by Peyton Bogue
“Sweetheart,” Rhys says softly, gently grabbing Sage’s hand and entwining their fingers together to get him to stop talking. Rhys’s shirt falls from his grip, and Sage looks up at him sharply. Rhys gives him a soothing smile. “I am healing, baby. It’s just going very slowly. My body was already weakened when I had the wolfsbane in my system, and when I reversed your bite, it completely drained me. But I am fine,” he says resolutely. “I’ll be all healed up in a few days. Don’t worry about me, baby. I’m worried about you.”
“I am, too,” Kai says, nodding in agreement. “You really do need to rest, Sage. You’re not looking too hot, man.”
Sage shoots him a sharp look, but Kai just grins at him. Sage sighs, then relaxes against the bed and stills his body, tightening his grip on Rhys’s hand. Immediately, he feels a lot better when he stops moving.
“How bad am I?” he asks.
Kai’s face falls. “Your right wrist and arm are broken, and your ankle is dislocated. You’ve got a concussion and a few bruised ribs. Your throat,” he pauses, and Rhys growls lowly again as Kai clears his throat. “Your throat,” he repeats, “is pretty mangled from the claws.” He winces, and Sage grimaces. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. And, honestly, you look like you’ve been hit by a truck. You’ve got bruises all over your body.”
“Not a truck,” Sage replies, taking a deep breath. “Just an SUV.”
Rhys closes his eyes again as a haunted look settles over his face.
“How’s Hazel?” Sage asks suddenly, glancing at both Kai and Rhys.
“She’s okay,” Kai tells him. “She wasn’t as bad as you are.” Rhys makes a low, menacing noise in his throat, but he doesn’t open his eyes. “She’s been by here, actually. She and Mikalina both. Mik sends her best. She wants to come back now that you’re awake. Hazel brought you some flowers.”
Sage just nods, quickly glancing around the room. There’s a small table near the door with an alarming amount of bouquets on it, and Sage’s eyes widen when he sees all of the flowers. Kai tracks his gaze but doesn’t say anything as he gives Sage a small smile.
“How long have I been here?” Sage asks, frowning.
“A few days,” Rhys says quietly, finally opening his eyes and meeting Sage’s as he runs his thumb over Sage’s palm. At Sage’s faint nod, he says, “Why don’t you go back to sleep? I promise that I’ll tell you everything after you’ve gotten some rest. You look like your about to pass out, sweetheart.”
“My head hurts,” Sage tells him, laying his head back against the pillow. He feels his body start to thrum with pain again. His muscles are beginning to throb. His face twists up, and he can’t hold back his wince. “My whole body hurts.”
Faintly, Sage feels Kai take the remote to his hospital bed in his hand again and press a button. A little ding sounds through the room, and Sage thinks that he may have pressed the call button. The same nurse who had removed his breathing tube pops her head into the doorway a moment later, saying quietly, “Are we ready for some pain medicine in here?”
Sage sees Kai nod, and a moment later, the nurse quickly brandishes a syringe, then moves past Kai to gently read the fluids hanging above Sage’s head before she starts pushing the syringe into his IV tube.
“Here you go, honey,” she says, her voice quiet. “You’ll feel better, now.”
“Thank you,” he says, feeling his head start to droop. The drowsiness starts trickling through his bloodstream almost immediately.
“Let me know if he needs anything,” the nurse says to Kai as she passes, and Sage thinks he hears Kai reply, but he can’t focus his hearing enough to catch it.
Rhys runs the back of his warm hand across Sage’s forehead, giving him a small smile when Sage blinks his eyes up to him. “Go to sleep, baby,” he says softly, and Sage tries to focus on his voice, but Rhys is starting to sound muffled as the drowsiness begins to make Sage's eyes feel heavy.
“Will you stay with me?” Sage asks, hating the way he slurs slightly. His head feels dizzy.
“Yeah, baby,” Rhys says, and the sound of a chair scraping across the tile floor reaches his ears. Good, Sage thinks dazedly. Rhys needs to sit down. But then Rhys is gently lifting their entwined hands up to his mouth, where he presses a small kiss to Sage’s knuckles. His lips are hot, and Sage feels himself smile. “I’m never leaving you again,” Rhys promises, and Sage tries to nod, but his entire body feels heavy now. Rhys’s voice is just so peaceful. Beautiful, like a soft melody. He feels it begin to lull him to sleep.
