“Look at me?” She waited until he turned around. “You got this all wrong. I never form attachments with men. I know better. It’s safer for all of us if I keep moving.”
“Did you form an attachment to me?”
“You’re not listening, I just said I did. That’s why I know this is my fault. I can make it right. All I have to do is walk away. Then you will be safe.”
She was exhausted. Now he would understand. He would tell her politely to leave. He would because he was a smart male. She wondered who would help her, because she was weak as the kitten he liked to call her.
“Seems we share a problem.”
She would have tried to raise her head up to look at him, but her small amount of strength had deserted her. She closed her eyes and prepared to listen.
The feel of his hand covering hers made her open her eyes.
“We both feel responsible for putting the other’s life in danger. We blame it on our inability to walk away from each other. I have put my life in danger many times. I fought for a world that cared nothing for me. Only my fighting skills. I almost died more than once for them. Now the most important person I have ever met is lying in my bed. I would rather die for you, than live without you.”
She closed her eyes as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t condone it, but she understood her mother’s desire to meet her father in the only place that was still open to her.
She smiled through her tears. Whatever door she had kept shut against her mother had opened. Sometimes grownups did stupid things. Her mom had. She should have gotten help, but Dee wasn’t her mom.
She would fight for the man she loved and the life she wanted to live. She waited as the L word had slipped out and there were no shakes or tears of denial. She loved him. It felt right. Now all she had to do was actually find the courage to say the words. One slow step at a time.
“I have a better idea. I talked to death recently and he agreed dying is not fun. How about we live for each other?” She gave him a smile.
“Sounds like a plan.”
He held her hand tight. Leaning down he kissed her.
“Do you think you can put up with Nicolas sticking and pinching you as he looks you over?”
She nodded her head. “Tell him if he sticks or pinches me I will knock him out.”
“You bet.”
He walked out of the room to collect Nicolas.
This was commitment. This is what it felt like to stay with someone, even when the chips were down. She had been so sure there would be none of that in her life, yet here she lay ready to stay by his side.
She looked up to see them entering the room together, brothers who looked so vastly different. No one would call them brothers unless they knew. But there was something. Was it the looks in their eyes or the swagger in their steps? There was something that declared them family.
“Dee I just want to take a look at you. Your lung was hit and I need to make sure you’re okay.”
“Nicolas, I hate to disagree with you, but I am smart enough to know that if my lung was hit, I would not feel this good. I say that with the understanding that I feel like a car ran over me, then backed up. A punctured lung would put me in the hospital, maybe even the grave.”
“You’re right. That’s where you should be, one or the other. You have Dante to thank for not being there.”
She frowned. Nicolas was an excellent doctor, he practiced in several different fields of medicine. Right now he was talking like he was crazy.
“What?”
“The Rowl. How much of it did you eat?”
“A lot that stuff is addicting. The more you eat the more you want and it taste’s so good. It’s not like a drug. You said it was safe.”
“It’s not a drug and it is safe. It is also laced with a healing property that would have no effect on you whatsoever unless a certain created took a nip, exchanging blood.”
“How would Dante know?”
“He has to have their blood.” Neither wanted to be the first to go down that road.
Niko nodded considering this. “He’s a good friend to have, if that is the case.”
“He’s a good friend either way.”
“I know. Do you think his brothers are like him?”
“Possibly.”
“Would someone tell me what’s going on?”
“Dante added something to your Rowl that would help you heal faster. It would only work if I bit you, exchanging DNA. We don’t waste our raw materials, so he would only add it if he was sure. Between what he added and Nicolas, your life was spared. I have great brothers.”
She didn’t like the fact that Dante had not told her, but she was alive because of it. She wanted them to trust her, to include her in their secrets, but trust was a two way street. It was a street she hadn’t gone down with any of them except Niko. She had made it clear when she had stayed with Aran and Rena that she didn’t want to get too close to anyone.