Page 105 of The Piece You Stole

“Saige?” The note of concern in Kade’s voice reminds me why I came down here, and why, other than the two or three hours I had before my dream, I haven’t slept all night.

“I had a dream Rylan killed you.”

Silence.

I clear my throat, blinking back the horrors of a dream—a nightmare—I will never forget. Even now, I still see their dead eyes and feel their hot blood splashing across my face as I stood frozen, unable to do a thing to save them. “And then Dariel killed me because it was my fault you were dead.”

I remember the fury in Dariel’s emerald-green eyes before his lunge drove me to the ground, and he ripped out my throat. Even if I could have stopped him, I wouldn’t have because he was right to kill me. If anything happens to Kade and Aden, it will be my fault.

I’ve half lifted my hand to my throat before I realize what I’m doing and stop, forcing myself to lower my hand.

“It was just a dream, Saige,” Aden says, seeming not to notice the bacon is spitting hot grease all over his white t-shirt.

“It felt real. When I think of what’s going on now, it feels like it could happen, don’t you?”

“Angel, you do not want to know the dreams I’ve had that have felt real.” Kade closes his laptop, shoves it out of the way, and holds his hand out for me. “Come here.”

I don’t move. “How did you get me away from Rylan?”

Silence.

It stretches out for so long that I wish I hadn’t asked. But I have to know.

“Saige, come here,” Kade says.

I lift my hand and touch my fingers to the bandage Aden wrapped around my left arm. It only aches when I touch it or accidentally roll onto it at night now. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that I have ten stitches there. For a wound that hadn’t been a big one, when Aden told me how many there were, I didn’t believe it until he showed me a wound that was twice the size that I remember.

The sick feeling in my stomach returns whenever I think about the sound the needle made when Rylan stabbed it into my skin, over and over. I swallow hard and shake my head, hoping to clear the feeling…and the memory away.

I don’t regret what I did. Nathan can’t hurt anyone again, but I will never forget what Rylan did to me on that bed. Not ever.

“I did something.” For hours, I lay in bed thinking about what I would tell Aden and Kade. There’s so much I never want them to know: the things Rylan and his pack did to me, my decision to trust him in the first place, but most of all, that I’m a killer. They look at me like I’m a thing worth saving when I know I’m not, and I don’t want to say something that will make them stop looking at me that way. “And Rylan punished me for it because that’s what he does. What did you do to get me free?”

Please tell me you didn’t kill any of Rylan’s pack because you won’t survive it.

Kade shoves himself to his feet and stalks toward me. At no point does he look away.

Even though I know he won’t hurt me, the intensity in his gray-eyed stare makes me back up. I bump against the doorframe, and then Kade is there, gripping my forearms and dragging me toward him. He doesn’t seem to move at all, but I’m suddenly cradled in his arms.

“They die,” he says, his voice a low growl, and his wolf in his eyes, “every single fucking one of them dies. But first, breakfast.”

I’m still gaping at him as he carries me over to the dining table and places me in the seat beside his. And then he’s moving away again, leaving me staring after him in confusion as he heads for the refrigerator. “Juice?”

Is he talking to me?

He peers over his shoulder. “Angel? You want OJ?”

I’d expected my dream to give them a big dose of reality. For them to realize I’ve dumped a bucket load of danger into their laps and that maybe I’m more trouble than I’m worth. I’d expected an offer to take me to the nearest bus station and a bus ticket far, far away, not the offer of OJ.

In a strange daze, not quite sure if I ever woke up at all and this has been one long dream, I nod.

“Aden?” Kade sticks his head in the refrigerator, presumably to grab the juice. “How are the eggs coming?”

“Should be ready in a minute,” Aden admits, as he pours a long stream of bright yellow beaten eggs into the bacon pan. On the counter beside him is a plate piled high with the crispy bacon he must have scooped out of the pan while Kade was distracting me with his talk of juice.

With no idea what to say or do, I sit at the dining table fiddling with my t-shirt hem as between them, they pull breakfast together in under five minutes. All the while, the same thought repeats over and over in my head.

No one has ever cooked for me before.

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