Then lips are at his ear, and he hears Rhys mumble, “I love you,” before Sage is falling into unconsciousness once more.
◆◆◆
When he wakes up again sometime later, Sage groggily looks towards the right side of his hospital bed, where Kai has kicked his feet up to rest on top of Sage’s cotton mattress, eating something with a spoon and flipping through the T.V. channels with Sage’s bedside remote.
“Are you eating Jell-O?” Sage asks him, and Kai immediately brings his eyes up to Sage, giving him a small chuckle. “Where did you get that? Can I have some?”
Kai gives him a wide smile as he chuckles again, nodding. “A nurse brought it for you, but you were still asleep, and I got hungry. It’s orange flavored. I couldn’t resist.” Sage gives him a small snort, but Kai stands up and walks toward the small table with the bouquet of flowers, brandishing a second Jell-O cup with a smirk. “Luckily for you, she brought two.”
Sage laughs lightly, trying to move into a better sitting position. He doesn’t feel the weight of Rhys’s hand in his good one, and he glances at Kai confusedly, asking, “Where’s Rhys?”
Kai brings an eating cart with him as he walks back to Sage’s right side, moving an attached tray out towards Sage when he situates the cart to accommodate where Sage is sitting. He sits the Jell-O cup on top of it, then nods towards the other side of Sage’s bed.
“He’s right there,” Kai replies, and when Sage follows his gaze, he sees that Rhys is sitting in a plastic visitor’s chair right next to Sage’s bed, slumped over and quietly asleep. A tad bit of color has returned to his cheeks, and he doesn’t look as sickly as he did a few hours ago. His head is propped on his shoulder, and his right arm is elongated towards Sage’s bed, his fingers curled as if they’re seeking out Sage’s hand. Clearly, Sage is still having trouble centering his mind enough to focus on his surroundings. He hadn’t noticed that Rhys was still so close to him.
“He needed some sleep, too,” Kai continues, leaning down and quickly peeling the top off of Sage’s Jell-O cup. He hands Sage a spoon. “I know I told you earlier, but he’s still really weak. I’m honestly surprised he was on his feet for as long as he was when he was talking to you.”
Sage frowns as his stomach coils in displeasure. He doesn’t like that Rhys wasn’t taking care of himself. If Kai hadn't been here with them, Sage might not have even noticed that anything was wrong with Rhys in enough time to realize that Rhys needed to sit down. Sage is still too dizzy and dazed to focus on anything but the dull ache in his bones.
“He needs to let his body heal,” Sage tells Kai disapprovingly, gripping the spoon tighter in his left hand.
“Says you,” Kai chuckles, moving forward to hold the bottom of Sage’s Jell-O cup when he realizes that Sage is struggling to hold it enough to stick the spoon in while only using one hand. Sage gives him a grateful look, then starts to spoon out some of the Jell-O. “I swear, both of you are too damn stubborn for your own good.”
Sage gives him another chuckle, bringing the spoon up to his mouth. Kai watches him as he continues, “You know,” he says quietly, his eyes flickering over to Rhys before he settles back on Sage, “he hasn’t left your side since you got out of surgery.”
“Surgery?” Sage repeats confusedly.
Kai nods. “They had to operate on your arm, and while you were under the anesthesia, you had some trouble breathing. I’m sure a doctor will be in to talk to you soon. They had a hard time getting
you to stop coding for a while, apparently.”
“Oh,” Sage says quietly, swallowing. Kai gives him another nod.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “You can imagine how well that went over with Rhys.”
Sage glances at him, frowning. Rhys would have been livid. God, he must have been terrified.
“I couldn’t breathe?” Sage asks confusedly.
Kai nods his head. “Yes. And your heart stopped beating. The doctors had to resuscitate you three times, I think. They haven’t told Rhys and I a lot about your surgery, but Rhys thinks that some kind of reaction from Steele’s bite is what caused you to stop breathing. He couldn’t hear your heart beating when they were operating on you, and he absolutely lost it.”
Sage’s mouth runs dry. “Shit,” he says, shaking his head.
