Millions (Dollar 5)

I needed to be free to gasp and gulp and rid myself of the pictures Q and Tess had put inside my mind.

“I-I’ll be right back.”

Tripping in my haste, I didn’t look where I was going.

I didn’t care I lied and had no intention of coming back.

I didn’t care I just proved everything they’d said was true.

I just flew.

Chapter Fifteen

______________________________

Elder

INFERTILE.

Broken.

You’re not the first who can no longer have children from what was done to them.

Mercer’s words flew sickly inside my skull.

Screw him.

Curse him.

What in the ever-loving fuck was he thinking?

I stood swaying in the foyer, frozen to the spot, scalding hot with fury.

Some might say my timing was perfectly orchestrated to hear the horror Pim had kept from me. Others would say it was cruel to listen and not give her the chance to tell me herself. I would say the only one at fault was that French fucking bastard who once again hurt the one creature I loved more than anything.

It wasn’t as if I’d planned this terrible circumstance.

It wasn’t as if I’d hobbled down the stairs, still faint from injury and woozy with weakness, just in time to see Pim break apart.

“Shit,” Selix muttered, crossing his arms beside me. “Want me to kill him?”

I bared my teeth. “If anyone is killing him, it’s me.” I didn’t care another fight would most likely put me in a coffin instead of a hospital.

He’d overstepped the line.

Again.

The past hour, I’d enlisted Selix’s help in climbing from a stale bed, removing boots and bandages, and showering away the filth Pim had missed in my sponge bath. I’d eaten the cold meal left on the bedside table, submitted to oral antibiotics in return for having the drip removed from my hand, and then grimaced my way through dressing in loose trousers and black t-shirt.

My temper hadn’t been the best when I’d woken and found Selix as my nurse instead of Pim. And it’d only grown worse the more pain and frustration I suffered as I prepared to leave this hellhole.

Hopping down the steps like a cripple had not been easy.

Seeing the foyer where I’d wanted to kill Q and failed wasn’t good on my self-control.

But this?

Hearing the very man I wanted to murder tell the love of my life that she couldn’t have children in such an arrogant, heartless way…yep, I wanted to fucking behead him.

Gritting my teeth, I took a pained step toward the lounge, ready to deliver another round of carnage. But a Pim-shaped bullet flew from the double doors, careened over the foyer tiles, and slammed directly into my chest.

“Fuck.” I grunted, cursing as my ankle bent in a way it shouldn’t, and her trajectory pounded my fractured ribs. Despite fresh agony, my arms instantly claimed her, wrapping tight, ruined shoulder and elbow clutching her close.

Her face tilted up, her lips slightly blue, her eyes totally wild, and I understood exactly where she was.

In the heart of panic. In the eye of an attack.

Fear for her overrode any discomfort I felt. “Come with me.” I wrapped my arm around her waist as she buried her face into my chest, gasping as her lungs made a desperate attempt for breath.

Shit.

“It’s okay, Pim. I’ve got you.” Half-hopping, half-stalking into the library opposite the lounge, I focused on getting her away from that asshole and breathing again.

Selix remained where he was, a buffer between me and Mercer.

Pim didn’t try to fight me, and the minute we were alone in the library, she darted from my embrace while I struggled to close the double doors with one hand.

As privacy and quietness fell around us, I spun to face her only to find her on the carpet by the cold fireplace. Her arms wrapped tight around her ribs, her mouth open, her gaze latched onto something I couldn’t see.

She rocked gently on her knees, her hair swinging around her shoulders. No noise, no tears, nothing to hint at the destruction of panic inside.

Goddammit, she’d been so brave and beautiful—tending to me, doing everything she could to ensure I was comfortable and cared for—and now, when she’d needed me, I hadn’t been there for her.

Shit, the guilt.

“I’m so sorry, Pim.”

She didn’t register, still locked in icy panic. Her vacancy to outer world things reminded me of me and what’d happened last night. I’d descended into an odd place during sex—a place I’d never visited and wasn’t sure if I loved or loathed. It’d robbed me of a few memories but given greater clarity to others. It’d twisted something I already enjoyed into something I was desperate to attempt again. I’d never been so present in one task. Never been so consumed by a single factor—even with my OCD.

It had been magic. But no matter the individualism of what’d happened, it didn’t stop me recalling just how incredible she’d been and just how much it broke me now to see her like this.