I Will Revel in Glory

by Stunich, C. M.

  “Snipers, huh?” Beast asks, musing about that for a minute. “Not unexpected. I can still get her there alright.”

  “Your call,” Grey agrees politely, glancing back at me with his dirty blond hair falling over his heather gray eyes. Looking at him now, I’m actually relieved that we didn’t fall in love. It wouldn’t have worked out. He looks as much an outcast here as I did back at the mafia palace. We might be the same person, but we’re dressed in different sins.

  Mine are rough and gritty, and sure, a little ratchet; Grey’s are crafted of cobra venom and silk soaked in embalming fluid. Both things will kill you, but it hurts a little different.

  He wouldn’t have been able to fit in here, especially not with my men.

  Not in a million years.

  And since choosing between Grey and the others is a relatively simple choice, I know that I made the right decision that day, when I stayed in the cathedral and wielded an Uzi on the guests of my own wedding.

  “All I’m saying is: be careful,” he warns me again, giving me an assessing once-over that ends with a sharp shake of his head. “Go. I’ll stay hidden.”

  “If anyone shows up while we’re gone, get in the chimney,” Beast commands, giving Reba a different sort of look. “You sit nice and pretty on the couch. Maybe offer ‘em up some sweet tea or somethin’.”

  “Are you being serious right now?” Reba asks, frowning at him as Beast draws me back into the room and closes the door. He moves over to a dresser and extracts a long-sleeved pullover sweatshirt. It’s big enough to be a dress on me, but I think that’s the point.

  “You’re going to draw a lot of attention at the hospital,” he tells me, looking me over and sliding a hand down his face. “Young and pretty and …” Beast trails off with a sigh as I cock a brow at him. “All beat-up like that.”

  That’s not what he originally intended to say, and we both know it.

  “Young and pretty and … what?” I ask, feeling my entire body go ice-cold.

  No.

  Not today. Please don’t dump this on me today.

  Beast realizes his mistake quickly and tosses me the sweater.

  “I really hate to ask this on the first day of our marriage,” he starts, his jaw tense as he reaches up and rubs a thumb across the swollen seam of my lips. “But how well can you put on makeup?”

  I laugh this time. It’s a hysterical laugh. I can’t help it.

  “Right. I’ll just … cover up my bruises with makeup.” I hold the oversized sweater against my chest. I’m wearing clean clothes now; Beast must’ve undressed, washed, and redressed me earlier. I just need a bra, some leggings, and my toiletries. My shirt and panties are fresh. “I need to use Crown’s bathroom.”

  Beast nods and opens the door, escorting me out and upstairs.

  And then off to the hospital we go.

  Me, young and pretty and … married to a much older outlaw, covered in bruises with a swollen face that no amount of concealer can hide. Fuck. I’m a walking, talking liability to the club right now.

  But regardless of what it looks like, I know this: the man who hit me is as dead as he deserves, and I am no innocent little girl.

  I am, and always will be, a wary predator.

  Unsurprisingly, all eyes turn to me as soon as I step foot into that hospital. A nurse agrees to take me back to see Sin if only I’ll head inside a closed exam room for a moment, just to see if that swelling around my eye isn’t something to be worried about.

  I allow her to examine it, even as I grit my teeth against the irony of the situation. There are so many domestic abuse victims who need this sort of help, but I am most definitely not nor will ever be one of them. If one of my boys hits me, I’ll cut his balls off in his sleep with my own two hands.

  Then I’ll leave him. Permanently.

  So anyway, the help offered I empathize with, but I most definitely do not need. After agreeing to at least look at a few carefully selected pamphlets on domestic violence, I pass them back to the nurse and stare her dead in the eye.

  “Now, you promised me,” I remind her, and she reluctantly escorts me—and not Beast—to a hospital room where Sin lies comatose, a bandage on the side of his neck and little tubes connected to his arms. I bite my lower lip. Fuck. His skin is so pale, and he’s more comatose than I’ve ever seen him.

  This look … it’s different than simple sleep.

