Page 31 of Threadbound

“Jame—Jamie.”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

Bran’s bloody fingers settled on Jamie’s arm, sticky and weirdly cool. That probably wasn’t good. “Sor—Sorry.”

Jamie frowned. “What are you sorry for?” he asked. “You didn’t pay them to beat you, did you?”

“N—No.”

“Then you don’t have to be sorry.”

“Y—You…” Bran winced, then swallowed.

“We need to get you help,” Jamie said softly, a frown pulling at his brow.

He wished he had his phone, but he didn’t bring his phone with him when he went for a run—he liked hearing the sounds of things around him, the percussion of his feet against the ground, the sounds of birds and wind. And he hated the feeling of his phone bouncing against his leg.

“No. M’all right.”

At least Bran was small enough that Jamie thought he could carry him.

“Like hell you are,” Jamie retorted. Then he took Bran’s hand and pressed it against the wound in his side. “Keep this here.”

Bran stirred, as though trying to resist, but at least he kept his hand where Jamie had placed it.

“Hold still,” Jamie warned him, then scooped the smaller man up in his arms.

“Dinna—”

“Yes, you do,” Jamie interrupted.

“Dinnawant?—”

“You need a hospital,” Jamie argued. “Whether you want one or not.”

Bran genuinely struggled at that, and Jamie couldn’t hold onto him, cursing as Bran squirmed out of his arms and hit the path barely a foot away from the paved bike and running lane on Queen’s Drive.

Bran cried out, then curled around himself, whimpering.

“Jesus. Bran. What the hell?” Jamie immediately knelt next to him, trying to check on his injuries. “You need help. I’m not a fucking doctor—I can’t fix this.”

Bran gasped in air. “Dinna want a hospital,” he managed.

“Yeah, I got that,” Jamie replied, starting to get exasperated. “But youneedone.”

“Please, no.”

“Bran. Look at me.”

Dark eyes squinted at him.

“You’re in a lot of pain. You’re bleeding, and you definitely need stitches, and your arm is—I don’t know. Maybe dislocated, maybe broken. I can’t fix you.”

“Dinna need—” Bran cut himself off when he tried to shift, gasping at the pain.

“The fuck you don’t,” Jamie told him. “You definitely need a doctor.”

Bran just looked at him, and Jamie realized that it wasn’t anger that was clouding the smaller man’s features, butfear.

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