Page 30 of Wilde and Deadly

“Davey, she could die.”

His stomach bottomed out.

She could die.

Something snapped inside him, something feral and instinctive, something that wouldn’t—couldn’t—accept that possibility.

“Then you’d better make sure she doesn’t,” he growled.

Tessa’s jaw tightened, but she nodded. “I’ll do my best. But I need your help. This is going to be messy.”

Davey moved on autopilot. He’d done this before—field medicine, trauma care, triage. He could patch a bullet wound in the dark, keep a dying man alive with duct tape and grit. But this was different. This was Rowan.

Her face was ashen, her breathing shallow and ragged. He placed a hand on her forehead, alarmed at how cold and clammy her skin felt.

“Stay with me, Ro,” he murmured.

She didn’t react. Didn’t even stir.

Fuck.

Tessa worked fast, clearing the blood away from the wound with steady, clinical efficiency. “Okay, I’m going to remove the knife. Be ready to apply pressure the moment it’s out.”

Luka whined softly from his spot by the table, eyes locked on Rowan’s still form. The dog knew. Knew she was bad. Knew how close this was.

“It’s okay, boy,” Davey murmured and positioned his hands where Tessa indicated. “She’s tough. She’ll pull through.”

He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Luka or himself.

eight

“On three,”Tessa said. “One…two…three.”

She pulled the knife out in one swift motion.

For a split second, there was nothing. Just the slick sound of metal sliding free, the tense beat of silence before the inevitable.

Then—blood.

It gushed from the wound, dark and endless, pooling over her skin, soaking into the gauze, spilling between his fingers. Too much.

Pressure built in his chest, sharp and unbearable, like his ribs were trying to crush his heart. His stomach twisted violently as he pressed down, harder than he should have, trying to stop the impossible.

“Fuck.” His voice came out strangled, more breath than sound, because—Jesus Christ, that was too much blood.

His hands were slick with it, hot, sticky, a stain he couldn’t wash off. He’d seen this before. Too many times. On battlefields, in dark alleyways, in places where men didn’t always make it back alive.

But this wasn’t some faceless soldier.

This was Rowan.

And she was dying right in front of him.

A shuddering breath left his lungs. He forced himself to steady his grip, to keep the pressure even, but every instinct in his body was screaming, panic clawing at his ribs, at his throat.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to her—the woman who had outmaneuvered him three damn times.

Once by sexing him stupid, tying him to his own bed with Christmas lights, and disappearing with his dog before he even woke up.

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