  “Let me in there,” I command without bothering to look over at the nurse. She gives me another sad, sympathetic sort of expression and gives a slight shake of her head.

  “You’re not family, and he isn’t in a state to accept visitors.” The woman puts a hand on my arm, and I can see that she’s already desperate to get away from me. More aptly, she’s probably grossly overworked and freakishly underpaid which is why nurses deserve mad props and a fucking raise.

  I sure as shit know that I don’t have the emotional capacity to deal with human beings each and every day at a job. I’d be more like one of those serial killer nurses who murder their patients.

  “Is he … okay?” I ask, putting my fingers up on the glass, knowing that I’m wasting this woman’s time but finding it hard to care about that in the moment. You’ve survived the worst pain there is more than once. If something goes bad with this, you’ll live. You’ll be okay.

  But somehow, this seems different.

  I’m not entirely sure I would survive this.

  When my sisters died, I was able to offload some of that burden onto Sin’s shoulders. I felt it that day in the cemetery, with ash and rain swirling all around us while we kissed in the most inappropriate way possible. He might’ve been a dick to me. Might’ve kept being a dick to me. But he was hurting, and I was able to commiserate with him.

  If he dies now, it’ll be like witnessing three deaths all at once. Him, Queenie, Posey. A recurring nightmare that I just can’t seem to wake up from.

  “I can’t answer that, I’m sorry.” The woman removes her hand from my arm and steps back. “The other gentleman you requested to see is actually on his way to surgery …”

  A sound rings out, and voices echo on the loudspeaker.

  A code is called, and my blood chills. My eyes go wide as the nurse gestures back in the direction of the waiting area.

  “I need you to go back and sit down. Can you do that for me?” And then she gives me a sharp look, like she knows I should be escorted back to the waiting room but maybe also that she’s the only person on the floor who can attend to the code being called over the PA system.

  The nurse reluctantly moves away and then starts jogging. I hesitate briefly before following after, my own walk turning into a run that takes me down the hall, to the right, and down another hall. I follow the nurse through a set of swinging doors and find myself in a room filled with low chatter and rhythmic beeps.

  This is a resuscitation room.

  My eyes drift down to the patient’s face.

  It’s Grainger.

  It’s … always Cade motherfucking Grainger, isn’t it?

  I just stare at him, frozen there in the doorway, watching as the team inserts an IV. Everyone in here looks quietly frantic to me. And that’s terrifying.

  “Raelynn Grainger?” a voice asks, and I blink as I turn my head to the side, as if there’s a physical force keeping my gaze locked on Cade’s face. Did she just … did she say Raelynn Grainger?

  Who the fuck is that?

  He doesn’t … I wonder briefly if he has like, a fucking wife or something, but then I realize in that moment that I really don’t give a fuck either way. He can’t die. He cannot fucking die. That’s … it’s impossible.

  What is life without Cade motherfucking, cocksucking Grainger? He’s the most annoying and arguably the most attractive man on the planet. I … can’t stand him. I …

  I clamp a hand over my mouth, cringing slightly at the pain in my face but not caring.

  I’m finally crying again, as freely as I used to before my sisters
died, as if I still have tears actually left to shed. That’s what love does. It fills your heart up with saltwater; it lets you tip right over and drown yourself in stormy seas.

  I’m in love with Grainger, and he’s dying?

  He isn’t allowed to die.

  “I’m the hospital’s family liaison worker.” The woman pauses beside me, but then frowns heavily. “You’re not Raelynn Grainger,” she says, as if she could somehow know that.

  “Yes, I am,” I say, realizing that nobody’s kicked me out of the room yet. That must mean if I’m Raelynn, I get to stay, right? “I am.”

  “I highly doubt that,” she corrects gently, as if she thinks I might be confused as opposed to simply being a liar. I take a step forward and the woman looks as if she’s going to reach out to stop me. “Are you … his girlfriend, perhaps?” The woman looks down and frowns at the ring on my finger. “Married?” She checks her paperwork.

