Page 78 of Shadow Weaver
“Why are you saying all this? You’re coming back.”
He smiled. “Of course I am.”
Lie. It sounded like a lie, but he was already walking away toward the enforcers. He looked back over his shoulder as they led him away.
No, this was wrong. This felt wrong. I rushed after them, but Brunner blocked me and shook her head.
“No. We can’t interfere,” she said.
And then they were gone.
“It’ll be okay,” Kash said.
But there was no conviction in his voice.
* * *
“And they took him.”I held Brady’s hand. “I don’t know what to do. I’m scared. For the first time in forever, I’m fucking terrified.”
Brady had been given his own room in the fortress healer wing. Aside from his bed, there was a large window, a washbasin, and several chairs. I ran my gaze over his sleeping face. He looked so peaceful, but I wanted him to wake up and growl at me. To be grumpy until he got his coffee. I wanted to share cocoa with him and curl up with him under the stars.
I’d wanted a family for so long. I’d wanted someone to love me unconditionally, and now I had those things, and they were being taken away. Payne was gone, and Brady still hadn’t woken up.
I’d learned not to feel the loneliness, learned to embrace it as a friend, but for the first time in a long time, I felt the bite.
“Brady, please, I need you.” My voice was a thick whisper. “I can’t be alone again.”
A hand fell on my shoulder. “Who said you were alone?”
I looked up into Lloyd’s icy-blue eyes and then around him to see the other guys enter the room. They fanned out, grabbing seats and pulling them close to the bed. They were all paler than usual. All still recovering. But they’d bounced back quicker than Brady.
Why was that?
The fortress healer believed it was something to do with Brady’s genetic makeup. Maybe the fomorian was stronger in him than in the others.
Either way, there was nothing to be done until he woke up.
“He’ll be okay,” Carlo said with confidence.
“The man’s a fighter,” Aidan said.
Devon grunted in agreement.
“You have us, Justice. All of us,” Lloyd said. “We’re a team.”
My throat pinched.
“Is it true you stole a fomorian hound?” Lloyd asked.
“Damn straight, she did,” Carlo said. “I fucking saw it.”
“Athos,” Devon said in his low, gravelly voice. “Brady’s hound. Athos let her ride him.”
They exchanged glances.
“What?”
“You obviously have no idea how rare that is,” Aidan said. “Once hounds pick a rider, they stick to him. They don’t let anyone else ride them.”
