Then, gentle as a whisper, his hold turned into a cradle.
Soft as a summer breeze, he pressed the side of his jaw to the back of Bat’s head and rucked his huge body back against him in an iron-clad hug.
The tenderness deflated him like a balloon, his tattooed limbs melting into the hold. He blinked blindly down at the floor as he rasped out, “Tell me this is just another nightmare.”
“Can’t do that, man,” Dane said gruffly, tears in his own eyes, one already swelling from a well-landed punch. “There’s no waking up from this.”
Bat’s entire face contorted, but he didn’t cry. It seemed almost that he couldn’t. But his eyes were red-rimmed, too dry in their sockets and his breath hiccoughed through his lungs.
“Bat brother,” Zeus said finally, moving forward to crouch before him. “I’m gonna take you home to your boys, yeah? We’ll tell ’em together.”
Bat’s dark eyes closed, pain suffused in every inch of him. He nodded on a shuddering inhale.
Z and Dane took him home to tell his sons they lost their mother.
I cried harder.
I also prayed.
I prayed to my god, not the God this madman hid behind.
I prayed to the deity who had been my best friend as a girl, to the God my Grandpa introduced me to and loved so fully.
I prayed to Him that this madness would stop. I prayed to him with every ounce of my soul for the power to do something to stop the horror.
I apologized too, so deeply, ripping the regret from my heart with claws so my entire heart felt shredded. I apologized for whatever sins I had committed that brought this down on our heads.
I threw up again when he didn’t answer, in Cressida’s purse because I couldn’t make it to the bathroom, and she held it open for me.
“Don’t worry, honey,” she said sweetly when I tried to tell her I was sorry. “With a baby, I’m used to it. I am worried about you, though. You can’t possibly take this on, my darling girl. You aren’t Atlas. This is too big a load for you to carry.”
“It’s me,” I told her, the words scraping painfully up my tear-savaged throat. “It’s me he wants, and he did this for me or to me or because of me. I don’t know which, but it comes down to me.”
I thought of Cleo again, her sweet face breaking open with laughter as we danced in my kitchen on one of our sleepovers, as she braided my hair, as I did her makeup because she always screwed it up. I thought of all the years of our friendship and wondered how she would ever forgive me.
If she would even get the chance to stay alive and try.
“Beatrice.”
I looked up through blurry eyes to notice that Seth had come out to give us an update on Cleo. Axe-Man was standing near him, every inch of his six-foot-four frame made small with his sorrow.
“News?” I whispered.
Seth’s handsome face was pale as he took in the sight of me curled up in my chair. He moved forward and squatted beside Harleigh Rose so we could be at eye level. His were clear and calm. He was in doctor mode, focused on saving a life.
“I’m hesitant to make promises, but it’s looking good. We managed to stop the bleeding and repair most of the damage to her major organs. Now it’s a matter of her will to survive the night,” he said softly, repeating the information just for me. “I’m truly sorry, Bea.”
My smile was a mangled thing on my face. “Thanks, Seth. I feel better knowing you’re in there looking after her.”
“I’m doing my best for you,” he joked, but it fell flat between us because he wasn’t particularly funny, and I wasn’t capable of laughter.
“I’m praying,” I admitted, staring down at my hands.
“Good,” he said, patting my hands. “Only God can help her now.”
There was a clamour at the automatic doors. I turned just in time to see Priest, Lion, Kodiak, and Wrath power down the hall, faces set in grim unison.
Priest’s eyes were already on me, instantly finding me like a compass pointing true north. They swept up and down, cataloguing every single thing about me in that brief survey. His mouth tightened.
Then he noticed Seth in his scrubs bent beside me, and his entire face transformed with untamed viciousness.
“Think I told you last time I saw your ugly fuckin’ mug that if you put a hand on my woman I’d slit your fuckin’ throat,” he said, the words so arctic I could almost see a chill in the air.
Seth cocked his head as he regarded my psycho, assessing the threat level maybe, or more likely, because Seth was a cocky man used to getting his own way, just lingering at my side to bug the hell out of Priest.