Page 34 of Blood & Bond (The Bouchers #2)

Charlie was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding his sister’s hand. She was so still.

“Alice,” I called, looking at my mate’s pale face.

“She’ll be okay,” Alice replied without turning around. She and Josiah were still working on my mom. “We got to her in time.”

I looked around the room. Everyone else who’d been injured was mated and immortal, but there was a very real chance that Lucy’s immortality hadn’t locked into place yet. She had to have known that when she’d decided to make her last stand at the front door.

Charlie smiled wanly at me as I rounded the bed. He’d pulled a light blanket over her. I should’ve done that. I doubted she’d be happy when she realized how many people had been in and out of the room while she’d been half naked and getting her thigh stitched up.

“Has she woken up?” I asked.

“No,” he replied. “But her temperature’s been rising. It’s good you’re back.”

“Fucking heat,” I said under my breath. The thing I’d found so incredible, the first link between us, had become an albatross. She needed to heal without that shit ravaging her body further.

Carefully scooting onto the bed, I aligned my body with hers and pulled her head to my shoulder.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Charlie said conversationally, the tears from earlier gone as he rubbed his thumb over the top of her hand. “That she decided to go all Rambo , I mean. She’s been like that our whole lives—protective to a fault.”

“She was in the most danger.”

“I doubt she considered it,” he said, meeting my eyes.

“How are you holding up?” I asked. The dark circles around his eyes had never really faded, but they seemed more pronounced.

“Glad that Erik is over there pacing,” Charlie said ruefully. “I bet you don’t even think about it, but watching him fall was…” He swallowed hard. “I’m human. Wounds like that are fatal. You were right about the instincts. I fought.”

“Did a hell of a job too,” Josiah commented from his place by my mother.

Charlie’s head shot up, and then he looked at me sheepishly. “I keep forgetting you guys hear everything.”

“You did great,” I assured him, remembering Josiah’s and Matthias’s voices in my ear. Part of me wished I could’ve seen it. “They would’ve taken his head.”

Charlie shuddered.

“They didn’t because of you.”

“They were there because of me,” Charlie replied drolly.

“Done,” Alice announced, using her arm to wipe the sweat from her forehead. She stepped away from the table, pulling off her gloves. “Take her to bed, Erik. Josiah can help with the IV.”

Josiah snapped off his own gloves as he nodded. He grabbed the IV pole and followed behind my father as he carried my mother like a bride out of the room. The back of her head was crusted in blood from where it had pooled around her on the floor.

Charlie made a little sound in the back of his throat, but when I looked at him, his face was blank.

“How’s she doing?” Alice asked, looking Lucy over.

“Just asleep, I think.”

“It’s good for her,” she said plainly. She paused and pressed her lips together before she looked at me. “I saw what she did. We wouldn’t have made it until you got here if she hadn’t. Stupid, but brave.”

I nodded. The bravery had been apparent since the moment we met.

Alice glanced over at Matthias and sighed. “One more.”

She walked over to the bed my mother had been on and stripped the linens before wiping it down. By the time Josiah came back into the room with Chance, the bed was ready.

“Put him up there,” Alice ordered as she strode toward Sven. She looked him over and checked his IV. Picking up a scalpel, she made a small cut on her wrist. Smoothing his hair from his face, she set her wrist against his mouth.

I looked away as Sven began to drink.

Josiah and Chance lifted Matthias from the floor and carried him to the bed.

“Gods, why is he so heavy?” Chance griped. “Does he carry bricks in his pockets?”

Josiah grunted. “His mate can cook,” he grumbled. “I’m going to tell her to stop.”

Charlie laughed.

“Hey,” I said quietly. “You can head up to bed if you want. I’ll stay with her.”

Charlie shook his head. “I’ll stay.” He looked around the room. “You think I could pull a chair in, though? My head is pounding.”

“Go ahead,” Alice answered for me as she washed her hands. “Grab two, would you?”

“You need to sleep when you’re done,” I protested as she crossed the room. She looked ready to drop.

“I haven’t slept without Sven since we were mated,” she replied as she pulled on another pair of gloves. “I will not start tonight.” She looked at Chance and Josiah. “Well? What are you waiting for? Start cutting these clothes off.”

I turned back toward Lucy while Charlie left the room. Her breath was coming out in small puffs of air, steady and regular. My hands began to shake.

Things could’ve gone so differently.

Down near the end of the bed, something caught my eye. The blanket had a small, dark spot. At first, I thought it was a fly, and it took me a second to remember that I wasn’t in a field hospital. Leaning up, I looked closer.

It was blood.

Carefully, I climbed out of bed and walked down by Lucy’s feet. When I pulled back the blanket, I found her white sock covered in blood.

We’d missed it.

Peeling the mangled sock away, I found a deep gouge.

“What?” Alice demanded, looking at me over her shoulder.

“She’s got a graze on her ankle,” I replied.

“Clotted?”

“No.”

“Can you stitch it?”

I nodded.

Charlie came back with a couple of chairs as I scrubbed again. A few minutes later, I’d grabbed all the supplies I needed and started to clean the wound.

I’d trained as a medic so long ago that it was a distant memory, but I’d used the skills so often that I’d never gotten the chance to get rusty. It was a different beast altogether to stitch up my mate’s soft skin. Focusing on the wound and not the person was harder than I’d anticipated.

Thankfully, Lucy slept through it.

I wasn’t sure how Alice had doctored her mate over the years. My hands were shaking by the time I was through.

I spent time once she was bandaged, searching her entire body for anything else we’d missed. When I was through, I climbed back into bed with her.

By the time Alice was done with Matthias and he’d been carried away, Josiah was taking him home to be with his mate, Charlie was asleep in the chair, and my eyes were burning and heavy.

Alice walked over and dimmed the lights. “Try to get some rest,” she ordered.

“I should go check?—”

“Your brothers and Erik will keep an eye on things,” Alice said as she sat down beside Sven. “Rest, or you’ll be no good to her when she wakes.”

“Look who’s talking,” I replied, curling my arm beneath my head on the bed above Lucy’s pillow.

I closed my eyes and focused on Lucy’s breath against my throat.

“This was a close one,” Alice said to Sven. “But don’t worry, I’ll be happy to remind you daily that I saved your ass again.” She paused. “Rest, my love. I’ll be right here.”

Clenching my jaw, I tipped my head down until my lips rested against Lucy’s hair. It had been too close. If they’d made it fully into the house, we would’ve lost them all.

Beau and I wouldn’t have been far behind them.