Page 113 of Savage Surrender

“Did you see any of them leave the water?” Weller asks, his voice tight and angry.

“No.”

He pulls out his phone when he has service again and calls Owen.

“We have her,” he says. His voice is calm enough that someone who doesn’t know him might believe it. His hand hasn’t left Bianca once. “She’s okay.”

He ends the call before Owen can ask anything else, and it immediately starts ringing again.

Bianca’s fingers twitch against my chest as we climb the boardwalk. I bend my head until my mouth is against her wet hair, and keep counting each breath all the way home.

24

BIANCA

In my dream, I’m warm.

My cheek rests on hot skin. A heartbeat knocks beneath my ear, and a heavy arm lies across my middle, holding me against another body curled along my back. Soft blankets cover us. They’re tucked around my feet and pulled up to my chin, full of teakwood and burnt amber and the softer traces of cedar and blackcurrant.

I breathe it in because my body wants more.

Weller’s hand moves over my hair, his fingers working carefully through the knots. Teakwood, warm skin beneath my cheek, the fine drag of hair under my palm when I spread my hand across his side.

“Hey,” he murmurs.

Tristan is fitted along my back, his legs tangled with mine and one hand spread over my stomach.

Weller is staring at me, his face close to mine, his hair dried crooked over his forehead. There’s a scratch along his throat and a grain of sand stuck near his collarbone. His hand stays cradled around the back of my head.

I look at his mouth because it’s easier than his eyes.

“Hi,” I whisper. “Did you get sand in my nest?” My voice is strained and scratchy.

His lips press together before he bends and kisses the corner of my forehead, barely touching me.

A phone lights up in the dark room, and my brother’s voice comes through it. “Is she awake?”

“No,” I say.

Clara laughs softly in the background.

“Good enough,” Winston says. “Keep watching her breathing, and call me if she gets harder to wake. Go back to sleep, B.”

The call ends, and Tristan’s face pushes into the back of my neck. I kick one foot free from the blankets, immediately hate the cool air, and hook my heel around his calf.

He pulls the blanket back over all of us.

That’s much better.

I push closer to Weller until my nose brushes his chest and drag Tristan’s arm tighter around my waist. I can feel nothing but skin all around me.

I’m so tired my bones feel loose inside me.

Cedar and blackcurrant linger in the blankets, but not fresh.

“Owen? Freddie?”

“They’ll be here soon,” Weller says as Tristan’s fingers fold between mine.