Revenge Hunter (The Rover 3)

Chapter Seven

Next time I died, Iwould do it somewhere warmer. The concrete under my legs sent a chill through me and I shook head to toe. Even my teeth chattered.

I popped an eye open to stare up at the cloudy sky. Little white puffs dotted the blue expanse here and there. Something in my chest tightened, and it wasn’t in my ribs.

Fin was before me with his sparkling eyes and the way he seemed to never care about his hair, and yet it did exactly what he wanted it to. Fin. I touched the bond between us again. It felt taut, a length of bubble gum threatening to snap at any moment. It vibrated as my vision dimmed.

Then warm hands cupped my cheeks and tilted my head back to lean into the brick.

“Zoey.”

I refused to cry in front of him, so I kept my lips together and my eyes on his clean-shaven chin.

A light slap on my cheek dragged my surroundings into focus.

“Zoey, look at me, please. Don’t make me use my power on you. I know you’re mad enough at me already.”

“Did you just slap me?” I asked, the words tilting and tumbling over one another.

He let out a shaking exhale and gently lifted me into his arms. Every step he took vibrated through me and sent pain arching along my ribs.

I whimpered and hated myself for it.

A warm heat built in my chest as he climbed into the back seat of the vehicle and lay me across his lap, supporting my upper body against his arm.

“Fin?”

How did he find me so quickly? I didn’t call for him, but I couldn’t say I didn’t want him there. Not if he’d save my life, yet again.

He tucked me into him tighter. “Stay awake for me, Zoey. I need to use my magic, when it returns, but you’re making it very difficult.”

I protested, but he shushed me. “No, save your energy. You took what you could from me to stay alive, but then I used everything else to reach you in time. We’ll be with the doctors soon.”

His voice reminded me of chocolate covered strawberries as it vibrated against my body through his chest. I wanted to lick his chin and see if he tasted that way too. So, I did.

I leaned up toward his face and gave his chin a long lick, loving the salty texture on my tongue.

He gave a strangled groan. “Not the time. Relax. Focus on breathing steady and shallow.”

Something else slipped in under the haze of lust washing over me. Heat. Fury-laced heat.

I tilted my head enough to survey the car. The Captain sat in the driver’s seat with a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. I almost smiled to see him.

“She’s happy to see you,” Fin told him.

I dragged my gaze back up to Fin’s face. “How did you know what I was thinking?”

The words again came out slurred together and hoarse.

He didn’t answer, only tightened his jaw and stared out the windshield. The anger still washed over me, and it warmed me from the inside out. If it would stop the tremors sweeping through me every so often, I didn’t care.

Then realization broke through my haze. The anger I felt came from Fin.

“Why are you so mad at me?” I whined, unable to keep things from just falling out of my face in my current condition.

“Because you’re fucking dying. Didn’t you realize that?”

A curl of blood dripped down the side of my mouth and Fin swiped at it with the sleeve of his jacket.

“I noticed, actually,” I choked out.

“Drive faster,” Fin yelled toward the front seat as he studied my face.

I shoved at his chest, but it was barely a pat of my hands against the solid wall of him. “Don’t.”

“Two days ago, you would have cut out his heart and ate it in front of him. Now you’re getting upset when I yell at him?”

Confusion broke through the anger beating down on me. It was cooler against my skin, like rubbing menthol on my chest when I had a flue.

“That feels good,” I murmured and closed my eyes.

Another slap dragged me back to the light again.

“Do that again and I’ll take your hand off,” I said.

“Prove it,” he hissed in my face. “You’re so big and bad, sit up and take this hand. Come on. Just keep your eyes open and I won’t call you on your shit again.”

“So many words,” I said instead of the fuck you, I tried to fish out of my brain and throw at him.

I blinked up from my vantage point below his chin. His hair had little strands of gold woven through it, little strips to break up the honey brown. They sparkled in the sunlight streaming in from the back windows. I reached out and rubbed a piece between my fingers to see if it felt as silky soft as it looked. Of course, it was. Like my favorite mink blanket I stole from Hawk years ago.

“Soft,” I whispered, which didn’t hurt as much. Finally, something I could manage to say out loud.

I tucked my hands up against his chest and shoved at him. The watch pressed between us and he glanced down to catch it before I dropped it on my hip.

His eyes grew more round as he surveyed the watch. “Where did you get this?”

I closed his fingers around it. “Protect it.”

His gaze shot to mine, and I stared back, waiting for him to agree. If I died, at the very least, I didn’t want Esteban to get his hands on the watch again. Not when I’d died to keep it from another thief. It obviously did something powerful. Something I’d hoped to figure out. If anyone could solve the mystery, Fin would.

A ragged cough escaped my chest, and I clutched at him again.

The Captain reached back and sat his fingers on my shoulder. The weight of his hand felt like it tipped me to the side so much I might topple off Fin’s lap. Warmth trickled through me. Not Fin’s raging fury but something softer, kinder, more annoyed perturbance.

I laughed, and both men glanced at me. When the Captain removed his hand, Fin pulled me back into his chest, resettling me there.

“I gave her what I could,” the Captain said. “I have to keep some back in case they track her to us once we get to the house.”

Fin hugged me tighter until I winced. Carefully, he released me, but only enough so he didn’t hurt me.

“I wish you were screaming at me right now,” he said, his voice rough. “I want to hear how many times you can fit the word fuck in one sentence. And you can yell at the Captain too. Just wake up, stay with us, and you can be as belligerent and unpleasant as you want.”

I coughed. “Such a gentleman.”

“We’re taking you back to my house. Why didn’t you touch our bond sooner?”

I blinked rapidly so that the heat that was building in my eyes didn’t spill over into something embarrassing like tears. “You don’t trust me.”

“Who the hell said I don’t trust you?”

