Page 84 of If You Were Mine

“I would expect nothing less from my favorite baker.” He paused, then said, “I still don’t know why the hell this generator isn’t working. Everything looks to be connected. Fuck.”

“Maybe it just takes a minute?” I asked, the anxiety in my system increasing. The house shook once again, and a window in the corner of the living room shattered.

Wind and snow barreled in, and I couldn’t help but scream.

“Oh my God.”

“Stay away from the window, I’m coming up.”

“Dorian. What the hell’s going on?”

“This house is going to come down around us. Fuck this house.”

He stood at the bottom of the stairs, ready to come up, when everything happened at once.

The edge of the house facing the east side of the mountain shook before parts of the siding just sheared off. Lucky barked, and I reached out for him, until a wind gust shoved its way into a large board. The board broke off, and I tried to move out of the way to protect Lucky, but it nudged at my side, slamming into me. The scream ripped from my throat as Dorian tried to run up the stairs, but the house shook impossibly harder. I fell back toward the stairs, snow and debris coming at me as Lucky continued to bark, and then I hit the third stair down. The breath knocked out of me, but I didn’t stop moving. Instead I kept going, falling through the staircase.

“Harper! Wellesley!”

I covered my head with my arms as I slammed into the ground, everything feeling as if I’d been shattered at once.

I let out a shaky breath, my palms damp, as I realized I’d fallen into the spare blankets and pillows that had been stored down here.

“I’m okay,” I rasped, my body ice cold. “I fell on blankets. I’m okay.” I looked up at Dorian, who stared at me through the hole in the floor. How had he gotten up the stairs so quickly?

But then I realized I was deeper into the basement than he had been. And somehow he’d moved up the broken stairwell to look down to where I’d fallen.

“Don’t move. Whatever you do, baby, don’t move.”

Lucky kept barking as Dorian pushed him back, and I frowned.

I was fine, I could feel my toes and fingers move. It wasn’t that bad of a fall.

And then, everything came back.

Sharp pain radiated through me as if jagged claws ripped through my stomach.

And then I looked down at the steel rod protruding from my side right above my hip.

I’d been skewered.

And until that moment, I couldn’t feel it.

And then there was nothing.

“I’m fine. I keep telling you I’m fine.”

“You had a steel bar shoved through your abdomen. It’s going to take a while until I know that you’re fine.”

“It didn’t puncture any major organs somehow. And yes I lost blood, but you were able to get me to the doctor.”

Somehow, through magic or perseverance, my body had come out only slightly broken.

The pillows and blankets had stopped my fall, but the steel rod had sliced through me. It narrowly missed my spleen. And I knew if it had even nicked my spleen, I probably would have bled out.

When I had mentioned that, Dorian had shuddered, his entire face paling. So I would never mention that again.

“I’m fine. The doctors say I’m fine. And you’re fine. Lucky’s safe with Ivy, and we never have to go back to that godforsaken house again.”