Page 114 of Blood Red Rage

Not because I was afraid of dying, not anymore but because I'd promised my mate I would come home, and although I'd made it through the doors, listening to Bryn's desperate cry as the darkness swallowed me made one thing brutally fucking clear. Coming home wasn't enough. I had to survive.

Chapter 18

A week after Viking nearly died, I still woke with the smell of his blood in my nose.

It didn't matter that our bedroom smelled like him again. Cedar, soap, that darker scent that was simply Viking. It didn't matter that I could hear him breathing beside me or that every few minutes in his sleep his hand moved across the mattress until it found some part of me, my hip, my stomach, my wrist, as though even unconscious he needed proof I was still there.

Some memories didn't care what was real now, they remembered what had been real then. Blood on the floor, blood on Roman's wrist, blood covering Volken's hands. Viking stretched out on that medical table looking impossibly pale while Dragan worked over the terrible wound in his stomach.

And then his eyes closing, that was the part I remembered most, not the blood, not the wound but his eyes. I'd been holding his hand when they closed. “Viking?”

Nothing. “Viking.”

His fingers had gone slack around mine. I'd screamed his name but someone had grabbed me. Roman, I thought. Maybe Draugr. Everything after that became fragments. Dragan shouting that Viking was healing. Lucien telling me he was alive. Roman's arms around me while I fought him because I needed to get back to Viking.

Volken sitting against the wall looking almost grey and then pain. A horrible cramp low in my stomach, and fear unlike anything I'd ever known. I remembered looking down, remembered thinking about the baby, then the room had disappeared because apparently I'd fainted.

I didn't remember hitting the floor because Draugr had caught me before I could. What I did remember was waking on a bed on the opposite side of the medical room with Dragan standing over me, one hand pressed to my wrist and the other against my stomach. The first thing I'd asked was whether Viking was dead, the second was whether I was losing our baby.

Neither question was one I ever wanted to ask again. Dragan had reassured me that Viking was alive and that the baby was still there, but the stress had hit my body hard. My blood pressure had dropped. I'd been dehydrated. Exhausted. Terrified. The cramping had scared everyone enough that Dragan had ordered me flat on my back and threatened to sedate me if I tried getting up.

I hadn't argued. That alone should have told them how frightened I was. For the next two days, Viking didn't wake. Two fucking days. I learned during those forty-eight hours that there were different kinds of fear.

There was loud fear. Screaming, crying, begging. Then there was the quieter kind. The kind that sat beside an unconscious man and watched his chest rise, fall, rise, fall. The kind that counted every breath because some irrational part of you believed that if you stopped counting, he might stop taking them. I counted thousands, I slept in pieces, minutes rather than hours.

Whenever I woke, my eyes went immediately to Viking. Every time. Dragan tried convincing me to move upstairs once he was certain the baby was safe, but I refused. He tried again but I told him to fuck off. He'd looked almost proud because apparently, I'd sounded like Viking.

So, they moved another bed into the medical room or perhaps it had already been there. I couldn't remember. That became mine, across from Viking close enough that I could see him. Close enough that if I concentrated, I could feel the faint warmth of our bond.

It had frightened me how quiet the bond became while he was unconscious. Viking was never quiet inside me. Even asleep, he was there, warm, possessive, heavy. That first day, he'd felt like a candle burning at the end of a long corridor. Alive but distant, I hated it.

The whole family came together around us. That was another thing I remembered. Nobody left me alone, not once. Layla brought food, Runa sat beside me when I couldn't eat it. Sorcha climbed onto the bed beside me one afternoon and simply held my hand while I cried because she'd apparently understood that I didn't need someone telling me Viking would be fine for the hundredth time.

The children made drawings, those nearly destroyed me. One had Viking with enormous fangs fighting what looked like a dragon, another had all five brothers standing together beneath a giant yellow sun, which was slightly unfortunate considering they were vampires. Lucien's son had drawn Viking with muscles bigger than his head. That one stayed. I still had it.

The brothers were worse. Draugr barely left, Lucien paced, Roman kept moving between us, the communications room and Layla. Volken spent hours sitting beside Viking without speaking, both Roman and Volken had been weakened by the amount of blood they'd given him. Volken hid it badly, Roman hid it better but neither fooled the women. Volken had given so much blood during the drive back that Dragan ordered him to rest for an entire day. Runa practically sat on him to make sure he did.

Roman had fed Viking again in the medical room, using his own blood to help Viking's body fight the demon poison. By the following evening, Roman was pale enough that Layla threatened to have Dragan strap him to a bed too. Roman had told her not to be ridiculous but Layla had stared at him with a wounded look until Roman had sat down. That had been the first time I'd laughed since everything happened, it came out wrong. It was half laugh, half sob, but it was something because that was what they did. These terrifying, impossible people. They closed ranks because when one of them fell, everyone else became the wall around them.

I understood then why Ceasar and Malakai were dangerous enough to frighten them, but still hadn't broken them. The Dragics didn't stand alone, not ever, and neither did I.

Viking woke on the third night. I was asleep when it happened. Dragan had finally convinced me to take something mild enough that it wouldn't affect the baby but strong enough to make my exhausted body rest. I'd curled onto my side on the smaller bed across the room, one hand beneath my cheek and the other resting over my stomach.

According to Draugr, Viking's eyes opened at 11:43. According to Lucien, Viking became an unreasonable cunt by 11:44. That sounded accurate because I only learned the details later. Viking had opened his eyes and immediately said my name. Not asked where he was or what happened or whether Ceasar escaped.

“Bryn.” Was the first word out of his mouth. Roman had been beside him, Draugr had stood near the door. Lucien and Volken were farther back.

“She's safe,” Roman told him.

“Where?”

“Resting.”

“Where?”

“Viking.”

“Where the fuck is my mate?” Apparently, his voice had been weak but his attitude had not.