Page 131 of Serpentine

Then, I’m tucked in beside him, pulled tight as he drifts off to sleep with me as his lifeline.

Miles isn’t alright. That’s what his silence tells me, and my heart is breaking as I shed the first tears when I hear him drift off, trying to cry as silently as I can so I don’t wake him.

But there’s no way I’ll sleep tonight. Not while all is wrong in the world.

As my lashes flutter open, I stretch. My body is so sore, used beyond its limits. Brax is still wrapped around me. It took me hours to fall asleep, but I finally did. Now, it’s dark outside, nightfall having returned for Twin Pines. We’d slept all day together, hiding away from whatever was happening. Sometimes, that’s the best feeling in the world, knowing you’re comfortable while whatever horrors lay beyond your doors.

But it didn’t this time. I want to know what happened. But I don’t want to push him too far.

“Good morning,” he rasps, voice filled with the gravel of sleep.

“Morning,” I tell him, turning and curling into his naked body. He’s warm and smells of rain and the slightest hint of cologne and blood.

“You need to tell Miles about our mother,” he says, and I lift my head off his shoulder instantly, worry filling me.

“What do you mean? He’s alright?” I ask, forgetting the state of his morning erection and moving to straddle him. I need to look at him head-on.

“Alright is a relative term. He’ll live, but there will be scars. He needs to know, and with everything that happened, I didn’t have the energy to… I’m sorry. If this morning was too much, or I was too rough… I just needed…”

“Something good,” I finish for him, finally getting it. “It was…” Fuck, are there even words for this morning? Probably not. “You were fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“He needs to know, and I don’t know that I’m done processing it enough to tell him. The doctor says big life changes will do this to me. I mean, they always have, but now I know I need time to digest them before I can discuss them.”

I smile at him, glad he’s starting to learn and understand himself enough to know his limits and set boundaries.

“That’s fine. I can tell him. But where is he? What happened?”

He scrubs his hand down his face. “The Jackals had him. He’s in really rough shape. I’ve got a doctor tending him upstairs, but it will take time for things to heal and for him to return to his old self if either of us will. I would’ve told him everything, but I’m just too…exhausted, Bambi.” He lets out the last breath he can, closes his eyes, and throws an arm over his face.

I lean down and kiss his lips softly, testing. His answering kiss makes me swim with overwhelming feelings. I think I even need to digest some. “It’s ok. Rest. I’ll go see Miles, alright?”

“Mmm, come back to me, though; it’s cold without you,” he says teasingly, thrusting his hips and letting his erection slip through my pussy.

“Greedy man,” I moan, kissing him again before sliding off him and heading for the shower.

I move through the motions like a robot, getting out and dressing in one of Braxton’s shirts and a pair of boxers before brushing my hair and heading upstairs.

Just as Braxton said, there’s a doctor with a laptop outside Miles’s door, a cell phone perched against his shoulder.

He sees me and smiles. “Go ahead in. He’s awake, and he’s just had his pain medicines.”

Pain medicine.

Before pushing inside, I take a moment to steel myself for what I’m about to see. The television ambles on low at the end of the bed, and I stop when I see Miles in the bed. He’s sitting straight up, awkwardly, as if he can’t move.

Tears barrel down my cheeks, and I can’t stop them. He’s alive. He’s okay.

“Aww, are those for me, princess?” He lifts his arms towards me, wincing against pain as I rush for him.

I crawl into his lap, straddling and letting him wrap his arms around me. Because even if it’s selfish, when he’s in pain, I need it. I need to be his princess. I need him to hold me because he’s alive to do so.

“I’m alright,” he says, trying to calm my sobs. But he’s not moving, I notice.

“Where are you hurt? God, am I hurting you?”

I move to get off him, and his arms hold me steady. “Don’t you dare, not when this is the best thing I’ve felt in days!”

I feel him hardening beneath me, and I shake my head with a smile. “Even on death’s door?”

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