Blood Vows

by Cara Carnes

  Translation: Kamren had saved her life by not hesitating.

  “Recovery?” Rhea asked.

  Dallas’s mom held her hands to her mouth. Eyes wide and tear-filled, she looked up at Brant as he looked down.

  “She won’t be singing in the choir anytime soon, and there’ll be a scar.”

  “Thinking little sis can accept that,” Jesse said.

  “Thinking so,” Nolan agreed. “I’ll phone Marshall, let him and the folks back at The Arsenal know.”

  “She’s asked to see you,” Brant said, his gaze on Kamren; then slid up to Dallas. “And you.”

  Kamren glanced at Dallas’s mom. Pale, she whispered. “I won’t be long, Mrs. Mason, then you can go back and sit with her.”

  Dallas held onto his woman as she rocked back into him. She expended a relieved breath as everyone returned to the waiting area. No one would be leaving anytime soon. A Mason was laid low. Nomad Memorial was lucky the entirety of Resino hadn’t converged in the small facility. That’d likely happen in a few hours, once word had spread. They’d need to double security at The Arsenal to handle well-meaning folk dropping off even more casseroles and healing wishes.

  “And Rache?” A tremble ran through Kamren, her voice so soft he’d barely heard.

  Brant froze his half-turn. Shock rippled through his expression. Along with regret. “She’ll recover, though it’s still touch and go on whether she’ll keep the hand. She was stabilized about an hour ago. She’s being transferred to a psychiatric unit in San Antonio where a specialist will determine next steps for her injury. Doctor Sinclair’s already been in touch with the chief psychiatrist there. He’s one of the best in the state.”

  “Good.” Kamren nodded, burrowed deeper against Dallas, and squeezed his arm, as if asking him to continue voicing the inquiry stuck in her throat.

  And he did. He knew his woman needed to know the full extent of her sister’s situation, good or bad. Right or wrong, she’d done what was needed and had ended so much. “Should we try and see her?”

  We. He emphasized the word, letting Kamren know she wouldn’t be alone in this or any of the rest to follow.

  “She’s sedated,” Brant said gently. His gaze moved to the cluster of women behind Dallas. They hadn’t left Kamren’s side. She was one of them now, had been since she’d exploded the car outside their compound. “Work it out through Doctor Sinclair. Once she’s settled and medicated, then yeah. It’d be good for her to see you.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’ll just go see Riley quick like. Then Momma Mason can go back.”

  Kamren trundled past Brant. Dallas followed.

  “Kamren.” The doctor’s voice boomed within the narrow hallway.

  Dallas tensed when Kamren turned. Everyone in the area did, as if poised to strike the man down if he said anything about the decision she’d made, a hard one that he wasn’t sure he could’ve done.

  “I owe you far more than just an apology,” Brant admitted. “But that’s all I’ve got to offer tonight.”

  Kamren nodded.

  “Wasn’t there, but seeing Riley’s wounds, the depth and severity…” Brant’s jaw twitched. Emotion clotted his voice. “You made the right call. The injury is severe, permanent loss of mobility in her hand assuming she can keep it, but anything less and…”

  Rachelle could’ve killed Riley.

  Riley looked so pale and fragile within the bed. Thick gauze coiled around her throat like an unwanted rattler. Tubes and needles protruded from her. Monitors beeped and flashed on both sides of the bed. A nurse flitted in and out, carrying bedding for the large sleeper-style chair they’d rolled in when Dallas and his brothers informed them their mother would be staying with Riley overnight.

  The nurses had frowned but had wisely remained silent and moved into action. They must have sensed the intensity within the Mason men, or their reputation was known even in Nomad. Either way, Momma Mason was set for the night, though Kamren suspected she wouldn’t be the only one remaining at the hospital.

  Riley’s eyes opened, eyes so blue like Dallas’s that Kamren nearly collapsed beside the bed. She’d almost died tonight. Tears streamed down Kamren’s face unchecked. She’d tried hard to keep a firm grip on her emotions, but seeing the damage…it was too much. Dallas stood at her back, gripping her shoulders as she sat in the chair beside the bed.

