Page 192 of Bend

Draygon didn’t say anything.

Didn’t ask if I was okay, because what kind of stupid fucking question would that have been?

He just climbed into the bed behind me and curled his body around mine, one arm sliding beneath my head while the other wrapped firmly around my waist. His face pressed into the back of my hair and he held me like that was the only job he had left in the world.

Which somehow made me cry harder.

Because Draygon had lost him too.

Wolfe wasn’t only someone I loved. He was one of Draygon’s closest friends. His teammate. His brother in every way that mattered, and I knew there had to be something inside him screaming just as loudly as whatever was tearing through me.

But he still came.

Still put his own grief down long enough to carry some of mine.

I twisted in his arms until I could bury my face against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” I choked out.

His hold tightened immediately.

“Don’t.”

“You’re hurting too.”

“I know.”

That was it.

No pretending he wasn’t. No telling me mine mattered more.

Just I know.

His hand moved slowly over my back while I cried into him, and after a while I felt his breathing change too. He tucked his face against the top of my head, and when something warm hit my hair, I knew he was crying with me.

Neither of us mentioned it.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that before the bedroom door opened again.

Thorne stood there. For a second, nobody moved.

His face was still blotchy from crying, his eyes swollen and his knuckles already darkening where he’d hit something after leaving the paddock. Whatever anger had been carrying him earlier was gone now, or maybe just buried under exhaustion.

He looked at me in Wolfe’s hoodie.

Then at Draygon wrapped around me.

His mouth tightened, so I lifted the blanket, and that was all it took.

Thorne shut the door behind him and crossed the room, kicking off his shoes before climbing onto the other side of the bed. He didn’t make a joke about the three of us barely fitting. Didn’t complain when my knee ended up wedged between his legs or when Draygon’s arm stretched across me and landed partly over him too.

He just moved closer.

I turned enough that I could grab the front of his shirt, and Thorne covered my hand with his before pressing his forehead against mine.

Nobody said Wolfe’s name.

We didn’t need to.