Kai nods in agreement. “I got him calmed down enough to sneak him off to the bathroom during your surgery so that I could help him get those bullets out. I’m telling you, Sage,” he says, shaking his head, “I don’t know how all of those doctors and nurses in the emergency room didn’t realize that Rhys was seconds away from bleeding out. Steele shot him four times. He was covered in blood. You both were.”
Sage feels his chest seize up, and he closes his eyes tightly. He takes a deep breath.
“Did you,” he says, swallowing again as he opens his eyes hesitantly. “Did you see us when he brought me to the hospital?”
“Yes,” Kai says. “He ran here with you. He called me in a panic as soon as they started working on you, but I was already on my way here. I figured this is where he’d take you once he found you. I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t the both of you looking like extras from a horror film.”
Sage grimaces. He sticks his spoon into the Jell-O again, shaking his head. “I’m sorry,” he says morosely.
“Stop that,” Kai says, frowning. “You don’t get to apologize for that. You don’t apologize for anything. All that matters is that you’re okay. That you both are okay.”
Sage looks up at him, feeling his eyes begin to water, but he nods, sniffling as he shakes his head again.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he says, exhaling deeply.
“Steele got what he deserved, Sage,” Kai tells him, his eyes soft. “I know it’s not what any of us wanted, but I’m sure as hell not going to lose any sleep over it. He almost killed you, Sage. He almost killed Rhys. As far as I’m concerned, the world’s a better place now without some punk like him in it.”
“So, he’s. . .” Sage trails off, motioning with his spoon. He can’t really bring himself to say the words out loud.
“Yeah,” Kai finishes for him, giving him a wince. “Although, technically, Mikalina has declared him a missing person.”
“What?” Sage asks, confused. “Does she know—”
“No.” Kai shakes his head. “I left you here with Rhys after you were out of surgery so that I could deal with,” he motions his hand haphazardly towards the door, “everything. Mikalina sent me and a SWAT team to Steele’s apartment once she figured out that Steele was the one who took you. Rhys and I knew you weren’t going to be there, but I couldn’t not go. I had to make sure that you weren’t there, but I told Rhys where Steele might have been keeping you, and then I went with the rest of the team to Steele’s place.” He shakes his head again, shifting his grip on the Jell-O cup. “His apartment was eerily clean. It didn’t have anything personal in it at all. It was like he was ready to drop everything and leave at a moment’s notice.”
“Yeah,” Sage sighs, taking another bite of the Jell-O. “Figures. He was in the Army. We’re trained to be able to do that.”
Kai nods. “Once Mik realized that you weren’t there, she sent us all back to the precinct to do some more digging on Steele, but I thought that Rhys may have found you by then, and I wasn’t going to leave you both behind. I drove to the warehouse that I told Rhys to go to, and—” he cuts himself off with a grimace. Sage watches as he swallows. “It was bad. Steele was. . .” he trails off, and Sage gives him an aborted shake of his head. He doesn’t want to know. “So, then I started driving to the nearest hospital, and that’s when Rhys called me.”
“God,” Sage says quietly. His entire body feels heavy all of a sudden.
“The official story,” Kai tells him, “is that Rhys received a phone call from Steele right after we all left the precinct. Steele told him that if Rhys didn’t involve the police, he’d let you go. When Rhys got to the warehouse, he saw a lot of blood and you tied to a chair. Officially,” Kai repeats, shrugging, “Steele’s in the wind. Mikalina and the rest of the precinct have no idea where he is.”
“And us?”
“I don’t know,” Kai replies, shrugging again. “When I left you here after your surgery and went back to the warehouse, I didn’t see any sign of Steele’s body anywhere. And all of the blood had been cleaned up. Mik was just as confused as I was when she showed up with a few forensics’ techies. She’s convinced that Kharkovy covered the whole thing up. Oh,” he adds a second later, “I also have your gun and your badge. They were lying outside of the warehouse.”
Sage nods at him in thanks, then asks, “Why does Mikalina think Steele took me?”
