Page 29 of Celestial Alphas

I roll my eyes. “It’s lovely to see you too, Hollis, really. A brilliant welcome back to the city. You could start off by asking are we okay? That’s usually what people do when someone has gone and done something really fucking dangerous for them.”

He smirks. “You didn’t do it for me, you did it for Rhodes, because Rhodes looked at you and didn’t see what I did. He became your friend and wanted the bond.”

“What do you see, then?” I question, climbing out of the car and putting us way too close. There isn’t an inch of space between the car and him, and he doesn’t let up. I hear Aleksander swearing and getting out the other side of the car, but I don’t dare take my eyes off Hollis and the silent challenge.

“A monster.” He cocks his head to the side. “What else?”

Alek grabs his shirt and pulls him straight up to his face. Hollis uses his power and pushes him away, sending Alek stumbling. “You’re a fucking prick, Hol.”

“Enough,” I snap at them, shutting the car door. “You’re right, Hollis.” It actually hurts to agree with him. “This is all about Rhodes. I have what we need. Let’s go up.”

“Fine, I’ll escort you there and back down here,” Hollis offers. I know he isn’t offering to protect me or to be nice, but to make sure it works.

“I can only take one of you to hide.” I rub my face, looking at Alek. “Will you wait here?”

“Of course I will. Go and wake Rhodes, tell him everything and that we will keep you safe.” He comes over and tugs me into a hug. I like his big arms wrapped around me, holding me so closely, and it feels like no one can hurt me for a second when he is protecting me. It’s cold again when he steps away, looking at Hollis. “Keep her safe and look after our mate, Hollis.”

“She’s not my—” He cuts himself off. I ignore the jab of pain in my chest from the rejection, and my Nexus feels mad.

“You don’t have to be such an asshole about it,” I mutter to him as we walk to the lift, and I keep my eyes darting around, ready to grab his hand if anyone so much as looks our way. The sun’s barely even risen in the sky, and it was a long night of driving for Aleksander. I’m glad he is taking a moment to rest down here. I could do with a nap myself when Rhodes wakes up. He will wake up. This has to work.

“I do.” He pushes the door open and looks through before nodding for me to go in. When we get to the lift, Hollis grabs my hand, and we go in together. It’s awkward holding his hand as the lift goes up. It only opens once, letting in a woman who frowns at the space and the fact that it’s stopping on another level, talking to herself about it. When the doors open to Rhodes’s floor, I’m careful not to touch the lady and freakher out as we slide around her. Hollis leads the way straight to Rhodes’s room, and only when it’s completely quiet outside do we go in. I shut the door behind me before yanking my hand out of his and cutting off the power. Hollis looks at his brother, turning to me. “Go on, then.”

“Please let this work,” I whisper to myself as I walk up to Rhodes’s bed. I pull the vial out of my pocket, glancing at the cut on my palm and what I gave up for this cure. I climb onto the bed, kneeling next to him, and pull the lid off the vial. I gently tug his bottom lip down, making enough space to pour the vial straight into his mouth. It fades, disappearing like vapours almost the second it touches his lips, almost like it was never there.

Seconds tick by where nothing happens. Seconds feel like minutes, the minutes feel like hours, and my heart is racing the entire time until Rhodes suddenly opens his forest green eyes. He coughs, gasps a few times, searching around the room before his eyes lock with mine, and his shoulders drop. He looks at me with warmth, so much warmth. I don’t even know what to do with someone looking at me like that. “Rhodes…” I just burst into tears. I don’t know when it happened or when I ever started being the person who cries as much as I do right now, but I can’t help it.

He reaches for me and pulls me to his chest, curling his arm around my waist and holding me as I sob on his shoulder. “I thought you were gone; I thought I was never…” I’m not sure he can even understand me through all the crying. Rhodes is pale when I look up at him, but alive. Alive and awake is all that matters.

He curves his hand around my cheek. “I was never leaving without you.” His vow washes over me like a marking brand right on my heart, and he kisses the top of my head, holding metightly to him. “Wait, everything is slowly coming back to me. The house was bombed at the party by Vian?”

“What else do you remember?” I ask. I run my eyes over his features, over everything that makes Rhodes. His smile that shows his dimples off—how did I not notice how cute they were before?—the glow of his green eyes, and the light of his blond hair that is sun-kissed even with a week in a hospital bed. He is so much paler than usual, and there are bags under his eyes, but it doesn’t take the light from him. Rhodes is pure light, and nothing will ever change my mind about that.

“Hollis. Is he…” he asks, and I nod, turning to look at Hollis but not removing myself from Rhodes’s bed.

“I’m here,” Hollis answers. Hollis looks at us together, and I swear it hits him that we have a bond. I’m not sure he ever really saw us together before and really accepted that I’m going to be in his brother’s life now and his too. I think he hoped I would run away and just leave them all alone, and I did want that for a while…but something has changed. Everything has changed now. I’m in more danger out there where the Vian, Severi, they can get to me. Onyx’s dad is an issue, but I don’t think he will give me to Severi again, not when my mates know what he did now. They could make it public and ruin him. This is a mess, but it’s a mess everywhere I go, and I get people killed. Harry can’t happen again.

Disgust lingers on Hollis’s pretty face, and he clearly hates me being held by his brother. Not out of jealousy, not out of any care for the bond between us, between our Nexus. But he just hates me. “How are you?”

“Good.” Rhodes sounds anything but good, but neither one of us calls him out on that. “I remember I woke up after the bomb went off, and I saw you, Gwen. You were fighting Vian, and I was trying to get to you when one of them touched my neck from behind. Everything was dark after that.”

“They could have killed you…” What I leave off is I have no idea why they didn’t. Vian having restraint isn’t something I’ve heard of.

“I’ve never been caught off guard by them before, but you were fighting better than any ranger I’ve seen before.” He grins at me. “I was so proud. I am proud.”

My heart leaps.

“Proud? What of her distracting you and nearly getting you killed, Rhodes?” Hollis explodes. “For fuck’s sake, no woman is?—”

“Careful what comes out of your mouth in anger, Hollis,” Rhodes cuts him off with a lethal snarl. “It’s not her fault and never say it is. It was mine, and she saved me. You should be thanking her, not judging everything.”

Hollis groans. “You don’t know the whole story, brother, and when you do, you might not want to be holding her like that.”

“I don’t give a shit what the full story is. I want her, whatever the story is, and you need to get your head around that.” Rhodes nods at the door. “Until then, get the fuck out. It’s her I want here, not you when you’re acting like this, brother.”

Hollis actually looks hurt more than angry, and I see it. I see something different from him for a second, and I don’t know what to make of his reaction. His feelings. I’m kinda glad he is back to his angry self when he growls at me. “You’re poison!”

“The only poison is whatever has turned you from the brother that I used to know into this. You were never like this!” Rhodes growls right back at him. “What the hell changed you?”

---