Page 18 of Broken

Chapter 8

Cole saw the tears glittering in her eyes, and immediately felt like a total shit.

“Hey,” he said, reaching out without thinking to brush his fingers across her arm. “Don’t cry. I suck at comforting crying women.”

She gave a little choked laugh, and brushed the tears away. “Not crying.”

That made him feel worse. “You really cared about him, didn’t you,” he said. It was hard for him to believe. Riker was too much of a bastard.

She nodded. “He was the first person who cared what I wanted, who saw how unfair it was that I was being imprisoned in the bracelets. He was the first person who tried to help me.”

That wasn’t the Riker Cole knew. But he realized it didn’t matter. Riker had helped her, protected her, defended her. Given his life for her, in the end. Maybe he really had been her friend.

And now he was gone, and she had no one.

He didn’t know what to say to make her feel better, so he did what he always did. Went with the practical issues.

“So I assume you can’t get it off? Or you would have.”

She nodded. “They only come off if a powerful Bright Fae—like a Council member—takes them off. Or if you’re dead.”

She didn’t say, ‘Like Riker,’ but the words hung there between them.

Instead he said, “And what are you going to do now?”

She hesitated a long time—but not like she didn’t know. More like, she was deciding whether to trust him.

Finally she took a deep breath and said, “After I helped Riker get the book, he was going to help me find someone with the power to get the bracelet off. There are renegade Bright Fae out there. A few. One of them must be powerful enough to help me.”

He didn’t even want to start on all the ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’ in that plan. She’d had enough for one day. But he didn’t see how she was going to do that on her own, with the bracelet inhibiting her magic, and no one to protect her against the Retrievers dogging her trail.

He asked, “Do you have a line on any of them?”

“Not right now.” Her voice firmed. “But I’ll find them.”

He didn’t say anything more. Time enough to figure out what they could do for her, if anything.

He said, “You need to get some more rest. Lie back down, and try to go to sleep.”

“Are you going to stay with me?”

“Do you want me to?”

She looked up at him with those eyes, wide and honest and vulnerable. “Please?”

It might help with her healing, if her wolf could feel him there. “Okay. But you should probably put some clothes on.”

She was already snuggling down on the pillow. “Why?”

“Because being naked in bed with a strange man is usually a bad idea? What if I was the kind of guy who’d take advantage of your weakened state to ravish you?”

“Hmm.”

She was thinking about it? Sheesh.

Finally she said, “I think I’d be okay with that.”

He had to laugh. “Seriously?”