Caught in the Crossfire by Nichole Severn

Author:Nichole Severn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-06-10T18:24:14+00:00

Chapter Nine

She was going to die.

“No!” Kate shoved herself up to sit. The sudden brightness of overhead lights and incessant beeping of machinery forced panic—greedy and dark—up her still raw throat before familiar blue eyes filled her vision.

“I’ve got you, angel.” Declan’s voice triggered an automatic chain reaction within her body, urging her to relax, to trust, but the nightmare had been so real. No. Not a nightmare. A memory.

Calluses caught on her skin as he smoothed his hand down the only part of her that didn’t ache. “You’re safe.”

“Declan.” She hurt. The beeping wouldn’t stop. She blinked to clear her head. She wasn’t in the pit anymore. Broken pieces of memory clicked into place the longer his touch anchored her to the present, and she slipped back against the pillows of the hospital bed with his help. Her heart pounded hard behind her rib cage. “How long have I been unconscious?”

He traced the veins in the back of her hand with the pad of this thumb. A bit more color had returned to his skin, but the bruising across his face and hands stood stark against white hospital sheets. It’d been a miracle the damage hadn’t been worse. Left for dead in a snare trap, stitches torn open during the fight with the man who’d shot her, but the small butterfly bandages said he’d at least seen a doctor while she’d been under anesthesia. “You got out of surgery a few hours ago. The surgeon was able to repair the damage in your shoulder, but you’ll be in a sling for a few weeks.”

A few hours of her life. Gone. She’d already lost so many after the surgery to remove the bullets the first time around.

Kate studied him at her bedside. He was alive. After what happened—after accepting the reality she’d never see him again—he was alive. She wasn’t going to waste any more time. The brightness wouldn’t lessen, but focusing on him helped the throbbing in her head.

Declan hated hospitals. Had he been by her side the entire time? “You don’t have to stay here. I know how uncomfortable hospitals make you.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I almost lost you, and it was worse than any trauma I’ve ever endured,” he said.

Pressure released in her chest.

Pulling the back of her hand to his mouth, he planted a kiss on the thin, oversensitive skin. Stubble prickled against her hand, but it was the guilt in his gaze that hollowed her from the inside out. “I never should’ve lost track of you when you went after Michaels. I—”

“Don’t.” Kate moved her fingers to his mouth. He had no reason to apologize. Flashes of those terrifying seconds when she wasn’t sure he’d live or die as the Hunter closed in sprinted into reality. She tried shoving it into the tiny box she’d created to survive over the last year at the back of her mind, but there were still so many unanswered questions.

Desperation burned through her. They’d almost died out there. She’d almost lost him—again—and she couldn’t stand to not be touching him for another moment.

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