Page 99 of Knotted Laces

I toss the controller to the side in a hurry, far too excited by the prospect of someone saving me from my pathetic night to care who’s on the other side?—

Hoping it’s Athena so I can apologize.

Or if not, maybe it’s King and Rory, and Rome and Chrissy with their pups, invading for an impromptu insanely late game night, making me forget that I haven’t cuddled Cookie in a week.

Hell, maybe it’s a fucking door-to-door salesperson and I can make awkward small talk while being sold an overpriced carpet cleaner at midnight.

I don’t even care.

Anything’sgot to be better than sitting here, muttering about my mana levels and searching an animated forest for random chests of gold.

I push up from the couch, move to the front door, pull it open, and?—

My heart leaps.

I freeze. “Cupcake?”

Her mouth opens, but before she can yell at me for being an idiot, for making her make the first move to fix us, for putting us both through the shit when she was doing something to help me, she wavers, her hand going to her side, and?—

“Cam,” she rasps, her knees giving way.

“Fuck!”I lurch forward, grabbing her before she collapses to the hard concrete of my porch.

She cries out when I catch her, when I lift her up and hold her against my chest, and I realize why when I feel something hot and sticky on my hands, my arms, soaking into my clothes.

“Athena,” I hiss, bringing her inside, slamming the door closed behind us, flicking the lock.

Her eyes are barely open. “Cupcake,” she corrects on a rasp.

My heart squeezes.

Christ. This fucking woman.

I love her so goddamned much.

“I need to get you to the hospital,” I growl. “Need to call an ambulance.”

Her lids peel back in a flash, hand suddenly gripping my wrist. “No ambulance. No hospital.”

“You’re bleeding, cupcake,” I say, bringing her into the bathroom, setting her gently on the counter. I know I have a first aid kit under the sink, so I bend down, open the cabinet, reach for the plastic-sided container?—

“Not just bleeding,” she forces out through rapid—and painful-sounding—exhalations. “Shot.”

I freeze, fingers around the first aid kit. “What did you say?”

But I don’t get the chance to hear the answer to my question.

Because now she’s collapsing for real.

And when I catch her this time—barely managing to stop her from cracking her head on the marble countertop—a blood-soaked photograph falls out of her pocket, flutters to the ground.

I look down…

And see that it’s Angela Rosseau.

Chrissy’s, mom. Jean-Michel’s ex. And the woman who’s currently making big trouble for him.

What the actual fuck?

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