Page 60 of To Claim A King
The guard escorted us through the front doors of the precinct and into the chilly April air. Weston caught my shoulder. “And I’ll be visiting later to discuss where you would like to go from here with legal action. They have nothing tangible the FBI can charge you with, so you should be in the clear, but we’ll explore all possibilities when I come by.”
“Sounds good, mate.”
I tossed him a salute with a heartfelt thanks and hopped into the front seat of Joey’s waiting vehicle, one free of bullet holes and shattered windows. We’d destroyed an entire fleet of vehicles these last few weeks. I still mourned my M&M sports car.
Anxiety be damned, I practically squealed with delight at the massive bag of Skittles in the cup holder.
“Ms. Lane wanted you to have a treat when you got out,” Joey said as she pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway. “It was one of the few instructions she left me before going into surgery.”
Bless that lovely woman’s heart. I ripped into the bag and let the artificially flavored, artificially colored candy coat my tongue with its tingly artificial goodness. If she had thought of Skittles, she couldn’t be close to death. Right?
The colorful candy renewed my hope, and a giddy anticipation worked its way through every one of my bones, like I was a horny teen who’d glimpsed his first tit. They were alive. They were alive. They were alive. With any luck, everyone else was dead and buried in a crater somewhere, and we could figure out the rest of our lives as a foursome.
That was now the only thing I wanted—them. My Blondie, my Barbarian, and my Daddy Roboto. I had no place to call home, but I’d make one with them if they’d have me.
Joey dropped me off at the front entrance, and I practically raced up the steps at the hospital, a ward hollering after me to slow down when I almost took them out. I shouted back an apology, but I didn’t stop until I stood in front of the guarded private suite on the top floor.
I didn’t have a lick of ID on me, but one guard, a brutish woman with black hair and green eyes, opened the door for me without a question. They must have had my picture, because even I wasn’t charismatic enough to have doors opened for me without a word of my charm.
I rushed into the room to see the three of them in side-by-side hospital beds. Blondie looked disheveled and ghostly pale, sipping some gross-looking concoction through a straw, but alive. Kellan wore a too-short hospital dress and a whole lot of dried blood and bruises, but he too was alive. And Aaron, stiff and stoic as always with his arm wrapped in a sling—alive.
“I’ve never been so excited for a foursome in my life,” I joked as I took in the three of them, the relief cresting over me in tidal waves. I sank to my knees, every emotion I’d blocked out in the last several hours bashing me over the head like a mallet in aLooney Tunescartoon.
I hung my head in my hands and let the tears fall, unafraid to be the crying bloke in front of the people I loved. When I looked up through the watery stream, a large hand was extended toward me, inviting me up.
I took Kellan’s palm and rose to my feet, wrapping my arms around his enormous body in a crushing hug. He smelled of sweat and antiseptic spray, and it was the most delicious smell ever.
“Good to see you, Conan,” I muttered into the crook of his shoulder. He squeezed me back, his arms the most comforting blanket of strength and calm.
“Good to see you, Lucky.”
I froze in his hold. He’d never called me Lucky. It was Blondie’s name for me, but no one else’s. I loved it coming from her, but Ireallyliked it coming from his mouth.
He pulled back from me, and a tiny smile cracked the fierce pout of his lips as he interlaced our fingers and gently pulled me forward toward the other hospital beds. My heart melted into liquid when he brought me to the foot of Hillary’s.
Her hair was gnarled into matted clumps, and a purple welt marred the left side of her face, swelling one of her eyes closed. Her lips were as cracked as the bottoms of my feet—and she was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
“Hey, Luck,” she whispered, her voice raw and strained. Those dry lips formed into the gentlest of smiles, and my melted heart became whole again, just to beat for her.
“Welcome home.”
Tears, inescapable, never-ending tears soaked my cheeks and chin as I stared at the last man in our foursome, finally joining us after we’d escaped hell.
Hell we escaped because of him. I don’t know how he did it, and he would surely brag about it later, but for now—for now, all I needed was to hold him.
I didn’t need to ask. He was on me in a second, wrapping me tenderly within his arms, peppering the faintest kisses all over my forehead. I melted into his embrace and released the breath trapped in my chest untilI saw him again.
We sat that way for a long moment. Aaron, Kellan, and Lucky all murmured softly while I snuggled into his chest and listened to the steady thrum of his heartbeat, the irrefutable proof he’d survived along with us.
Through Kellan’s determination not to break, and Aaron’s submission to be a sacrifice, my inability to let evil win—even at the cost to my body—and Lucky’s ingenuity to get us out, we’d survived together. We were here, ragged and raw, holey and whole. I held on to the fine wisps of happiness as they swirled around me, determined to make them last before they vanished.
I’d been down this road before: the private rooms, the years of therapy, the neveractuallyhealing from trauma. Life was giving me a second chance to fix my damage, and I was damn well going to take it, with all my men at my side.
“Whatcha thinking about, lass?”
Lucky’s smooth Irish lilt broke through my thoughts. Shaking away the thick clouds of contemplation, I gave him a serene smile and squeezed the hand that hadn’t left mine since he’d entered the room.
“The road ahead,” I said simply, stroking my finger over the calloused skin of his palm. I eyed the thick white bandages all over my arms, the puffy gauze catching on the fibers of the hospital blanket.
