands begin to ease.
When the first bag emptied, I took it away.
He licked a smear of red from his mouth, eyes sliding closed again. “Another.”
I passed him a second.
He drank that one faster.
By the time the third bag was half gone, the tremor had fully subsided. His chest rose more firmly. His eyes opened without the glassy haze that had worried me.
He stopped on his own, turning his head away.
“That is enough,” he said.
I did not argue.
Isra exhaled a breath I had not realized he had been holding. Some of the tension bled from his shoulders.
“He will need rest,” Raven said. “A lot of it. Bones take time, even with our healing, and that much internal damage will not disappear overnight.”
“How is your magic?” I asked her quietly.
Her gaze flicked to my hands, still tinged with the shimmer of power from the fire earlier. “Silent. It went still when you burned the hall. Whatever surge you pulled from the bond drained what I had in reserve.”
Guilt pricked under my ribs. “I am sorry.”
“I am not,” she said. “You got the piece.”
Isra tore his attention from Con and turned fully to Marcus.
“You brought it back?” he asked.
Marcus set the case on a chair near the corner of the room, resting his palm on the lid a moment longer than necessary. “It was not easy.”
“I saw the fire from the club,” Isra said. “News feeds are already buzzing with reports of an explosion in the industrial district. They are calling it a gas leak.”
Raven snorted softly. “Of course they are.”
Isra’s gaze sharpened. “You said you would be careful, Marcus.”
Marcus’ eyes closed briefly. He looked suddenly very tired. “You know there is no such thing as careful when dealing with criminals.”
“That is not what I meant, and you know it,” Isra snapped.
The room shifted.
The immediate crisis, the focused panic around Con’s injuries, began to thin. In its place came another kind of pressure.
Old secrets. Old lies.
I backed away from the bed, giving Con more room to breathe, and found a spot by the wall where I could watch both the bed and the corner where Marcus stood.
He had removed his jacket at some point. His shirt was stained at the hem, his tie loosened, his eyes ringed by smudges of fatigue and stress. He looked less like the unflappable broker now and more like a man who had just realized his double life finally collided.
Isra took a step forward.