Page 15 of Dash

Using my battlefield training, I looked for wounds. I didn’t find any. On the other hand, fresh blood speckled the ground and stained her jacket. A glance in the toilet bowl showed me the water at the bottom had turned crimson.

Fuck this. Thena was bleeding.Why and from where?

I checked her pulse and respiration and didn’t like my findings. Her entire body quaked in a prolonged tremor. Her hands were ice cold. She was going into shock.

Leaving my cane behind, I ignored the pain that came when I flexed my thigh muscle and lifted her from the floor. She was much lighter than I remembered, skin and bones, really. I carried her out of the bathroom and across the room, thentransferred her to the leather couch.

After laying her down carefully, I took off my jacket and covered her with it. Then I rushed to the door, cracked it open, and stuck out my head. Two desks stood at either side of the massive doors. Sitting at one of them, green-suited Paolo manned a computer.

“Call an ambulance,” I ordered him and the man’s eyes widened. “Now.”

Returning to Thena’s side, I knelt next to the couch, took her hand, and rubbed her frigid fingers between mine.

“Dash.” Her voice was but a weak trail. “You should go.”

“Not happening.” I pushed an errant curl away from her forehead. “Did I do this? Because if I did—”

“No,” she breathed faintly. “You didn’t make me sick.”

“Then what’s going on, Thena?”

She lifted a shaky hand and rubbed her eyes. “If I die—”

“You’renotdying.” I squeezed her hand. “You can’t die. I forbid it.”

“You would forbid me from dying.” I recognized the Thena I’d loved so fiercely in the fleeting smile that flirted with her pale lips. “You’d also expect I’d comply, wouldn’t you?” The little smile was gone all too quickly. “If I die,” she mumbled stubbornly. “You can have it.”

“Have what?”

“The money,” she whispered. “The Astor Group.”

“I don’t want any of that shit.”I only want you.

“Nix would’ve liked you to have it.” She blinked off the tears bulging in her eyes. “He trusted you above everyone else. He loved you so much.”

I gulped around the boulder sitting in my throat. I’d loved Nix too. I’d trusted him with my life. And regardless of the lies I’d told myself over the last few years, of the anger and hurt I’d felt when Thena ejected me from her life the first time and thenrejected me again a few moments ago, I loved her, had never stopped loving her, and would never stop loving her, no matter what.

“Dash?” She held onto my hand, a faint attempt. “I wish things would’ve turned out differently.”

“You mean between us?”

She nodded weakly.

Was she saying this now because she feared this was her end? Or had she wished for a different reality all along as I had? Could she reconsider us, even now? Did I have a chance, remote as it was, to fix us, to mend our relationship?

I had no clue and, right now, Thena was sick and I didn’t have enough information to determine if and how I’d get the chance to right things with her.

Is it even a possibility?

As I held her hand and murmured soothing endearments, a visceral fear rattled my bones. What if I was too late? What if her father’s assassin had struck again? What if she was dying, right here, in front of me?

A cold fear caught hold of me and wouldn’t let go, terror unlike anything I’d ever felt before. If Thena died…

No.I refused to consider the possibility. I’d endured three years without her only because I knew she walked the planet. It struck me that my affection for her had survived intact even after being suspended in hibernation for years.

Looking down at the only woman who’d ever owned my heart, I added a third objective to my mission. I’d find Richard’s murderer. I’d protect Thena and her sisters. And, if Thena survived, if there was a chance to right things between us, no matter how small, I’d take it.

Groaning, she curled over her stomach. “It’s never hurt this bad before.”

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