Page 189 of Carnal Wagers

The wooden legs of Brody’s chair screeched along the floor, and he smacked my knee. “About time. Finally. What took you so long?”

“Eejit,” I muttered, fighting through the fatigue striving to drag me back under. “You try having a heart attack.”

Liam coughed to hide his smirk. He was lucky I didn’t have the strength to waste on him right now.

I tried to sit up again despite the ache in my chest, sharp sting in my neck, and throbbing deadness in one hand to get a better look at the rest of the room and private en suite. Liam picked up a remote, and the bed whirred to life, slowly folding up at my waist.

“We’re just happy the devil spat you out,” he said.

“Trust me. The devil tried to prolong my stay.”

I ignored their mirrored looks of concern and peered around them for the face I really wanted to see. The vast hospital suite offered sweeping views of the city skyline through the large windows on one side and its living area on the other, but there was no head of perfectly tamed brunette curls anywhere in sight. No purse draped over the couch. None of those colorful, oversized scarves she liked to wrap herself in. No heels of any size. No purple-and-black laptop she used to check her work emails. There was no sign of her at all, except for a glimmer of light through an open door, which I could only assume was the bathroom.

“Is she over there?”

I pointed toward the door but cocked my head at the sight of my bandaged hand and unresponsive fingers. A light stain seeped through the gauze around the center of my palm. It took my mind a second to catch up to what I was seeing, and then the world froze. The beeping of the heart monitor faded. The quiet ringing in my ears suffocated Liam’s voice.

I was back there—when the searing heat of the branding woke me up, when Alizé’s weight blanketed over me, when Maeve’s face twisted into horror as her knife plunged down, and my fist caught the blade. I had caught it, hadn’t I? The memories fuzzed by, nothing clear, nothing concrete. Just blurred snaps in time. Muffled voices. Gunshots, sharp and piercing. My stomach seized in revulsion.

“Where is she?” I snapped.

“Who?” Liam said, his tone far too gentle for the rush of pain swarming my insides.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Brody stated. “So we know who you mean.”

“What the bleeding hell are you saying?” The implication of those words…I shook my head and threw the sheets off, my feet hitting the floor before I realized I’d moved. “Bring her to me. Now.”

Clips and wires fell off me from patches glued to my skin. The monitor droned a sharp flatline as the walls tilted and the floor drooped like mush beneath my legs.

“Whoa, Killy.” Liam caught me with a grunt and leaned me back against the edge of the mattress. “Get back in bed, bruh.”

I shoved him off and shook my head, but the room kept spinning. “I’ll find her myself.”

A stampede of footsteps hustled into the room in a flood of blue scrubs and a tangle of hurried words.

“Sir, Mr. O’Leary,” a woman in a doctor’s white coat scolded. White streaked her gray hair, pulled back in a severe bun, her lips pursed in disapproval. “You can’t be up and about right now.”

Hands locked around me, shoving and pulling. I scrambled around them and struck medical equipment and bedside furniture, knocking some to the ground.

“Where is she?”

Air crashed through my lungs in heavy pants, yet the world swerved and tilted. Faces went foggy. I clutched the back of an armchair with one hand and cradled the pain radiating from my chest with the other. My heart battered against my ribs, trying its hardest to beat its way straight out of me.

“Tell us who, sir,” another female voice said. The understanding in her tone was enough to steady my focus.

“My wife. Where is she?”

“She’s one of the two women who came in with him,” a third voice whispered.

“She’s here?”

A wave of dizziness seized what little strength I had left, clipping my hold over my limbs. As the floor rushed up to catch me, a multitude of arms stopped me short.

“Where?” I panted against them. “Tell me where.”

“Alizé De Villier,” the doctor stated over the clicking of a keyboard as people carried me back to bed. “Your wife just left a successful surgery, Mr. O’Leary, and has been moved to recovery.”

Surgery. My body slumped against the mattress, and my head thumped against the pillow. Successful. Alive. The words played on repeat, soothing the restlessness burning in my veins.