“He walked away,” Tristan said. “When face to face with his mortal enemy, the greatest threat to him and you, he just walked away. They stoned her to death, in case you were wondering. You’re safe.”
He chose me over his revenge, she countered, ignoring the comment about Honoria. That’s really what bothers you. He did what you couldn’t. She knew the story of Dara’s abduction and Tristan’s heroic rescue. You took the time to make Dara’s kidnapper suffer. You tortured him while Dara hung bleeding, dying, not twenty feet from you. I wonder if she would have suffered the coma, the weeks of hospitalization and unconsciousness if you had just reached out to her sooner, found her before she got lost. She said it without mercy. Maybe he deserved it, maybe he didn’t, but right now Amelia didn’t care.
She felt his baffled silence at her unexpected attack, felt the smallest twinge of regret, but not enough to back down. Don’t you dare cast judgment, Tristan Hunt. You have no moral high ground here.
There was a quiet, contemplative pause in which outside voices registered again. Hailey was yelling, Gabriel snarling, and somewhere nearby she heard the faint sound of babies fussing. He really had brought them all here. It was unfathomable to her.
“Hailey, back off,” Tristan said aloud. Amelia’s world jerked again as Tristan shoved Gabriel onto a makeshift gurney. Gabriel collapsed onto it but twisted immediately to shield her with his body. Breathing hard, he still clutched Amelia as if nothing else in the world mattered, not even his own life.
There was a commotion and from the corner of her eye Amelia saw Hailey lunge for Gabriel.
Calen caught her around the waist. “Whoa, hey, we’re not doing that again.” He turned to place himself between the two shifters. “Go help Dara put the IV together.”
An entire list of ingredients automatically scrolled through Amelia’s mind. A cocktail that would keep her heart pumping, her lungs working until they got the antidote. She didn’t have the oral motor skills to voice them anymore.
She didn’t have to.
“We don’t have all of that,” Dara’s gentle voice said in her head. “Hailey is putting together what we do have. She’s thinking it won’t be comfortable, but it’ll keep you alive. What’s he doing?”
Gabriel was bending over her, an awkward enough angle, especially given how precarious his balance had become. He was trying to reach her shoulder. Amelia flexed what few muscles she still had control over and twisted to bring her shoulder closer to his mouth.
His tongue lapped at the wound once, twice, three times. Then, as if he couldn’t hold his head up anymore, he dropped his forehead to her neck and just breathed. “You don’t get to die,” he said again. “Not you. Not now.”
You’re just as bad off as I am, she wanted to say. They’d probably die together. Strange, she wasn’t afraid.
“Lie down,” Dara told him softly.
He complied, keeping Amelia against his side. “Help her,” he said.
“I’ll try,” Dara replied. “This will make you both sleep. Try not to fight it. It’ll be easier that way.”
A needle pricked Amelia’s arm as the IV was attached. There would be one for Gabriel too. She wanted to tell them it wouldn’t work, but what the hell did she know? It had taken ten times the normal dose to put Tristan out. Gabriel’s chemistry was even more altered.
“Look at him,” Hailey said. She sounded shocked. Amelia couldn’t lift her head to see for herself. Her eyelids drooped and with the rumble of Gabriel’s growl beneath her cheek, she gave in to artificial sleep.
Some time later, she floated in a hazy state between sleep and waking, boneless, fuzzy, but still aware of what was happening. The shuttle was dark and quiet, with only a few lights blinking sporadically. It was hard to breathe, but she was still breathing, somehow dragging air into her lungs and expelling it. Amelia shifted a little, her sleepy mind sending a command small enough for her body to obey and her hip nudged back against something.
Gabriel rumbled a sleepy purr behind her, nudged his hip right back at her and she became aware that he was plastered against her back, as close as skin would allow. Heaving a labored sigh of contentment, she settled into welcoming darkness.
Chapter 37
October 4, 3032 Torrey
Amelia woke to birdsong. She breathed in deep of dew-scented air and stretched her legs down to her toes, relishing the feel of it. The bed was soft, the linens clean, the air fresh and cold and the sun dim on her closed eyes, but sharp at the same time. Everything was wonderful because it wasn’t Rome.
“Good morning.”
