Page 39 of Alpha's Embrace

I nodded but didn’t answer.

I still had so much work to do. I would bring charges against Tory. I would make him pay for what he’d done to Misha.

Prim sighed. “I’ll have a nurse bring some dinner by for you.”

“Thank you.”

There was no way I was leaving Misha’s side. Let the rumors begin. Let them all talk.

My Misha.

I would never abandon him.

Chapter Eleven

Misha

Everything around me swirled in a sea of gray punctured by strange green lights. Something was choking me.

I tried to cough but that didn’t work. I choked again, gagging.

A voice in the murkiness said, “Cough again.”

I obeyed and the obstacle in my throat came loose. It was long and hard and it came out in a single slipping motion after which I gasped on my own. Air filled my dry mouth. I moaned but the sound that came out was more of a whispered crackle.

My vision slowly returned, though blurred. I kept blinking away tears as I coughed again and again, my throat itching and dry.

“Water.” The word I tried to speak sounded like a croak.

I saw motion, two figures all in shades of gray and white. The only color I could see so far were green lights blinking off to my right. Light overhead hurt my eyes.

The motion of an arm came close to my face and I drew back.

Someone stuck a straw between my lips. I instantly sucked and cool water filled my mouth. I swallowed slowly, savoring the liquid on my dry throat, and the hint of cold.

Thoughts in my mind seemed to sweep in all at once as I tried to find a context for where I was and why I felt so terrible. What had happened? My throat ached. And my wrist. Had I been injured?

My arms were at my sides and I moved them as I tried to sit up, but something tugged at my wrists, keeping them in place. I felt another stiff sleeve on my right wrist, the one that hurt. When I tried to bend my knees, the same sort of stricture held my feet in place at my ankles.

The straw slipped from my mouth and a voice said, “Lie still if you can. You’re safe.”

I knew that voice. I’d know it anywhere—in my dreams, in my deepest thoughts, in my fantasies and my nightmares. Geo.

I whispered his name.

He said, “Right here. I’m right here.”

Fingers touched the top of my hand. Ungloved. The tips glided across my skin sending tendrils of shimmering, tickly feelings up my arm.

I’d been cold as I had wakened. Now I was warm.

Geo knew better than to touch me. This was on purpose. What could it mean?

My throat ached fiercely. My muscles tightened with the pain as I grew more and more aware. I lifted my hips and groaned.

“He’s hurting,” Geo said.

“I’ve given him something for it,” said another voice.