King's Reign (Sydney Storm MC 6)

He remained quiet while I examined his face and then his neck. I lost myself for a beat, remembering how his mouth had felt on me, how his lips had grazed my skin, how his eyes had tracked my movements making me feel more desired than I ever had. Making me feel like the woman I’d always wanted to be.

Oh God.

No.

I could not go there with him again.

“Lily,” he rumbled at the same time my mother joined us.

“Lily, I want to call the priest,” she said, her words as disjointed as her actions had been since Brynn was shot.

I frowned at her. “Why?”

She looked at me like I’d asked a silly question. “I want him to give Brynn the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.”

Her words winded me. I struggled to breathe as they worked their way through me. I understood what she said, and I understood the significance of asking for that, but my world spun at the thought of my sister being close enough to death to call on a priest.

She isn’t going to die.

We do not need that sacrament.

“Lily,” Mum said again, cutting through my fog. “Can you please get me his number?”

“No, we don’t need him,” I snapped. “Brynn’s not dying, Mum.”

My outburst caught her by surprise, and her eyes widened. But she came back with, “You don’t know that, and I want to make sure—”

“No! Don’t you dare say that!”

I was wild.

Livid.

I would not entertain the thought my sister was at death’s door.

Mum stared at me and then without another word, she turned and walked back inside. This conversation wasn’t finished, though. Not by a long shot. I stalked after her, ranting as I went. “Do not walk away from me when we’re in the middle of a conversation!”

She ignored me and continued moving towards her bedroom.

I followed. “Mum! Stop. We need to discuss this.”

Finally, she spun around to look at me. The agony lining her face killed me, quieting me long enough for her to get a word in. “Lily, shhh. You will wake the children.”

That was what she was worried about? I knew I should have thought about that, but the only thought in my mind was that I was nowhere near ready to give up on Brynn.

“Brynn isn’t going to die, Mum. You can’t call the priest. The doctor said they are weaning her off the ventilator. That has to be a good thing.”

Her beautiful face crumpled into the kind of sadness that tore at my heart. I hated watching her struggle for the past few days. No mother should have to go through this. “We don’t know what will happen when they do that. Brynn needs this.”

Pain cut straight through me as I allowed her words in.

I didn’t want to think about my sister not being around anymore. Not being my person.

I need a person.

And I don’t want anyone but Brynn.

I had never experienced pain like this. It was an ache that sat sharply and deeply in my body. It felt like a knife had sliced a line from my heart down to my toes. I wanted to cry every second of the day. I wanted my anguish to be ripped from me so I didn’t have to feel it ever again, because surely one jagged tear like that would never hurt as badly as this.