His neck strained beneath my fingers, but he restrained himself from scrabbling at my arms. He stared steadfast while I strangled him, understanding that this wasn’t about what he’d done, but what I’d failed to do.
I hadn’t protected Pimlico.
I’d deserved to be shot that night.
If it wasn’t for him, the Chinmoku would’ve killed me and taken Pim. And that truth fucked me up because as much as I wanted to kill this bastard, I also owed him a debt of gratitude.
Men were dogs, and the ones involved with trafficking women ought to be put down with a bullet.
But not me.
And surprisingly, not him.
Beneath his ice-cold temper, there was humanity inside him.
If I needed any other proof, I got it when he glanced to his left, dragging my woozy attention to the audience we’d attracted. Selix held a gun on a tallish French guy who had a gun trained on me. A standoff while we wrestled on the floor.
Neither Mercer nor myself cared about the men we called our friends. It was the women we called our soulmates who mattered.
Pim stood beside a woman slightly taller than her, their faces white and lips bitten. They hadn’t intervened, but their matching terror spoke of panic barely kept in check. The blonde couldn’t tear her eyes off Mercer, her hands clutching at the baby crying on her hip.
Shit.
A baby.
Mercer is a goddamn father.
That changed everything.
My fingers loosened around his throat, and my mind flickered, unable to fight the tug of blackness for much longer.
Feeling my pressure fall from around his larynx, Mercer shoved me off him and stood. I followed suit even though it took everything I had left. Every last shred of energy and aliveness to stand, face my enemy, and swing one last time.
I swung.
I missed.
I lost consciousness and fell face first into oblivion.
* * * * *
The thick cesspool of fever broke just enough for me to crack open my eyes.
My heart galloped, searching for more energy to finish this fight. But I didn’t wake on hard marble, and no bloody Frenchman waited to kick my ass.
The softest mattress cushioned me, and a gentle hand cupped my cheek.
Voices reached my ears before my vision cleared.
“I don’t know. Should we call Michaels?” Pim’s touch shook on my skin. “I knew he shouldn’t have done this. Look at him.” A catch in her voice hinted at a mix of rage and tears.
Goddammit, the fight couldn’t be over. I couldn’t be the pussy who passed out. I couldn’t be the stupid little invalid comaed in bed.
Slowly, I shifted on the pillows, moving away from Pim’s stroke.
Christ, that hurts.
She gasped as I groaned under my breath, throbbing with untold agony.
The bed rocked as she threw her arms around me. “Oh, thank goodness, you’re okay.”
Okay?
Of all the different layers of okay, I was at the very bottom of the spectrum.
Fuck, everything hurt.
I didn’t hurt this much when I’d almost drowned in the harbour with an open bullet wound attracting sharks. I could barely think without succumbing to the numbing welcome of sleep.
What the hell is going on?
I didn’t even have the energy to hug her back or inhale her gorgeous scent. Every heartbeat pumped blood into swollen extremities and pain-heated joints. Every wound was on fire. Every atom ablaze with excruciation.
I wanted to snap my fingers and be well again. I wanted a joint. I wanted Pim alone so I could tame my scrambled sick-infested thoughts.
“Gave us a bit of a fright, Prest.”
My eyes coasted upward. I jolted to find Pim wasn’t the only nurse waiting for my ass to wake up.
Selix gave me a curt nod, his finger still latched around the trigger of his gun even though the muzzle pointed at the floor. “Glad you’re awake. We have a bit of a problem.”
Problem?
I wanted to demand he elaborate, but the metallic corrosion of blood on my tongue and pounding jaw meant I only managed an angry grunt.
He cocked his chin at Mercer standing at the foot of my bed with his wife and child. The other Frenchie, with his gun still trained on me, wouldn’t lower it even when Mercer glowered at him in silent reprimand.
The blonde cuddled up to Mercer. Never tearing his eyes off mine, he kissed her hard, smearing his own blood over her mouth in some sinister declaration of love.