  “We just got married today,” I whisper, rubbing my finger across the surface of the ring.

  The woman looks alarmed and not entirely like she believes me, but she makes a split-second decision when she notices the team working on chest compressions.

  I should be panicking.

  Instead, I’m completely numb. That dizziness from earlier overtakes me, but I refuse to let it affect me. Not right now. I can collapse later if … if things go differently than I want them to.

  “If you’d like to stand beside him and hold his hand, that’s okay. We’ll work around you.” The liaison puts her hands on my shoulders and guides me forward. “You’re the only person in the room that he might respond to.”

  I get the feeling that her words are meaningless platitudes, worth as much as dandelion fluff in the wind. But I don’t care. I read an article that listed the pros and cons of FPDR—family presence during resuscitation—and while it was something I had to read for school, it stuck with me.

  I see why.

  Because I’m in here, and I think I’d die if I had to stand in the hallway.

  My fingers curl around Grainger’s right hand as I do my best to stay out of the way. Tears are freely rolling down my face and probably ruining the careful makeup job that I cooked up, but it doesn’t matter. It’s in those moments, those very last few when you know they’re the very last few, that the entire world becomes perfectly clear.

  Nothing has ever been simpler or made more sense.

  Each moment is special; each second matters.

  I squeeze Grainger’s hand, lifting it up to my mouth for a kiss.

  “I’m here,” I promise him, because I don’t think that—whoever Raelynn Grainger is—she’s coming. I’ve never heard Cade talk about his family in any way, shape, or form. Of all four men, I probably know the least about him. There’s no distant mention of a beloved aunt and a career in law enforcement like there is with Crown. No talk of a sister and a horrible father, a vengeance and a decimation of innocence like there is with Sin. And there’s certainly no championship belt with which to make rings out of the way there is with Beast.

  It’s just … Grainger.

  He doesn’t have anybody.

  Just the club.

  Just me.

  My tears fall fat and hot on the surface of his hand as the team works—as promised—around me, and I look down at that man’s beautiful face. I crouch low beside him, so that I can put my lips near his ear.

  “Please don’t die on me,” I whisper at him, my voice far stronger than I expected. “You are not allowed to get me pregnant and then die; that’s fucked-up.”

  I choke on the words—I don’t even know if they’re true—but if anything is likely to rouse the man I love, it’s the idea of this. Some distant, weird, fucked-up dream of a family. And I don’t just mean because a kid could be involved. Not at all. I’m talking about myself. About Beast and Sin and Crown. About Fem-fem. About Reba. About learning to let Nellie in just enough that I can appreciate her accomplishments and not so much that when she stumbles, she can drag me down with her.

  All of those things.

  “You can do this, Cade,” I whisper, brushing a kiss against the side of his stubbled cheek. “I love you, and you’ve got this.” I move back, but I don’t retract my hand from his. I won’t, unless they need me to in order to save Cade’s life.

  I will never fucking let go—physically or metaphorically.

  Beast catches me when I stumble out of the trauma room. Pretty sure he isn’t allowed to be back here either, but that’s okay. I can no longer stand on my own; I’m sweating, and the dizziness isn’t going away. Maybe I do need to get a proper examination? We have a doctor on the compound though; he has own clinic with a staff and a decent amount of equipment for such a small, exclusive practice.

  But that should be enough.

  It needs to be because I’m running out of energy.

  “Sugar?” Beast queries quietly, his voice tight with concern. Grainger might not have a hold on Beast’s heartstrings the way he does mine, but these men are as good as brothers. They trust each other implicitly. More importantly, they trust each other with me. That’s how I know for sure that this could work, as possessive as each and every one of them can be sometimes.

  It takes me a moment to catch my breath because that was intense in there. It was the most unnerving thing I’ve ever seen in my life, someone I love resting on a wire, mired in a strange reality between life and death. When Queenie was shot, it was over in an instant. There was no wondering or hoping or waiting; it was just a fact. By the time I got to Posey, the result was the same.

  She was gone.

  Grainger … is not.

