“You are my uncle’s special friend.”
At the sound of a small voice, Saxton turned away from the closed door of the operating room. Bitty was standing beside him in the training center’s corridor, both of her parents behind her, a toy tiger dangling in her hand. The little girl was in a red dress, her dark hair curling at the ends, her eyes innocent, yet very old.
This one had known so much suffering. Thus, she was used to this sorrow, wasn’t she, he thought sadly.
Clearing his throat, he eased down to her level so he could meet her eye to eye. “Yes, I am. How did you know?”
“My uncle told me all about you. When we were doing our puzzle the other night. He said you were his special friend and he loved you very much.”
Saxton had thought that he was all cried out: After the trip in on the surgical van, with Ruhn coding twice, and then watching the door close as Doc Jane and Manny went in to put some kind of a tube or something in the male’s throat, he’d assumed he was dry as a bone.
Nope.
His eyes started to water all over again. “I love your uncle very much, too. He is my special friend as well.”
“Here.” She held out her stuffed tiger. “This is Mastimon. He has always protected me. You can hold him now.”
With hands that shook, he accepted the precious gift, and as he tucked it into his heart, he pulled the little girl close to his chest. Her arms did not fit very far around him, but he drew strength from her.
Rhage looked heartbroken as he spoke up. “Any news…?”
Saxton stood and was surprised as Bitty kept her arm around him. It seemed so easy to rest his hand on her small shoulder, the pair of them hurting together.
“Not yet,” he told the Brother. “They’ve been in there forever.”
“Do they know who did this?”
“Vishous is looking into it. I can’t really even focus on that right now. All I want is for Ruhn to…” He stopped himself. “We’re just going to pray for the best, aren’t we, Bitty?”
“Yes.” The little girl nodded.
“Can we bring you anything?” Mary asked.
“No. Thank you, though.”
Other Brothers stopped by, asked for updates, chatted. Someone brought him a coffee, but when he tasted it, all he could think about was what Ruhn had made for him just twelve hours ago.
That coffee had been perfect. Everything else was ruined.
He was never going to be able to drink the stuff again.
God, it seemed impossible that life had been going at such a happy pace…only to have this brick wall of horror slam into him—
Down at the far end of the corridor, the office’s glass door opened and Wrath came charging through. The King’s face was cast in a dark fury, and his Queen, Beth, seemed to be holding him back—and getting nowhere.
As Wrath came down and stopped in front of him, Saxton had trouble meeting his ruler’s eyes even though they were blind.
“Who did this,” the King snarled. “Who fucking did this.”
“I think it was the humans who…” Saxton took a deep breath. “Ruhn and I were staying at the house to help that homeowner who was getting harassed.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you call for more help!”
As that autocratic demand was barked out, Beth yanked at her hellren’s arm. “Wrath! For crissakes, will you back off—”
“It’s okay,” Saxton said with exhaustion. “He is just upset this happened at all and it’s coming out badly. We go through this on the job, he and I—”
The King’s arm shot out and dragged him forward so hard and so fast, Saxton’s head spun—at least until it banged into a chest of granite.
“I am so sorry,” Wrath muttered. “I didn’t know you two were together.”
Abruptly, Saxton found himself clinging to the far-larger male, Wrath’s undeniable physical and literal power exactly what he needed at that moment.
“I didn’t know he was yours,” Wrath said tightly. “I would never have sent him out with you if I had known.”
“He wasn’t mine then,” Saxton choked out. “When we started…he wasn’t yet mine.”
At that moment, Manny and Doc Jane emerged from the operating room, sure as if they had been summoned by a royal decree. The two surgeons pulled their masks down in sync, and it was hard not to read into their tired expressions that things had not gone as they had hoped.
“So this is what we’ve got,” Doc Jane said. “He’s stable, but in critical condition. He’s having a hard time finding a steady blood pressure and heart rate.”
“He coded again,” Manny added. “And since we can’t give you all transfusions, it’s just tough. His brain has gone without oxygen for a couple of minutes, a couple of times.”
“I’m so sorry,” Doc Jane concluded, “but we’re not sure…whether he’s going to wake up.”