The contents of my stomach roiled from the hypocrisy of his kiss and the arrogant way he stared. He thought he’d won. The bastard.
He hadn’t.
Not by a long shot.
Round two, asshole.
At least, his face hinted at some damage with contusions and cuts.
Doing everything I could to mask how close I was to passing out again, I hoisted myself up to my elbows. The gunshot wound in my shoulder promised to rip me to shreds if I attempted to swing my fists again. “Th-this—” I coughed, wishing I could eradicate the fever-sweat drenching my forehead and dripping into my eyes. “This isn’t over, Mercer.”
His bodyguard twitched, his gun glinting blackly from the chandelier above. “We’ve all decided otherwise while you’ve been taking a nap in la-la land.”
Mercer’s wife smiled as sharp as her husband, handing over her son. Mercer opened his arm gingerly—almost as if he hurt as much as I did—accepting the squirming, fussy child who thankfully had stopped crying but had blotchy tomato red cheeks.
“It’s done, Mr. Prest,” his wife said. “It’s over.”
“It’s not over until I say—”
Pim slotted herself beside me, murmuring, “El, please, you can’t fight anymore.”
“Don’t undermine me, woman.” I shot her a harsh glower. “Especially in front of my enemies.”
“Are you so sure I’m your enemy, Prest?” Mercer asked, bouncing his son as if the fact he was still covered in blood and bruises didn’t matter when holding fresh innocence.
I refused to answer that.
He was my enemy, but he was also my saviour from the Chinmoku. Not killing him would be my way of showing thanks if he apologised for shooting me in the goddamn shoulder.
I flicked a look at the raised gun in my face. “Funny you say this is over when you still have your goon training a gun on me.”
Mercer narrowed his eyes at his friend, reeling off snipped instructions in French.
The men argued for a few seconds before the henchman lowered his weapon. He didn’t holster it, though, nor did he put the safety on. Selix gave him a look, keeping his own gun at the ready.
A truce but not quite.
“It’s finished. Whatever this was, it’s over.” Mercer stared pointedly. “You’ve proven I was wrong, and I’ve accepted that you had a right to attack me in my own home. But you also have to accept that I might have tried to kill you, but by doing so, I just so happened to save your life.”
My eyes trailed to the baby boy in Mercer’s arms. He seemed fascinated by the streak of crimson across his dad’s cheek. Chubby fingers wiggled in the air to reach.
Mercer looked down and smirked as if he knew exactly why his offspring was fascinated with gore.
The seemingly normal domestic moment crippled me. It damn well took away all my power and arguments and memory of why I wanted to slaughter this man.
My fever crested hotter, sicker, sucking me back into a haze.
“I think you should go,” the henchman growled. “You’ve enjoyed our hospitality long enough.”
“He’s knocking on death’s door, Franco. We can’t just throw him out.” Mercer clucked his tongue. “Where’s your European welcome?”
“In the gutter the moment he punched you.”
The conversation twisted and turned until I no longer understood any of it. A spiral began in my head, a hypnotic circle—one I had to chase, growing dizzier
and lighter the longer I tried to reach the spinning centre.
“Elder...” Pim’s sweet voice sank into my ears, joining me on the downward spin. “Do you want to go home?”
Home...
Yes. Hell, yes.
Where painkillers and weed waited. Where Pim could be naked and I could be strong again.
I liked that idea a lot. It gave me enough energy to believe I could walk out of there unassisted. It gave me enough lunacy to think I was scary enough to threaten Frenchmen with guns. Slurring my words, I managed to say, “Come shnear us again and zhI’ll gut you.”
Mercer nodded, cradling his child. “I have no reason to come after you now I know the truth.”
“The truth I told you on the Phantom. The one you ignored and shot him anyway,” Pim snipped, linking her fingers with mine despite the slippery blood coating me—a mixture of mine and Mercer’s.