“She thinks that Kharkovy told him to, so that we’d stop investigating him and the rest of the Sirin Corporation. Kharkovy doesn’t know that we’re investigating his finances, though. Techies are looking through his accounts now. But Mik’s convinced that Kharkovy is covering for Steele’s disappearance so that we can’t bring him in for questioning and charge him with kidnapping. I don’t think she has any idea that he’s actually dead.”
“What do you think?” Kai asks, finishing up the remaining Jell-O as he furrows his eyebrows.
“Honestly,” Kai replies, sighing, “I have no idea. If Kharkovy did cover it up, wouldn’t that mean that he’d have to have known that Steele was a werewolf? How could Steele hide something like that from Kharkovy? It was a Sirin property that Steele was holding you at. Kharkovy monitors all of that stuff, man. There’s no way Kharkovy wouldn’t have known that Steele was holding you hostage there. And Steele was completely wolfed out when I saw his body. Why wouldn’t Kharkovy just let us find Steele if he didn’t already know that we would find him wolfed out like that?”
“So, you think Kharkovy covered everything up so that he wouldn’t have to deal with a homicide investigation?”
“No,” Kai says, moving to throw away Sage’s Jell-O cup. When he comes back to the hospital bed, he sits back in his chair and lifts his feet up again, shaking his head. “I think he’s involved with all of this werewolf stuff. I think he covered everything up so that no one would find out that Steele was a werewolf.”
Sage’s eyes widen slightly as he leans back against his pillow, frowning. He hadn’t thought of Kharkovy’s potential involvement in his kidnapping. Everything Kai is saying is only further implicating Kharkovy, not only as an accessory to kidnapping, but also as someone else who knows about the existence of werewolves, and who could also hold vital information about the supernatural world that can never be made public. Any information Kharkovy could have on the existence of werewolves threatens to expose Rhys as a supernatural being.
They need to figure out what to do about Kharkovy. They aren’t finished with ridding Rhys’s territory with threats just yet.
Sage glances over towards Rhys’s chair, but Rhys hasn’t moved. “What does he think about all of this?” Sage asks, still keeping his eyes on Rhys.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been able to really tell him anything,” Kai says. “Not since I got back from the warehouse. He’s been really worried about you, Sage. I think this is the first time he’s slept since I told him you’d been in an accident.”
Sage turns to Kai, his eyes widening in shock again. “Kai,” he says, shaking his head, “I’ve been here for days. He hasn’t slept at all?”
“No, man,” Kai responds, frowning. “I’ve tried to get him to relax, but I don’t think
he could until he’d been able to talk to you and make sure that you were okay. I’m honestly shocked that he hasn’t passed out before now. Not just from the whole not sleeping thing, but also because I think he was in shock when he first brought you in. He almost shifted on the doctors and nurses when they took you away for surgery. And then again when they brought you back in here.”
Sage had heard that one, he realizes. Rhys had almost shifted when he’d been talking to Kai and Sage had heard them but wasn’t able to open his eyes.
“It was awful when I was taking those bullets out for him. I tried to get him to let a nurse check him out, but he refused.”
Sage can’t help but clench his eyes shut at that, the sinking feeling of dread beginning to coil inside of his abdomen. “Of course,” he mutters. “Rhys doesn’t like when strangers touch him.” He hasn’t liked that ever since he’d been brought to the emergency room to get his lungs checked out after his family’s murder, even though his supernatural healing had already healed his lungs before he’d even stepped foot inside of the hospital. “And he hates hospitals.”
“I kind of figured that one out,” Kai says, giving Sage a sympathetic look. “He almost bit off a nurse’s head when she asked him if he needed a bandage for, what she called, ‘a scratch under his t-shirt.’ If he wasn’t severely weakened from all of that wolfsbane in his system and reversing your bite, I’m pretty sure he would have ripped someone’s throat out by now.”
Sage looks at Rhys again, watching the way his chest rises and falls. He looks so peaceful like this, asleep and without a worry in the world. The lines of his face are flat and soft, and his normal brooding frown is nothing but a soft, sleep-rumpled line. There are still shadows under his eyes, and Sage doesn’t think he looks very comfortable with the way his muscular body is bunched up to fit into his chair, but he looks content. Like he’s not hurting. Like he’s not going to disappear if Sage closes his eyes.
He turns back to Kai, taking a deep breath. “How exactly did he reverse the bite?”