Page 7 of Into the Fire: After
I caught the scent the moment before the footsteps stopped just outside the cave opening, just before a shadow blocked the first rays of morning and a tall shape wedged itself between the rock walls.
Eucalyptus. Cleansing smoke.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t believe my eyes.
Still asleep. Still dreaming. That made sense. I’d wanted my mates home and safe, and here in my dreams, they could be. Maybe I’d never wake up. Just hang out here with them, never have to face my life, face the world alone.
“Taryn?”
Brooks’ rasping voice broke through my stunned haze. I focused on him—his wild curls, his slumped shoulder, the scratches and dried blood over his torso and on one cheek.
My stomach dropped clean out of my body. “Brooks?”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” He lunged for me then, falling to his knees and gathering me up in his right arm. He pulled back, grasping the back of my head and pressing his forehead and nose into my disgusting hair. His entire frame shook, and I realized he was sobbing.
I pulled slightly away, just far enough that I could look at him. Make sure he was real. That he was flesh and not simply the fevered, desperate creation of my own grieving mind. “How—what—”
“Lin and Caine.” Pain lanced his expression, more tears falling down his cheeks.
My stomach plummeted. “Are they—”
“Alive.” He nodded. “Last I saw.” He took a shaky breath, weaving his fingers in with mine. “We watched— fuck—three vans pull up. Too many for us. But we knew if the two of you made it this far, you’d need supplies.” He held up the car keys. “They covered me as I ran out. Best they could, anyways.”
He looked around the small cave, as though the teensy space had anywhere to hide. His jaw clenched as he met my eye. “Brea?”
“She’s okay,” I said, explaining where she’d gone in a rush. Willing myself to believe she was perfectly safe and not on her own in a dangerous forest with not even a knife to keep her safe.
I looked again to his hunched shoulder, looking more closely at the dirt staining it. Except it wasn’t dirt.
It was blood. Too much of it.
“Brooks, were youshot?”
He shrugged with his good shoulder. “A little bit, yeah.”
Leave it to Brooks fucking Arceneaux to refer to a gunshot asa little bitof a wound.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, grabbing his unhurt arm and dragging him to the cave’s opening, braving the light and open air for the first time in days to look at his wound. And if I was fully nude, well, Brooks probably wouldn’t say no to a distraction right about now.
“I’m almost positive it went straight through,” Brooks said as I paused, giving the gnarly hole a forlorn look. “Clean exit on the back?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Though I wouldn’t say no to someone checking to be sure there are no shards broken off in your shoulder.”
Brooks shook his head, handing me the gauze to wrap him up. “I doubt there are. And if there are, they won’t do any harm in there. But going to the hospital right now…that could.”
“Brooks—”
“Hospitals are mandatory reporters, Taryn,” he said in a stern tone. “We show up with a gunshot wound, and they’ll contact the police.”
And we couldn’t have that. Not when we knew they were bought and paid for by Wainwright. Who’d also hired the goons to kidnap me mid-heat.
His brown eyes searched mine, fierce and burning. He barely seemed to notice my naked body. Hypnotized by my face, my eyes. I was, too, by his.
Fuck, he could’ve beendead.
Maybe he was thinking the same as he leaned in and absolutely devoured my mouth. Stole my damn breath. Made me see stars behind my closed eyelids.
His hands threaded through the hair at the nape of my neck, clenching and holding me tight to him as our bodies melted together. Bare chest to bare chest, and god he was so warm. Every curve of me pressed against his every angle. My lips moved with his. Our tongues spoke a different language.
