Page 58 of The Verdict

“Yeah.”

I thought I’d done a pretty decent job with my stitches. Then again, with a better job, I wouldn’t be here.

“She pulled everything open. I’ve got to get that closed and then get her some blood. She’s lost a lot.”

Something big enclosed my hand. Big and strong.Rhys.His fingers curled around mine, stroking carefully over my skin.He was holding my hand.Why was he holding my hand? And then I felt it—a new prick of pain on the inside of my arm—before something cold began to race along the highway of my veins.

It weighed on my limbs. My thoughts. My pain.They were putting me under.There was one last instant of pain—one last shot of adrenaline that screamedfight and flee—before I felt something else. The press of warm fingers to my head and the rush of his breath against my hair.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,”he promised.

Rhys.

Real.

And then everything went dark.

“…back to the clubhouse. You need to rest.”

“No.”

“Rhys, you haven’t left this room in twodays?—”

“Get out.”

“How is she?”

“Doing well for how much blood she lost.”

Their voices swirled around me like I’d picked up a phone call but could only listen in.

“And the fever?”Rhys asked, his icy voice sounding close to my face. My head turned slightly, searching for even just the warmth of his breath—the only warmth he had left for me—and then I felt him move my left arm up over my head.

“Gone.”

“How long until I can take her back to Sherwood?”

“At least another day. Maybe two. But she’ll still need to be on bedrest for a few days.”

“And when will I be able to talk to her?”

“Rhys—”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

My reckoning.

Air rushed into my lungs like I hadn’t taken a full breath in days, my brain waking suddenly from its deep slumber.There was a dull ache on my right side, but nothing like what it had been before.

I peeled my eyes open, registering the now familiarbedroom in the guest cabin an instant before I saw him.My lips parted, my mouth instantly dry under the angry blaze of his stare.

Rhys sat in the corner of the room. He’d pulled in a chair from the kitchen, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin propped on his fists. He looked likeThe Thinker,carved from stone. Immovable. As though he’d been there for hours, and for some reason, part of me was certain that he had.

“Rhys.” The instant my voice cracked, he was up, standing beside the bed and cracking open the water bottle on the nightstand.

“Drink.” It was an order.

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