44. Forty-Four
FORTY-FOUR
J ax
I wake to the feel of a hand stroking my chin and jaw. When I force my eyes to open, Harley’s tired, blue eyes lock with mine. Blood drips from her nose, from the large gash above her brow, and from the split on her lip.
“Told you I could save him,” she says weakly.
That’s when I realize what she’s doing. Her wrist is pressed against my open mouth and I can taste her blood on my tongue. I try to sit up, but groan when two hands hold me down.
“Don’t even think about it,” Harley hisses. “I have a plan.”
Alicia’s face comes into view, her eyes filled with panic. “She’s not clotting,” she tells me calmly.
Yeah. She tends to do that.
I glare up at Harley, trying to tell her how much I hate this with my eyes. All she does is smile down at me. With a shake of her head, she sways despite sitting down.
Reaching up, I struggle to pull her wrist from my lips. “She needs blood,” I rasp.
“I’m fully aware she needs blood,” Alicia snaps.
Shaking my head, I try to stay conscious long enough to get my point across. “My blood. Marked blood, Alicia.”
“Oh fuck me,” she mutters under her breath. “You’re literally joking. Tell me you’re fucking joking right this second.”
“He’s not joking,” Declan grumbles.
Harley’s eyes flutter shut. Alicia holds her up while one of the hands holding me down disappears. Seconds later a knife is held in front of my face. Using all of my strength, I bring my arm up and wrap my fingers around the handle.
“Sit me up, Dec.”
Declan lifts me into a sitting position before propping me against the wall. I have to grit my teeth at the pain that shoots throughout my entire chest and abdomen. Alicia places Harley’s head in my lap.
“Get some towels. And for fucks sake, find some pain killers,” I beg with a growl.
“Towels and pain killers, coming up,” Alicia says just before grumbling, “Right behind your psycho vampire blood exchange happening.”
I roll my eyes at her dramatics. Bringing the tip of the knife to the palm of my hand, I cut through the same spot I did the night I marked her. The blood pools into my palm as I tip her chin up and part her lips. It fills her mouth, and I watch as the column of her throat bobs.
The blood leaving her nose slowly comes to a stop. When Alicia hands me a towel, I wrap it around my palm and then press it to the cut on Harley’s head. After a few moments, the gash in her lip stops bleeding as well. Dropping my head to the wall behind me, I close my eyes and let out a weighted sigh.
“I’m sorry,” I hear Harley whisper.
“For what?” I ask, my head spinning.
“I think I cause more trouble than I’m worth.”
Opening my eyes, I stare down at her. Her bottom lip trembles while she tries to keep the tears at bay. I shake my head slowly, desperately trying to find the right words to say.
“You are worth so much more than you would ever know, doe eyes.”
She rolls onto her side, burying her face into my bare stomach as silent sobs shake her shoulders. I run my hand up and down the length of her back.
“Harley, I’ll spend the rest of my life proving that to you. You’re everything to me,” I say, my voice thick with emotion.
Harley pushes herself up into a sitting position. Tears are rolling down her cheeks without pause. She stares down at one of the bullet wounds in my ribs. “H-he said he completed the set, Jax.”
“What?” I breathe, feeling my entire body go cold. “He said what?”
“After he shot you, I finally cut free of the rope. He knew I was going to kill him either way, but the last words he said were that he completed the set,” she admits refusing to look at me.
I swallow down the emotion trying to climb up my throat. I’ll face it head on later after I tear this house to shreds looking for the proof. Right now, I need her to hear the words I’m saying.
“Harley, look at me.”
She jerks her head from side to side. The tears don’t stop flowing even still. I grab her chin between my thumb and forefinger and force her gaze to mine.
“Did you think that was going to change what I just said?” I ask, staring into her eyes. “I knew your father was a grade A piece of shit before you ever steamrolled your way into my life. That doesn’t change anything. I don’t know how else to say it. I am madly in love with you.” A soft gasp falls past her lips. With a shaky breath, I say, “I love you, Harley Thomas. And there’s nothing your parent’s could’ve done in the past to change that.”
A choked sob passes her lips. “You can’t say you love me right after you tried to die on me.”
Grabbing her face, I press my forehead to hers. “I’ll tell you again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. I’ll love you today, tomorrow, and in the afterlife. I’ll never stop loving you.”
“Such a sap,” she whispers before gently pressing her lips to mine. “I love you too, hockey jockey.”
“I’m gonna vomit,” Jace grumbles. “Here. Alicia said to find you some painkillers.”
He tosses a prescription bottle through the air. I catch it with my free hand. Turning the bottle around, I read the label before popping the cap open.
“You need to get the rest of the pack here and call Luca. We’re gonna need his clean up crew for this,” I state, gesturing to the four dead bodies in the room.
“Ross is on his way with all of our clothes and he already called Ferrari. He said that the king sounded incredibly grumpy this morning,” Jace tells me.
“The king?” Harley asks.
I roll my lips trying to hide my smile. “Harley, have you ever heard the name Luca Ferrari?”
She scrunches her nose, her brows pulling together as she says, “Not that I’m aware of.”
“I’m just gonna go wait for Ross and Justin to get here,” Jace mumbles, throwing his thumb over his shoulder before he starts to take steps backward out of the destroyed dining room.
“Luca Ferrari is the future Boss of the mafia in Kill Ridge,” I explain.
“You know the future Boss of the mafia?” she squeaks.
I tilt my head from side to side. “We got caught up in a hunt one night. We were being hunted. The both of us.”
“He’s a wolf?” Harley asks, her eyes going wide.
“Not exactly,” I mumble before flashing her all my teeth and lifting an eyebrow.
Her eyes narrow as the realization sinks in. “No. No way. You’re lying. Tell me you’re lying right now.”
Giving her a sheepish smile, I say, “He’s a vampire.”
“Shut up!” Harley hisses. “You shut up right now!”
I go to laugh, but instead groan in pain. Glancing down at my chest, I watch as one of the silver bullets works its way out of the wound. I release a sharp breath when I see it’s reached the surface.
“How’d you know that giving me your blood was gonna work?” I ask curiously.
She shrugs, her eyes fixated on the bullet. “I read a lot about it before you marked me.”
“Read a lot, or studied everything there was to know?”
Another shrug. “Maybe a little of both.”
Wrapping my arm around her shoulders, I pull her into my chest. “Once Ross gets here, we can go get cleaned up. You might still need stitches for the gash on your forehead. It’s still bleeding.”
She nods slowly. “I can have Alicia take me to the hospital.”
“That’s alright. One of Luca’s guys can do it.”
“One of his guys?” she asks softly.
“Yeah. I believe one of them is capable of making you feel all the pain in the world or none. Something like that. Maybe I’m full of shit. I don’t remember.”
“You’re rambling,” she states.
I can hear the smile in her words. “Yeah, well, someone’s father shot me a little bit ago. And now”—I wince as the first bullet rolls down my stomach—“the bullets are evicting themselves from my body. Kinda trying to distract myself from the painful process.”
She pulls away to look me in the eyes as she snaps, “You’re going to hold this against me, aren’t you?”
With a grin I say, “Fuck yes I am.”