  “Thank you,” the woman mouthed.

  Kamren nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault. We all failed her.” Riley squeezed her hand. “Gonna need you translating for a while.”

  Kamren chuckled. “I’m thinking your brothers are gonna have a bit of fun with that.”

  “Probably,” Dallas admitted. “Ma’s set to spend the night. Nolan and Cord are staying, too. Marshall’s on his way back.”

  “I’m fine.” Riley’s gaze shifted to Kamren. “Thanks to you. Besides, I have street cred now, right?”

  “What’d she say?” Dallas asked.

  “She asked if she has street cred now.”

  “No, but you just earned yourself a few more self-defense classes with me and Jud. Advanced takedown techniques. I’ve treated you with kid gloves, hadn’t taken the threat potential seriously because Jud is your partner. We all see the error of that decision now, sis.”

  “I’ll be ready.” Her eyes drifted shut.

  “She needs to rest,” the nurse chided.

  Kamren rose, looked at Dallas’s sister one more time, then followed her man out of the room.

  “Come on, let’s get you home.”

  Kamren exited the hospital room but halted in the middle of the hallway when her gaze landed on Cliff. His eyes were bloodshot, his face was red. Hair wild and clothes wrinkled and dirty, he looked at her with the same lost, desperate expression from the night their dad had killed their mom.

  She hadn’t seen life in his eyes since that night and would gladly rewind time to erase what all had happened to never see that much pain in his expression again. She closed the distance and wrapped her arms around her brother, who remained tense within the embrace. “I didn’t have a choice. She was going to kill Riley.”

  “This is all my fault. I should’ve handled her a long time ago. I didn’t want to hear what you were saying, sis, didn’t want to admit we’d failed her. Didn’t want to see she’d gotten more of Mom’s crazy than I wanted to admit. She was my little sister. I was supposed to keep her safe.”

  “She’s alive, Cliff. She’s gonna get the help she needs.” Kamren desperately needed to believe the words she offered her brother. “The best thing we can do for her is to move forward, find our new normal and live. We aren’t abandoning her. She’s family.”

  “The shit she did out at the farm? She killed Wayne.” Cliff’s ravaged voice trembled. “She’s not ever getting better, Kam. Not ever.”

  Kamren’s heart ached as she silently accepted the truth within her brother’s words. In many ways she wasn’t ready to accept what a part of her had known all along. “We can’t help someone who isn’t ready to accept it.”

  “I didn’t want to believe you,” Cliff said. Gaze averted, he sighed heavily and ran a hand across his face. “I didn’t want to accept that Dad was murdered because a part of me always suspected she was somehow responsible. Looking back, I remember the way she was after, when you weren’t around. Happy, downright gleeful. He was a son of a bitch, but he tried to keep us safe.”

  “We couldn’t have known it was her,” Kamren whispered. She hugged her brother again. “We’ve gotta move past this, Cliff. You and me, we’ve gotta move past this.”

  “Not sure I’ve got it in me,” he admitted. “I think I’m gonna head out for a few days, think some things through. I fucked up big time, sis. I’ve wasted my life away a long time, let you carry the load while I numbed myself with too much smoking and drinking. Seeing the way your new man and his brothers had your back, the way all of them at The Arsenal were there for you when I was too fucking lazy to even wo
rry about it…”

  “Cliff…”

  “No. You don’t get to excuse what I didn’t do. I wasn’t there when you needed me, sis. I was never there. All those times Mom dragged you to the barn, even when it wasn’t your fault. All those times Dad made you go hungry to teach you a lesson you didn’t ever need to learn. I didn’t do shit.”

  “Cliff, they’re gone. We’ve moved on.”

  “Yeah, you did. Somehow you dragged yourself from that hellhole and then turned around and went right back in for me and Rache,” Cliff whispered. “I should’ve been there for you.”