“Respectfully, if you’ve been speaking to my wife, you’ll know why I couldn’t trust what you were saying,” Mercer replied in his thick accent.
Pim frowned. “I understand, but perhaps next time...you’ll listen harder.”
“Yes, Q. Listen.” Mercer’s wife piped up, siding with Pim. The two women smiled at each other as if they were on the same team and not on opposite ends of this war.
Mercer glanced as his wife, doing the same as me and trying to understand how our significant others had bonded while we’d done our best to exterminate each other.
And then, nothing else mattered as my heart gave in to the gush of fever, and my mind reached the centre of the swirling circle, and the spinning, spinning, spinning turned into a deep, endless black hole.
I was nothing but agony and fever, holes and hurting, tripping unconscious and failing my woman for the second time.
Gone.
Nothing.
No One.
Chapter Ten
______________________________
Pimlico
SIX HOURS.
Tess convinced me to give Elder six hours of uninterrupted rest.
No washing blood from his skin.
No stripping his body of clothes.
No food or water.
Just rest.
She promised me sleep would do what nothing else could. That Elder was so close to depleting everything he had left, nothing else mattered to his system but remaining unconscious long enough to stitch together the pieces he’d shredded.
She’d used case studies of women who’d come into her care from Q’s vigilante hunts to convince me. Mentioning how some of them would sleep for weeks until they were mentally and physically ready to embark on the rest of their healing.
I knew from living with Alrik that sleeping had been the only thing he couldn’t take from me. Sure, he could deprive me and torture me, keeping me awake for days, but when I finally slipped into slumber...well, Tess was right.
There, I healed just enough to face the next day. My bruises faded just enough to climb out of bed the next morning. My soul bandaged enough not to use the curtain cord to hang myself.
Elder would rest safe and unmolested.
And I would be there for him to tend and take care of the instant he awoke.
Reluctantly, I’d followed the crowd from my borrowed room in the French chateau and looked one final time at Elder, bundled beneath the bed covers and passed out cold. Our footsteps had been hushed as we descended the stairs to find staff members wiping away globs of blood smeared on the foyer’s floor.
A vase had shattered from someone barrelling into the side table. A framed picture had fallen from the wall and glass sprinkled like crystal dust everywhere. The rest of the house was so peaceful and clean, and soon, the war that’d happened would be wiped clean and forgotten.
In a daze, I’d accepted food—what, I couldn’t remember. In a fugue, I’d counted the clock above the fireplace. With my heart turning worrywart and nursemaid, it’d winged upstairs to never leave Elder’s side while I’d sat in the lounge and listened to the hushed French tones of Tess and Q’s conversation.
No doubt they discussed Elder’s condition, my circumstance, and how to get everyone home safely. There was no mention of kicking us out until Elder was able enough to walk. Their hospitality after so much ill will made tears prick and nerves form.
Part of me wanted to go home—to return to the Phantom where Michaels could fix Elder and we could continue running from the next attack from the Chinmoku. But the other part wanted to stay here where ancient castle walls were ten times thicker than any yacht and Elder could heal in the heart of it.
If he was here, the Chinmoku couldn’t find him.
If he was here, he could get better before he had to fight again.
If the Chinmoku find him before he’s healed...they’ll kill him.
I choked on a worried gasp, my eyes soaring to the clock again.
Five hours.
Elder had rested for five hours. Could a miracle have happened and broken bones and bullet holes no longer exist?
Dawn wasn’t far off, and we’d overstayed our welcome already. Elder must be capable of surviving because I couldn’t permit anything less.
Q had left the lounge an hour or so ago, and Tess appeared from the kitchen to join me on the couch.
Her voice remained hushed as if she was aware of the witching hour and all the nasties that lived within it. “Maître and I have come to an agreement. You and Elder are to stay here until he’s healed. Don’t think for a moment that just because day breaks you have to leave. Mrs Sucre loves any excuse to cook a feast, and her talent in the kitchen is bound to pile some healthy weight onto both of you.”