Amelia opened her eyes and squinted at her smiling brother in law, sitting in a chair next to her bed. “Hi,” she said. She felt a hundred years old when she lifted herself up and arranged the pillows behind her to lean against. Jeremy handed her a pair of glasses and she put them on, relieved when the world sprang into sharp focus. “Am I under supervision?” There were no monitors, equipment or medication around her. She just had a patch on the inside of her wrist, which someone was probably monitoring from elsewhere.
Jeremy grinned. “No. This was Hailey’s idea. She says it’s ‘Wake after a near death experience to someone you don’t want to see’ day. Hunt saw you, Hailey saw Hunt, Gabriel is seeing Hailey, and you get to see me. Aren’t you lucky?”
Amelia stared at him for a few seconds. “I have absolutely no trouble believing that.” She briefly worried about how Gabriel would react to Hailey. Then she shrugged it off. They would probably try to rip each other apart since none of the shifters liked each other very much. But unlike her, they’d heal within a day.
He chuckled. “We’re all just glad you’re okay.”
Not yet, but she would be. Amelia pushed her hair off her forehead, remembering too late the puncture wound to her shoulder. It didn’t sting, except from memory and she pulled the neckline of her shirt aside to check on it. A faint scar marked her skin, looking fully healed as if it had happened years ago.
“That’s some trick,” Calen said. “We tried to give you Hailey’s regenerative serum but—”
“It didn’t take.” It wouldn’t. She had zero chem-resistance. Her DNA was locked down tight.
“Yeah. Lucky your newest project has some additional perks.”
Amelia groaned. She still had to figure out exactly how that happened. “How is he?”
“Restless. We kept him under but he’s shaking it off pretty quick. Now you want to tell me what the hell happened?”
“Shouldn’t you already know?”
Calen shrugged. “I don’t like to pry. And Tristan took Dara and the kids into town for a while. Not that I blame him.”
Amelia cast an uncertain glance at the door. She didn’t like being on this side of the doctor-patient playground. Experience told her she would heal faster if she took the time to rest, but how could she?
“Amelia,” Calen said in warning.
“Did I say anything? No. So back off.” She blinked in surprise. Had she really just said that?
Calen shook his head. “Doctors should never be patients. It’s too cruel to the rest of us.” His easy smile was contagious but as she felt her own mouth curve, Calen sucked in a sharp breath and his expression turned thunderous.
“What is it?”
“’Scuse me.” He shoved to his feet and raced out the door.
Amelia threw off her covers and stood off the four-poster bed. The floors were wood but freezing cold to her bare feet. Weak and a little dizzy from so much bed rest, she hurried after her brother in law, following the sound of mayhem. Only vaguely did she note that the hallways had stone walls covered with tapestries every few feet, and large double windows, half of which were open to let in fresh air. She was shivering with cold by the time she passed the grand staircase to the other side and turned the corner to see something fly out of an open doorway and shatter against the wall.
Amelia winced.
“Arrogant, pain in the ass, pig headed moron!” Hailey was yelling. “Let go of me
!”
Amelia picked up her step to intervene.
“Get her out of my sight!” Gabriel roared and the sound of his voice was so sweet to her ears she slowed. He was okay. They were both alive and on the mend, and far away from Rome. It was over.
Then sounds of a struggle broke her out of her little reverie. “I’m trying—ack!”
Amelia all but flew in the doorway. Calen was holding Hailey up off the ground while she kicked and flailed to get at Gabriel. “Lemme at ‘em! Lemme at ‘em! I’ll scratch your face off, pussycat, just you wait!”
They were so busy in their little battle that neither of them noticed Gabriel freeze at her entrance.
“She doesn’t mean that,” Calen said. “She just needs to cool off a little. I’ll go dump her in the lake.”
Gabriel’s pale, feral gaze zeroed in on her and did not blink.
“You just try it, freak boy,” Hailey snarled, “see what happens tonight. Nothing, that’s what! Let me down!”
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Except Calen and Hailey as they made their noisy exit. The voices faded down the hall and Amelia was suddenly alone with Gabriel, completely at a loss for words. “H-how do you feel?” she finally asked lamely.
In two ground eating strides Gabriel was in front of her, his predator’s gaze never straying from her face. He came toe to toe with her and stared her down. Sniffed at her and growled.
Bending his knees, he braced an arm beneath her ass and stood up with her. “How do I feel?” he said, walking her back to the large bed that looked like something had exploded out of it. That would be Gabriel. “I got shot, poisoned, knocked out, and I woke up alone. How do you think I feel?”
