Page 65 of Hostile Bond
We work together to bind her tight. Blood seeps through the creamy layers even though I’ve mummified her lower half. The sight of it makes my hands tremble and I quickly fist them so my soldiers won't see. I settle my lips to her forehead, holding her there for a breath.
“This is only temporary, Sin…” I tell her, hoping she can hear me, teasing a wild strand of hair away from her lashes. “I’m taking you to the hospital. Everything will be okay…we’llbe okay…” My gaze cuts to the guy beside me. “Start emptying the liquor bottles. Drown the place.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dré…” Her lips part and her eyelids blink wildly.
Fuck.
Instincts tell me to snatch her into my arms and punish her with a harsh kiss, but she’s too fragile for my hungry whims. My wife needs medical attention. Sunshine. Sand. And time to mourn the loss of her mother. She needs a side of me that no one else will ever see. Only her.
Our chemistry still flares, even now in this catastrophic state. It sparks through my veins and injects steel-like strength and crackling power into my faltering muscles. She squirms, doing her best to get closer to me, feeling the charge of us too.
Behind the pandemonium of smashing glass, she stares at me through slitted eyes and gulps. “You’re… hurt… let me…” When she tries to reach out for me, her arms flail.
She grits her teeth and lightly traces her fingers over my abdomen where the blood is, the determination in her eyes glittering. “I’m… sorry.”
I lean closer and snake a hand under her neck to elevate her while I slide the other arm behind her knees. “Souzas never apologize.” I plaster a false grin on my face, acting cocky when I’m far from feeling it in this situation.
“It broke my heart…” She winces at the movement. Beneath the apprehension of saving her, pain screams from within me too. “… leaving you.”
Our mind-blowing bond is still intact despite everything. We’re unbreakable.
The hemorrhaging of my own injury is zapping my typically buzzed energy levels. Nevertheless, I push through the burning agony and carry her to the exit.
“Which is why you’ll never do it again, Wifey. That was the last time you ever leave me. Comprendes?” I glance over my shoulder and let out a shrill whistle. “Burn it to the fucking ground.”
“Mammy…” A solitary tear rolls from the corner of her eye and then her cold body goes limp.
Tingles of fear scurry over my scalp. My heart literally grinds to a halt seconds after the tear rolls into her hairline and her eyelids shutter those siren eyes that fascinate me more than chemicals and dollar signs.
“Sinéad…” My strides eat up the tarmac underfoot. “Come on, baby… stay with me.” Sable hair whips around her ashen face as we traverse the parking lot and move under the already whirling blades. My breath catches in the back of my throat. “Sin…” I resist the urge to shake her. “Please, baby… fight for me. I need you to fight for us. I’ll kill anyone for you. Just stay with me...”
So,thisis fear.
The one thing I’ve truly lacked my entire life.
The pilot has already left the helicopter door open for our quick getaway, making it easier to carefully slide her onto the leather upholstery and climb in after her.
I set her head on my lap and run featherlight fingertips over the curve of her lax jaw, feeling sick to the pit of my stomach. Not from my own blood loss, but from the heart-wrenching vision of my fierce wife now lying motionless—gravely fragile.
Fixing the headset over my ears to communicate with the pilot, I order him to take off immediately.
My sole attention doesn't leave her. Not even when the soldiers set fire to the Aston Martin in the parking lot, jump into the helicopter at the very last second, and we take to the sky, or when they inform me the mission is complete.
I have no need to look out the window, to witness the life she’d once had blaze and smolder like a funeral pyre in the middle of an emerald, green landscape––because her life is with me now.
And I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure that isforever.
Not just for the duration of a grueling journey to the nearest hospital.
Except tiny dots scatter my own vision as my head becomes oddly light and uncontrollable.
“Sir… let me help you.” The warbled voice of a man comes and goes. “You’re bleeding really badly, André.”
I blink at him, pinching the bridge of my nose and try to speak, but my head is too heavy. It only rolls back and forth as the helicopter swoops.
Mustering the last of my depleted reserves, I manage to give one last order. “Don’t… tell… anyone… where we are. They’ll… kill us.”