The men might’ve called a truce (for now), but I didn’t think that truce covered sharing food—not yet anyway.
“Suzette, I’m sure, would love to talk to you more—now you’re not using her as a hostage.” Tess laughed. “And I, for one, would be happy to have someone I can talk to and not have to heal. It’s a very rewarding life we lead, saving slaves, but sometimes...it would be nice not to have to worry about what I say in case it’s incredibly painful for our guests.”
I tore my eyes from the fire’s flames to look at hers. The invitation to be her friend blew me away.
She smiled. “Of course, if that all sounds too much, then you can have food in your room and leave the moment Elder wakes.”
I didn’t know how to tell her how honoured I was. That the thought of talking—truly talking—was a dream come true, especially for a psychologist’s daughter who’d been taught to verbalize her demons in order to tame them. To be able to share parts of myself I couldn’t share with anyone else was the final thing I needed to put my past in its grave where it belonged.
But all I focused on was Elder.
All I could think about was Elder.
He was where my thoughts and heart lay. He was my first and only priority. “You’re very generous, and I’d love to say he’d accept your offer, but he won’t want to stay.”
She shrugged. “Is it really his choice when he can barely speak, let alone move?”
“He’ll be rude about it. He’ll say something like ‘I won’t sleep in my enemy’s house. Hell no.’ or something along those lines.”
Tess nudged my shoulder with hers, laughing under her breath. “You sound like you know him well.”
I cracked a smile. “I know enough to understand when he feels backed into a corner he snaps. He doesn’t mean to be cruel or ungrateful; he’s just so used to relying on himself. He refuses love and care from others as he can’t bear to be hurt again.”
“I know that feeling.” She rested her head on the couch. “He won’t change his mind on that matter. He won’t be able to after a life of conditioning.”
“So you’re saying he’ll forever need to be alone?” My heart squeezed. “That eventually, he’ll push me away, too?”
She closed her eyes, shaking her head a little. “I said he wouldn’t change his mind. It will always be there...that little
survivalist telling him it’s safer to be alone. But he won’t be able to stop another changing it for him.” She chuckled. “You’ve already done that. He fell in love with you. He’s relying on you whether he wants to or not.”
I fell silent, absorbing that revelation. This girl was wiser than I’d given her credit for even while so young. Had her time as a slave made her wise, or had it been when she became a mother? Or perhaps she always looked into the truth of another and had the bravery to chase it?
Tess murmured sleepily, “If you make this about you, he’ll stay because he’ll do anything you ask of him.”
“I think you’re over estimating his love—”
Her eyes snapped open. “I’m not. Believe me. And you know that’s true. He almost died fighting for your honour. If you make it sound like staying here benefits you, he won’t argue.”
Patting my hand, she hauled herself to her feet. “I’m going to bed. I suggest you check on him, if only for your peace of mind. When six hours has passed, feel free to wake him and offer food and water. Perhaps a sponge bath would do him good as well.”
With a soft laugh, she left me alone, and I returned to counting the clock.
Fifty-three minutes to go...
* * * * *
The scent of unwashed male and coppery blood met my nose the moment I cracked open the door. I swallowed hard, allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness as I stepped into the room.
Dawn pinked the sky and the gardens beyond the open curtains dazzled with newness but shadows held supremacy in here, holding court and casting long fingers over Elder’s prone form on the bed, cloaking his injuries, hiding his brokenness.
He didn’t stir as I turned and closed the door, holding my breath as I twisted the lock, and the soft click of it engaging echoed in the silent space.
Funny how only a few hours ago this door had been locked from the outside with enemies all around me. Now, I barricaded it from inside with almost-friends keeping us safe. Knowing the lock would give Elder and I privacy, rather than begin a new imprisonment I couldn’t escape, helped settle the final anxiety about being held against my will.