Page 29 of Eden and her Mercenary
She stroked Stella’s ear, her voice rasped thin. “Wherever she wants to be.”
It took a half hour for Stella to wake. When she did, her first move was to reach for Eden, weak but determined. The dog’s head lolled, eyes fogged with pain or sedation or just some deep confusion nobody could ever name. Eden sat with her, whispering into the battered ear, the same one that had been cut open and sewn up three times by three different people. She was still whispering as Ryker arrived, windblown and red-eyed, the compact Glock tucked just slightly more visible in his waistband.
“She’s alive?” he asked, and for once there was no joke in it.
“Yeah,” I said, and clapped him hard on the back.
∞∞∞
Out front, the four of us—the vet, the scientist, the animal rescuer, the mob brother—stood in a strange, embarrassed clump, like we’d all just walked away from a plane crash and were unsure who to thank for not being dead.
“Where will you go?” I asked Harrison.
She shrugged, the gesture thin as paper. “Somewhere without dogs, maybe.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said. She smiled, but it was a ruined thing.
Eden and Stella sat in the back of the truck, the dog’s head resting in her lap. Wren made sandwiches. Mack found a bottle of Ibuprofen. The sun came up out of a mess of thunderclouds and fog.
Ryker and I loaded up the supplies, checked every angle of the woods for movement. But there was nothing—no SUVs, no distant threats, not even a bird in the trees. I felt something inside me unclench, and it was like letting a broken bone finally knit.
I stood at the edge of the porch, took in the scent of burnt electronics and pine and blood, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like something bad was coming for me. I felt it was already past.
Eden found me there, touched my arm lightly. “She’ll make it,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You saved her,” I said.
She reached up and laid her hand against my cheek. “No. You did.”
Chapter 10
Eden
Royal kissed like he was afraid we wouldn’t survive the morning, and he was probably right. We were leaning against Mack’s battered Ford, the dog bandages faintly bloody in the bed behind us, the dawn too cold for June. My mouth curled against Royal’s. He tasted like black coffee and mint.
I wasn’t sure how we’d made it out alive, or what I was supposed to do with the future. My body hummed with the honeyed ache of three days’ adrenaline, and Royal’s hands on my waist felt absurdly gentle for someone who could snap a grown man’s arm without thinking.
I let my mouth press to the scar at the corner of his jaw, that little white track that split his stubble. “You’re bleeding,” I murmured, tracing it. “Again.”
He grunted, one hand sliding under my shirt, palm braced warm and patient at my low back. “Occupational hazard. I’ll live.”
"You'll live, but Stella needs to stay put for at least forty-eight hours," Dr. Chen announced, appearing atthe cabin door like a ghost. Her silver hair was loose now, making her look more like an eccentric artist than a surgeon. "Any movement risks reopening the surgical site. The brain needs time to adjust to the absence of foreign material."
Royal's hand stilled against my back, his forehead dropping to rest against mine. "Forty-eight hours?"
"Minimum," Chen said, unmoved by our obvious disappointment. "Unless you'd prefer your rescue mission to end with a dead dog and wasted effort."
I pulled away from Royal reluctantly. "Of course we'll stay. Whatever Stella needs."
Chen nodded once, satisfied. "Good. There's a guest cabin around the east side of the property. Clean sheets, running water, no cell service. Harrison will monitor the dog here with me."
"I'm not leaving Stella," I protested.
"You'll be two hundred yards away," Chen countered. "And you look like you haven't slept properly in days. Go. Rest. Come back when you don't resemble something the lake dragged in."
Royal squeezed my hand. "She's right. We're no good to Stella if we're running on fumes."
The guest cabin turned out to be a small A-frame tucked among towering pines, its wooden exterior weathered to a soft silver-gray. Inside was surprisingly cozy—a stone fireplace dominated onewall, flanked by bookshelves stuffed with medical journals and dog-eared paperbacks. A kitchenette occupied one corner, while a spiral staircase led to a loft bedroom.
