Page 31 of Wilde and Deadly

Once by jabbing him in the neck with a sedative—one he still fucking felt—and slipping into the night, leaving him groggy, furious, and cursing her name.

Once by jumping out of a moving cab like a goddamn lunatic while he was still swearing at the driver to stop.

She always got away.

Always had a way out.

But now she wasn’t that warrior. She wasn’t untouchable. She was silent, still as death, and bleeding out in his arms.

And he couldn’t lose her.

Hewouldn’t.

“Tessa—” His voice cracked, his grip tightening as he felt her breath hitch beneath his hands, too shallow, too weak.

“I know,” she said quickly, already moving. “Just keep that pressure steady. I’ve got her, but you need to hold her together.”

Hold her together.

Jesus.

He was holding her together, quite literally, and yet it still felt like she was slipping through his fingers.

Tessa’s hands were steady, working fast, her voice low and even. “Davey, look at me.”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t take his eyes off Rowan.

“Davey.” This time, her voice was sharper. “She’s still breathing. That means she’s still fighting. And if she’s fighting, we fight for her.”

His fingers flexed against the gauze, his jaw clenching.

Fighting.

That was Rowan. That had always been Rowan.

So, yeah.

He’d fight for her.

Minutes ticked by, the silence broken only by Rowan’s labored breathing and Tessa’s terse instructions.

She worked fast, methodical, efficient, moving with the kind of confidence that only came from experience. Surgical scissors glinted under the kitchen lights as she cut away more of Rowan’s ruined shirt, exposing bruised skin and raw edges of the wound.

She grabbed a syringe from her kit, popped the cap off with her teeth, and injected something near the wound. A local anesthetic, probably. Then came the antiseptic—a sharp, biting scent that cut through the thick metallic stink of blood.

Davey barely moved. He just kept pressing down, kept feeling the slow, sticky warmth seeping through the gauze.

Tessa didn’t flinch. She threaded a curved needle through Rowan’s torn skin, her hands steady, precise, closing the wound stitch by stitch.

“Come on, Ro,” Davey muttered under his breath, voice low and strained. “Don’t make this a one-sided fight.”

Tessa didn’t look up, didn’t comment. She just kept working, her brow furrowed in concentration, a slight crease between her eyes. The look she always got when she was too focused to let herself feel.

She reached for the gauze, layering clean bandages over the stitched wound and taping them down with quick, practiced movements. Then, she pressed two fingers to Rowan’s pulse, watching the slow, unsteady rise and fall of her chest.

A beat.

Then another.

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