Inked Babies (Inked Brotherhood 6)

I’m bleeding. Can’t you see my fucking blood spreading on the bed? What else do you want? I’ve got nothing left.

“Zane, come on, man.” Asher. That’s Ash, talking to me. “Whatever it is you’re seeing, it isn’t real. You’re not bleeding. You’re safe with us.”

The dirty, bloodied sheets blur. A blue carpet spreads under my booted feet. I’m sitting on a sofa. The sheets, the blood, the carpet, they all twist into a dizzying spin.

“It’s been hours. Look at me, Z-man. Focus.” Ash sounds hoarse, as if he’s been talking for hours, too. “You’ve scared Dakota. Hell, you’re scaring me, too.”

Dakota. My heart gives a sudden, hard lurch.

“Where is she?” I blink, throwing out a hand to grab something solid, anything, to help me tell apart what is real from what’s not. “Dakota?”

A hand slides into mine, small and soft, and a sweet smell I know well, like honey and flowers, fills my senses. “I’m right here,” she says. “Look at me. Please, look at me.”

A soft touch to my face breaks up the image of the bloody sheets. I lift my gaze, and there she is. Beautiful. Unhurt. Her blue eyes are huge in her small face.

I scared her. I scared Ash.

Goddammit.

And I’m still not one hundred percent sure it’s over. The memory is fucking with my sense of time and place. I’m not there, but I’m not here either, not yet. Caught in between, I need a moment before I manage to tighten my fingers around Dakota’s hand, using it as my anchor.

Then someone looms over me and I flinch, hard.

But it’s Ash. I see his face. Read the exhaustion there.

“Okay, I’m leaving you guys. Have to go home now.” He pats my back and says gruffly, “So fucking glad you’re back with us.”

“Back from where?” I rasp, and why the fuck do I sound even worse than Ash, like I’ve been screaming my lungs out?

He doesn’t answer, only turns to go.

“It’s okay,” Dakota says, tugging on my hand. “Dylan will stay here tonight, just in case.”

In case of what? I frown, trying to pull the pieces together, but not even sure what the pieces are. “Where are we?”

“Home.”

A tremor goes through me. “The house. Kenneth Shaw’s house?”

“That was hours ago.”

I lost time. It shouldn’t scare me so much. It’s not the first time, after all. But I feel I’m missing more than that.

“What happened there? Something happened, something…” I grasp at the memory, but it won’t come.

“Breathe, Zane.” She strokes me cheek and it helps me calm down. “Everything is okay.”

But it’s not. Something’s wrong.

“The baby. Where’s our baby?”

“He’s asleep, there, in his crib.” She nods at the corner of the room and I rip myself from her side to check, needing to see. “Wait!”

I stagger, dizzy, grabbing onto the back of the couch to stop from falling. The room spins. But I have to see, dammit, make sure this is the truth. That our baby is real, that he’s here, that he’s fine.

“Whoa, man.” Dylan is suddenly there, grabbing my forearm, and I flinch again before I fully recognize him. “Take it easy.”

Dakota said… she said he’s staying here tonight. “Where did you come from?”