As Bitty ran to her parents, Saxton covered his mouth so he didn’t start screaming again.
When he was able, he said, “Can I see him—can she and I see him?”
Doc Jane glanced at Rhage and Mary. When they nodded, the doctor did as well. “Okay, but only the two of you. Talk to him, tell him how much you want him to fight. We’re not going to move him right now—and you can’t stay in there long. He needs to rest.”
“All right. Okay.”
He took Bitty’s hand and looked down at her. “You ready?”
When the little girl nodded, Manny opened the door for them.
It was cold inside the operating room, so much colder than he’d been prepared for. And there was a purpose to everything that was in the tiled space, from the medical equipment to the multi-light fixture overhead to the glass-front shelves with all their instruments and supplies.
His only thought as they approached the table was that he didn’t want Ruhn to die in this horrible, clinical place. And not like this, with all these wires going in and out of him.
He was so pale, he was gray. And there were bandages all around his throat.
“What’s the beeping?” Bitty asked as they stopped.
“His heartbeat.”
Fates, maybe they shouldn’t let the girl see this, he thought as the pair of them looked down at him. Ruhn’s face was so hollow, and with that all-wrong color, his hair was so very dark in contrast. Further, his eyes were closed as if they were never opening again, and his breathing was unnaturally punchy—
Oh, right. He was on a ventilator thanks to a tube that went in through the base of his throat.
“Uncle, it’s Bitty and Saxton. We love you.”
The girl took her uncle’s still hand in hers.
“My love,” Saxton said as he bent over and kissed his male’s forehead. “Come back to us. We need you.”
There were so many things to be said, pleaded, begged—
Saxton recognized that his own mouth was moving and that he was continuing to speak. But that odd deafness had returned to him, his ability to hear evaporating.
When a hand landed on his shoulder, he jumped.
Doc Jane’s forest-green eyes were grave. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, “but we’re going to ask you to leave for a little while.”
It was like peeling his own flesh off in strips to turn away, but he allowed himself to be led out. And as he stepped from the operating room, he saw that Vishous, Blay, and Qhuinn had joined the crowd that had assembled.
The door closed on his lover.
In the silence, as everyone looked at him, something changed deep inside of Saxton. Gone was the nausea and the sorrow and the fear. All that was weak disappeared as if it had never been. In its place?
The rage of a bonded male.
In a voice that did not sound like his own, he heard himself say, “Will you all take Bitty for a moment?”
Rhage nodded immediately, the male recognizing exactly what was going on. “Hey, Bit, I’m hungry. Can you and Mary take me down to the break room for something to eat?”
The little girl stepped in front of Saxton. “Do you promise to come and get me if he wakes up?”
Saxton brushed her cheek. “I promise. With all that I am, dearest one.”
She gave him a quick, fierce hug—that reminded him of her uncle—and then she was taking her father’s hand and leading the Brother and Mary down the corridor.
Saxton waited until they were out of earshot to turn to Vishous. “Tell me you know who did this.”
Vishous nodded. “I reviewed the security footage from the last couple of weeks. They were the same two human men who have showed up in a truck a number of times. One of them now has his arm in a sling. They came to the front door and they had weapons. Ruhn opened things up and they attacked him. The fight had to have been a brutal one because the total elapsed time was almost thirty minutes.”
“They left in rough shape,” Blay tacked on. “Ruhn hurt them.”
“Bad,” Qhuinn affirmed. “Like a true fighter.”
In a voice that was all vengeance, Saxton said, “You find them. You bring them to me. I, and I alone, will take care of this.”
All three of the males bowed low, paying deference to his position as bonded male.
And then Vishous unsheathed one of the black daggers that were strapped, handles down, to his chest. Opening his ungloved hand, he gripped the blade and yanked it free, his blood welling, dripping, landing on the concrete floor.
He extended his palm. “On my honor.”
Saxton gripped the offering. “Alive. They come to me alive.”
Blay and Qhuinn likewise cut themselves, and in turn, Saxton shook each of their bleeding palms.
And so it was done.
Whether Ruhn lived or died, he would be ahvenged.