Page 59 of Whispered Desire

The squeal of the tires barely penetrates my fog as Luca carefully lets Allie’s head rest in my lap.My sweet Angel.He’s performing CPR to keep her blood pumping, and every once in a while he instructs me to breathe for her.

Hell, I’d die for her if I could.

I’d take her place in a second.

But life doesn’t work that way.

Especially not for a Blackchapel Bastard.

***

“Do it,” I order, standing impatiently in front of the brick wall in an abandoned alley hours later.

“You’re crazy. I’m not shooting you.”

“If you don’t, I’ll force someone from Blackthorn to do it. You know I will,” I warn Luca. He and the rest of my brothers are huddled ten feet from me, bracing against the icy rain falling from the sky.

Allison is still in the ICU, but the doctors are hopeful for a full recovery. After they revived her in the emergency room, she was rushed to surgery to repair damage from the bullet. It’s been an agonizing six hours, but the pain isn’t over yet.

My girl has stepped between me and a bullet too many times.

It’s time to even the score. To know the pain she put herself through. To show her how much she matters to me.

What hurts her, hurts me.

We’re bonded for life.

“Fine, I’ll do it.” Dmitri steps forward, lifts his gun with a silencer attached to the end, and fires three shots to match the three bullets Allie sustained. First from the drive-by, then from the incident this morning. “Crazy motherfucker.”

I grunt but remain standing, reveling in the blaze of fire arcing through my body. The doctors are going to have a field day treating me when I lie about a mugging gone wrong and my wounds match the exact placement of my girl’s.

Butc’est la vie.

I’ll do anything for my woman.

Even share the pain of bullets meant for me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

ALLISON

A sense of déjà vu hits me like a sledgehammer to the head. The beeping machines. My body aching. And the foreboding presence of a shadowy man in the corner.

“M-Mathias?” His name is a croak from my dry throat, a garbled mess, but the swift intake of breath lets me know that he heard me just fine.

“Allie… Thank fuck, you’re awake.” He slides his chair across the linoleum until he’s so close, his knees bump the bed as he rests his elbows on the edge of the mattress, distress emanating from his tense muscles. Along with an IV connected to his arm.

Alarm dispels my haziness. “What happened? How’d you get hurt?” I groan from lifting my hand to gently touch the sling on his arm. It’s reminiscent of the one I had to wear after my first gunshot wounds.

Wow.Never thought I’d need to make that distinction—my first, second, and third bullet injuries.

“It’s nothing. Tell me how you’re feeling. You’ve been asleep for two days,” he says, his voice grittier than usual. Has he been here this whole time? His hair’s askew, his clothes wrinkled.

A bit of plastic pops out of the top of his shirt pocket, and my brow furrows at the jade color.

The shade reminds me of the frames I bought special months ago in the hopes that the fun color would spice up my everyday wardrobe. Then they promptly disappeared after my first hospital stay in France.

Plucking the item from Mathias’s pocket, I catch a glimpse of blood spatter on the edges of the lenses before his hand covers mine.

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