  She couldn’t deny his statement because he was right. In so many ways, he was absolutely right. He’d ignored so much and chosen to live in his pretend world where there weren’t any problems or stresses. There weren’t bills and dramas unfolding, or a sister spiraling to a new level of troubled. “It’s over. Rachelle’s gonna get the help she needs; Dad can rest in peace—even if he doesn’t deserve it. We can move on from Mom and Dad and just be Kamren and Cliff. Don’t waste another day wallowing in self-pity and blame. It won’t do you a damn bit of good. You’re right. You fucked up, Cliff. Big time. Accept the blame, learn from your mistakes, and move on. Grow the fuck up and make something of yourself. Prove Mom and Dad wrong. They never thought we were gonna be worth a damn, but I know better. We are worth a damn, way more than that.”

  “You are,” Cliff said.

  “So are you.” She patted his cheek and smiled. “If you need to step back from Marville, then go up north. Tanner and his crew could always use some help.”

  “Thinking I’m not good enough to fill your shoes up there,” he admitted.

  “Then don’t try. Be yourself. No one’s expecting you to be the same as Dad, or me, or anybody. Stop avoiding life just because you don’t want to live it the way you think you should. Just live.”

  Cliff nodded, motioning behind Kamren. She half turned and smiled at Dallas, who remained close, but far enough to offer a bit of privacy. “He’s a good man, sis. They all are.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Proud of you,” Cliff whispered against her forehead as he kissed her there. “I’m sorry I wasn’t the brother I should’ve been. I swear I’m gonna get there, though. One day I’ll make you proud.”

  “You already have just by being here,” she whispered. “Go. Live. Stay in touch, or we’ll hunt you down.”

  Cliff laughed and nodded, then turned and left. She expended a weary and pained breath as the last of her kin left the area. Everyone she had clung to for so long was gone. Strong, warm arms wrapped around her as Dallas settled at her back.

  “Let’s go home, sweetheart.”

  Home.

  She had a new family. While she wouldn’t ever abandon her blood, it was time she focused on the man she loved and the life she wanted to live. “Take me home, Dallas.”

  26

  Kamren smiled as she leaned against the doorway and listened to Dallas reading TJ and DJ a story. The boys had woken when they’d arrived at the house. Although both boys had been drowsy, they’d been alert to the fact that something had happened. To calm them down, Dallas had crawled into bed with them and read them a story.

  Dallas flashed her a grin as he looked down at DJ, who was sacked out on his left. TJ, drowsy but ever the alert protector, blinked up at him. The boy reached up. “Can we call you Dad?”

  Wow. Kamren swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat as Dallas smiled. Eyes watery, he leaned down and kissed TJ’s forehead. “I’d love that, son.”

  “Gramma says you’ll make an honest woman outta Kam soon, then she’ll be Mom.”

  Oh wow.

  “That so?” Dallas chuckled and mussed TJ’s hair. “Your grandma’s got a way of accelerating timelines.”

  “‘No sense wasting time or drawing out the obvious.’ That’s what she said when Uncle Nolan said that.”

  “That so?” Dallas chuckled again. “I suppose she’s right. You good?”

  “Someone hurt Aunt Riles.”

  Kamren wasn’t sure when all the aunt and uncle business had started, but its weight filled the room. The boys were settled deep into the Mason family, entrenched in a way no one would ever dig them out. No way someone could. Protectiveness rushed through her. She’d do anything for the man she loved. His kids. His family.

  “Yeah, but she’ll be home soon. She’s gonna be okay.”

  “‘Cause Kam and you made it so. Uncle Jesse. Uncle Nol. Everybody made it okay.”

  “Yeah, we did.”

  “I miss Lilly,” DJ whispered.

  Kamren’s heart clenched at the admission. The woman had refused their offers of help. Whoever she was, whatever she was into, she didn’t want to have any help resolving whatever had gotten her captured and shoved into a hole in the middle of a forest.

  At least she’d agreed to remain at one of Tanner’s remote cabins for a while, long enough for the man to agree to an Arsenal team going up and assisting with upgrading their security and training a few of his men on hand-to-hand and defensive techniques.

  Lilly would be safe because, even if she didn’t want help, she was getting it from a distance. Mary, Vi, and Zoey were all digging. The three determined women wouldn’t stop until they had answers. Who was Lilly, and why had she been in that nightmare?

