Page 93 of The Piece You Stole

“We’re taking her home.”

I jerk my head away from Aden, who’s perched on the edge of my hospital bed, and then I see him. Kade. He doesn’t have a shirt on, but he’s wearing an identical pair of low-slung gray sweats to the ones that Aden has on.

He has his arms folded as he stands just inside my open door, beside a tall, blond man with a long white coat and a black stethoscope draped around his neck.

They came after me.

My eyes sweep the rest of my small, white, and very clean hospital room. There’s no one else in it. Just me, Kade, Aden, and the doctor. But no…

I catch myself then because it feels like I’m looking for someone else I’d expected to be with them.

But I thought they did everything together. I thought…

Of course, he’s not here, Saige. Because if he were, he’d be busy ripping your throat out.

My eyes return to Kade, and I know he couldn’t have missed my searching look because a faint smile curves the corner of his lips. “Just us, angel eyes.”

The sobs start without warning because this is real.

This isn’t just a dream.

The mask around my mouth is supposed to help me breathe. It’s supposed to deliver pure oxygen right into my lungs.

It must not be working.

Blinded by tears, I don’t see Aden move.

But I feel him.

An arm slides around me, lips touch my brow, and I know it's him. Someone complains when my bed dips. A hand cradles the back of my hair and turns to press my face against a naked male chest. Kade. That feels like Kade.

Footsteps move toward a bed that’s suddenly overfull.

Kade growls…something. It’s hard to hear over my sobs, but the footsteps stop and then retreat.

When Kade’s mouth brushes my ear, I know he’s smiling. “You see why I suggested we need a bigger bed?”

I choke out a half-laugh, half-sob that emerges as a sound so strange with the mask covering my face that Aden nearly falls out of the bed laughing. Desperately, he grabs onto me. Kade snarls at him to be more careful with me and threatens to kick him off the bed altogether.

And although I knew this wasn’t a dream before, a part of me—a small part—didn’t want to believe it.

But this…listening to Kade snarl at Aden, having their arms around me, makes itfeelreal.

I drift back to sleep pressed between two male bodies, a smile on my face, knowing nothing can hurt me, and it feels like…home.

CHAPTER 23

DARIEL

Awareness of where I am comes first. Soft sheets. Firm pillow. My room.

Scent comes next.

None other than mine.

And blood. Old and dried, it teases my senses, stirring my wolf awake from his doze.

Not all the blood is mine, but that isn’t what has me lifting my head to peer over my naked shoulder to the open doorway because I was wrong. It isn’t just my scent in this room, and the amber licorice scent tells me who I’ll find before my gaze clashes with Aden’s warm hazel eyes.

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