Amelia shrugged as he rearranged the covers into some semblance of order over her. “Hungry?”
“Ravenous,” he growled, his mouth a fraction of an inch from hers. “But that can wait.” He nudged her to lie down and slid under the covers with her.
Amelia didn’t want to wait. She turned to him instantly, starving for the feel of him, cold without his body heat to warm her. Gabriel must have sensed how desperate she was because he met her half way and with his arms around her rolled so she was tucked safely beneath him, sheltered and held immobile by the steady weight of him. He nuzzled at her and rumbled soft purrs that somehow felt like praise and love words. It completely undid her.
Amelia was mortified to feel tears spilling from her eyes. She tried to hide but there was nowhere to turn; Gabriel wouldn’t let her. Letting more of his weight rest on her, he kissed every one of them away. “What is it, angel? What’s wrong?”
Amelia sucked in a breath and held it to try and stop herself but it just made everything worse. Her breaths turned into choppy, hyperventilating hiccups and she couldn’t trust her voice to come out in words rather than sobs. It frustrated her and scared her how completely she was falling apart.
Gabriel swore and shifted so they lay on their sides facing each other. He squeezed her to him so hard her bruised torso protested, but the pressure eased her a little, held her together so she could shatter to pieces. “It’s … o-ver,” she managed to wheeze between hiccups. “It’s … r-really … over. W-we’re … s-s…” gasp “…safe.”
“Shh, easy. Just breathe. Slooow breath.” He rubbed soothing circles over her back and rocked her a little. Patiently held her while she cried until she just couldn’t cry anymore.
“It’s just shock,” he murmured when her crazed heartbeat had stopped pounding in her ears. She could finally breathe, if a little shakily, and there were no more tears to shed. “You held up through all of it, Amelia. You were so damn brave. Now it’s over and it’s all just catching up.”
She knew that. Of course she did, but that didn’t mean it made any kind of sense to her. “This sucks,” she said, grateful that the words came out in one piece.
Gabriel chuckled and pressed his lips to her temple. “It’ll pass.”
“You’re not freaking out.”
“Of course I am.”
She sniffled. “Why?”
Gabriel shifted her so he could meet her gaze and answered with his signature lack of reservation. “Because I didn’t think it was possible to care for someone so much. There is no way a human body is capable of carrying it all. I thought the panther would make it easier, you know? Extra room to breathe. And then you went and made me love you even more.”
Amelia melted at his words. A lifetime of cold silence, of looking over her shoulder and carefully monitoring every move she made and every word she spoke flashed across her mind. Her past. She couldn’t escape it. It was always with her, putting her on guard.
It sucked, but it didn’t have to be her future. Take the chance offered. There’s only loneliness to leave behind. And to have this to wake up to every morning, Gabriel’s strength to lean on, his heart, so wide open to shelter hers, wasn’t that worth the risk?
She took a deep breath for courage. “Gabriel?”
“Yes?”
“I think I’m ready to renegotiate our agreement now.”
His chest rose on an inhale that lifted her by several inches. “No,” he said. “No more agreements, contracts or conditions.” He rolled them over, trapped her beneath him and stared her down, nose to nose. “You wanted me to make up my mind, well I have. This is it, angel. I want you. All of you, mind, body, soul, including that efficient muscle that pumps blood through your body. No holds barred, no turning back, 100 percent, stunning, brilliant Dr. Amelia Chase. I told you I would never stop once I started. So you better learn to deal with it because I’m—not—leaving.”
That efficient muscle pumping blood throughout her body swelled to impossible proportions inside her chest. She let that joy fill her to near bursting and couldn’t hope to keep from smiling. “Good,” she said, for once taking a chance and saying exactly what she wanted, exactly the way she wanted to. “Because I don’t think I could ever let you leave.”
An answering smile broke over his face and it was like watching the sun be born in the morning sky. “That’s my girl,” he growled.
The End
About the Author
Alianne is an avid lover of stories of all kinds. Having grown up with fairy tales in a place where it almost seemed they were real, it was no surprise when she began making up her own stories. She loves books, music, hiking, and archery, and won't shy away from travel and zip lining. Alianne graduated with a business degree and when she's not off in the land of fantasy, she lives in California.
Blood Debts (The Blood Book 3) Page 33