  Dallas extricated himself from the bed and tucked both boys in tight as TJ shifted closer to his little brother. “Know it’s tough, little man, but I need you to stop listening when grown folks talk. No one’s gonna hurt you or your little brother. Things around here get real intense sometimes. Your uncles and I have gotta do a better job separating that from the house and you two, but I need you to be less ‘little man’ and more ‘little kid’.”

  The boy looked up, seriousness etched on his face. “You need me to stay tapped out.”

  “Yeah, so you can go to school, meet kids your own age, get friends. Play.”

  “Jacob says he can teach us how to make whirlies. Said it was real simple.”

  Given Jacob was nineteen and was a stone’s throw from finishing his graduate degree at MIT, Kamren suspected everything was simple to the young man. But he and his dad had entered the fray in a big way when they’d returned to the compound. She hadn’t spent much time with Danny yet, but if he was anything like his son, he was an amazing man.

  One who’d undergone his own personal hells and come out a victor in a way that left every operative at The Arsenal respecting the hell out of him, according to what Dallas had shared earlier when they’d met. It’d take her months to learn everyone’s names, but she would, because they were extended family. Not by blood. But by choice.

  Team.

  Cliff had left the compound and gone back to the farmhouse. He’d head up north in a couple days. For now, the troubles Kamren had invested herself in were handled, which left her open to explore a future with Dallas.

  Marriage.

  The possibility ignited anticipation as his intense gaze strolled over her, a long, slow glide filled with enough inherent promise to pool arousal between her legs and harden her nipples. The man was lethal in many ways, but they were a long way away from her becoming Mrs. Dallas Mason. Not that the name meant a damn thing. She was his and he was hers in all ways that mattered.

  “You two can do anything you want. You’re both so smart and strong,” Dallas said. “But you aren’t ever alone. There’s nothing we can’t talk about. Whatever it is, you can come to me. Kamren. Your uncles. Anyone on this compound. Anytime. With anything. Okay?”

  TJ nodded. “I’ll make sure DJ knows. He’s had loads of questions.”

  DJ had lots of questions and scares and frights, per TJ—aka the mouthpiece for the boys. From what Doctor Sinclair had shared with everyone, TJ was transferring his own scares and emotions onto his younger brother to continue coming across as strong. It was one of many things she was working on with them both.

  “We’ll go out tomorrow and see if we can get some of those quest
ions answered.”

  “Can we get Bubba’s again?” TJ asked. “DJ really liked it.”

  “Yeah, though we need him to start talking more,” Dallas said. “That’s part of the tapping out. It’s time to let him be a little man, too.”

  “That’s what Doc said.”

  “We’ll talk more about it tomorrow.” Dallas grinned. “At Bubba’s.”

  Such a pushover.

  Kamren smirked as he flicked off the lights, got the nightlight situated, and extricated himself from the room. She meandered toward the bedroom they’d been sharing in the Mason house. Tomorrow they’d move into the cottage so Riley could take her room back. She grinned at her man as she walked backward.

  God, he was so sexy. He walked with such a lethal grace it was a prowl. Quiet. Confident. Her womb contracted. Having his kid? Yeah, she wanted lots and lots of little Dallas’es. She hadn’t known his father well, but if he’d been half as sexy and wonderful as Dallas, she now understood why Dallas’s mom had seven kids. The woman had enormous restraint in Kamren’s opinion.

  “What’s that look?”

  “You’re such a pushover,” she said. “You can’t give them everything they demand.”

  “No, but Bubba’s isn’t a demand. It’s a necessity.” He snagged her by the waist and tossed her on the bed.

  Her laughter echoed within the room as he covered her, then proceeded to kiss the breath from her. He pulled up, settled above her, then looked down. Happiness danced within his gaze. “I love you, Kamren Garrett.”

  “I love you, Dallas Mason. Now shut up and make love to me.”

  And he did. Again and again until she knew without a doubt her life had begun again. This time she wasn’t alone, nor was she having to be the strong one. Together, she and Dallas could do anything, including raise two boys. And a whole bunch more. She curled her toes. One step at a time. But one day, one day she’d take her vows, stand before God and all his family and their friends and reaffirm what she’d already declared.