  “He’s still here,” I breathe out, my knees weak. Beast helps me into a chair and cushions my head on his jacket when I lean it back against the chair. “He’s alive.”

  The words taste sweet but uncertain. Granger is stabilized. But he was stabilized earlier in the day and crashed quickly. Based on what they said to me, it seems like his medical team’s located the cause, but I don’t speak hospital, so I don’t know other than to say he’s okay for right now.

  “How’s Sin?” I whisper, because I’m not sure if I have the energy left to stand up and look for myself. If he’s stable, I’m not moving. If he’s not … I wait for Beast to reply, keeping my eyes closed.

  “Same as when you went in. No change.” Beast takes a seat and pulls me into his lap. It’s a weird position for me to be in, for sure. Like, we barely fucking spoke to each other before. Even that day we had sex for the first time, I knew little to nothing about him. We were strangers.

  I think, in many ways, we still are.

  But I know this: I like sitting here with him.

  “I can’t believe we got married today,” I murmur as he tucks me under his chin and grunts.

  “That we did. And believe me, darlin’, I’m going to show you the way a man should treat his wife.” He strokes my hair with his right hand, the same hand that’s put so many people to death, buried them in Gram’s backyard, washed away so much blood. “Now go to sleep. I’ll wake you up if they need you.”

  I don’t mean to listen to him; I really don’t.

  When I wake the next time, I find myself faced with the same nurse from before. She looks annoyed with me. Maybe because I told that liaison worker that I was Grainger’s wife and here I am sitting in another man’s lap.

  That’s the only part of this possibility, of these four men, that I don’t like, that there might not be a way to get others to recognize that I belong at Grainger’s bedside the same way I do at Sin’s or Beast’s or Crown’s.

  I sit up as the woman stares down at me with such a confused expression on her face that I’d love to give a penny for her thoughts. She must know by now who we are. I wonder if she also knows that Cat will pay off whoever he has to in order to keep this quiet. Nobody needs to know that some of his people showed up here today, that anything at all went down on the compound.

  This will be buried, just like any
thing else.

  “Would you like to see your … friend?” she asks me, studying my swollen face with a well-earned cynicism that I cannot, in any way, fault her for. I force myself up to a standing position with Beast’s hand on my arm. I sway a little, but when he releases me, I’m standing and I feel a bit better already. That’s a good sign, right?

  My friend, she said. Only, she can’t possibly know that Colton Young is so much more than that. He’s a part of me, an integral part. He’s a piece of my past, a majority of my present, and a hopeful beacon for my future.

  So yeah.

  I would like to see my goddamn friend.

  My lover.

  My … soul mate? Are damned souls even allowed to feel that way? Are they allowed to feel that way about more than one person?

  Implicitly, I know that the answer is yes.

  It is because I do.

  In this hospital—arguably a place that the hot, fragrant tea of the underworld has seeped into even more thoroughly than at Gram’s house—it’s easy to see that. Hubris and hurt feelings and semantics don’t matter very much here.

  “I would,” I tell her, meeting her gaze dead-on and hoping like hell she doesn’t start calling a bunch of agencies over my well-being. I would bet my left tit that Cat has already paid off the cops more than once today. But I don’t need to be dealing with anything else.

  The woman turns and guides me back to Sin’s room.

  He’s awake. Thank fuck. I almost collapse against the wall in relief, but the need to go to him … it’s too insistent to ignore. It gives me strength when I have none left.

  Sin lifts his eyes up toward me and they soften just enough that I can hear a million unsaid things passing between us. This is an affliction, his gaze says. This love is a wound that I never want to heal. There’s relief there, an almost overwhelming surge of it. He was willing to die to save my life, but it’s so much sweeter that we’re both here to be reunited.

  While his eyes remain gentle and inviting, the rest of him goes taut and rigid at the sight of my swollen face. I practically stumble in my haste to get over to him, and then I’m climbing on the hospital bed despite the nurse’s protests and pressing our mouths together in this brilliant surge of emotion and heat.