“Magic,” was all that came out of the tirade building in my mind about my magical abilities and all the things he’d been keeping from me.

“Magic?” he whispered; his brow furrowed. “What about magic? No, don’t answer that. We can discuss it once you’re stabilized. Save your strength and stop fucking talking to me.”

“Stop asking questions then,” I grumbled, a little louder than I spoke before. It still hurt, but I managed it without spitting blood down my face again.

His lips tipped up in a small smile, part relief, part humor. The kiss rushed back to me, the way his mouth felt against mine, the taste of him on my tongue. As I thought about it, his face shifted to something else. Almost needy.

“Not now, Zoey,” he whispered so softly he barely made the sounds with those beautiful lips.

I tugged his face close to mine, intending to close the distance to make speaking easier, but staring into his eyes proved more of a distraction than I could handle.

“You’re pretty,” somehow popped out of my mouth and any blood not currently decorating my lungs rushed into my face.

Once he saved my life again, I would need to flee the country to get away from the shame and embarrassment.

“Settle down, love,” he said. “We’ll be there soon. Once you’re healed again, we’ll finish this conversation.”

An image of him cupping my neck and running his thumb under my chin to my bottom lip flashed in my mind. I gasped and blinked it away.

Did he really do that?  Or had he just put an image in my mind?

He met my eyes, a satisfied smile twisting his lips.

He had some explaining to do about this, especially since I’d repeatedly told him I didn’t want him in my head.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

With a long-suffering sigh, he hugged me close. “This is your fault. When you pulled on the bond as you were passing out, you threw your power at it. The reverberation of that magic hitting my mental walls and bouncing back against yours shredded them both. We are completely open to each other. At least until we can settle them back in place. But right now, you need to focus on healing. I promise to never speak a word of what I see or hear.”

I blinked and touched the bond. It felt taut, like it did earlier, but now bigger, closer, wider. As if we’d shortened the distance between us and only a few feet separated us now. I tried to crawl along its length, wanting to get a look inside this mysterious man’s head while I had the chance.

“I’m only allowing this since you’ll likely forget it once we get you on a gurney.”

Flashes, images, words—everything washed into my mind, rushing in and out like a montage. So many of them were of me, lying on the concrete outside Echo’s shop. Another flew by, which showed the watch he still held in his hand. Even more pieces were emotionally charged.

How he felt to find me dying.

How he felt to be holding me in his arms without my cursing at him.

How he felt when I wanted to see what he thought.

I pulled back to give us enough space and him whatever privacy I could. Not one single image showed his lack of trust. Almost all of them showed something else, something even stranger. Something almost like love.

That was impossible. Fae princes did not fall in love with mixed-breed bounty hunters who couldn’t even control their magic.

He touched my cheek, dragging my attention back to his face. He said nothing, but then, he didn’t need to, not when I could feel how he was feeling. A relief so tangible it forced a sigh from me.

Sensing I’d had enough emotional bombardment, Fin held up the watch. “Will you tell me about this? What happened at the store? I caught a bit from your memory when I picked you up, but I tried to be careful since I know you’re still angry at me for crossing your boundaries.”

His description made it seem like he’d mixed my colors and my whites in the washing machine. I blinked and touched his face, shoving the memories of him forcing me to stay against my will into his head.

When the image ran out, he blinked down at me. A sheen of tears rimmed his eyes causing the blue glow to intensify.

“We’ll talk about that too when you’re stabilized.”

“Not so bad,” I whispered, but then another bloody cough ripped through me.

“I won’t make you tell me about it now, but hopefully you can tell me about it later. It’s a powerful artifact, and it should be kept somewhere safe. Especially if you snagged it where I think you did.”

The Captain said something from the front seat which I didn’t catch in my mooning over Fin.

Damn.

Would South America be far enough, or maybe Australia? At least I wouldn’t have to learn another language in my exile of shame.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he whispered into my hair, and shifted me again in his embrace.

The car skidded to a stop, and the Captain hopped out, the SUV rocking from his exit. He ripped open Fin’s door and scooped me out of Fin’s arms.

The chill set back in, making my knees shake as the Captain sprinted with me toward the front door of Fin’s house.

I watched the Captain’s chin and sighed.

He glanced down and said, “If you lick me, I’ll never let you live it down. I’ll remind you about it every single day until you, or I, die.”

I laughed and coughed at the same time. Once we reached the inside of Fin’s mansion, he settled me on a waiting gurney with a stone-faced nurse standing by to push me away. I tried to sit up so I could see him, or Fin, but several hands pressed me down into the white sheets.

A needle cut into my arm, and another cold chill washed over me.

“Cold.”

The nurse patted my shoulder. “I know, honey, it’s just the IV fluids. Relax, once we get you into the operating room, we’ll make sure you stay warm.”

Since when did Fin have his own operating room? Or medical team this large? Maybe the Captain’s injury had facilitated it. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have the money to keep an entire hospital staff stocked in his mansion.

I watched the gilded ceiling shift to more practical white sheetrock until they pushed me into a brightly lit room. Once the gurney stopped, several pairs of hands worked to cut off my clothing.

I groaned. “I like this leather jacket.”

Someone chuckled from outside my vision, which was consumed by the bright overhead spotlight above my face. When I was left naked and chattering, they covered me with a hospital gown and did some magic with the IV fluids.

“It’ll warm up in a moment,” the nurse said again, this time closer to my ear.

The fluids were making their way through my system. I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes anymore. Even the ache in my chest had eased, but I didn’t dare draw a full breath.

“Settle back,” the nurse said. “We need to get this tube in you once you fall asleep. Don’t worry. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Her round, kind face lulled me off. I grasped onto the bond between me and Fin at the last second, but then it slipped out of my hands and I fell back into the dark. Alone.