Painstakingly, we’d gotten Freya and I up to the suite we’d been originally staying at. While the doctor had been largely useless, she’d suggested we put Freya in a place heavy with the scent of all the men she considered mates. It could help her wake up. If she woke up, a lot of our problems would be solved.
No one wanted to mark her when she’d been so adamantly against it before.
She would hate whoever claimed her without consent.
They’d brought the cot up to the suite, but the fucking thing was already hurting my back and Freya couldn’t be detached from my side without pitiful sounding little whines. I had Shan on one side, Oswald on the other, and Caspian was ready to grab our Omega to move her with me. Nolan had seen Freya’s state and insisted Ozzy stay here with her, worry filling his expression. I was confused about how the familiar had turned into a vampire and where the mark on Nolan’s neck had come from, but there hadn’t been time to ask. Nolan had to leave again, making sure his compound hadn’t been infiltrated during the attack, and Freya needed my attention more than her former familiar did.
“Are you ready?” Shan asked, holding my arm.
“As I’ll ever be,” I muttered.
I wasn’t looking forward to the pain, but this was a necessary evil.
Sitting up in a quick motion and releasing a strangled cry, I tossed my legs over the side of the cot and collapsed from one bed to the next. Ozzy and Shan steadied me, trying to keep the movement of my injury to a minimum. Cas bundled Freya in his arms and her whines decreased, not completely abating until she was in the bed curled to my side. There was no reasonable explanation of why she was needy for me, of all people, other than the fact she’d been beside me when she fell asleep in the first place.
Caspian crawled into the bed beside us, curving himself against Freya. Before we’d moved, he and Shan had come back up here. They’d made sure everything was set, but Shan had fed Caspian, too. Their scents of arousal were heavy in the air. I imagined my incubus-fae mate had to kill someone during the fight.
“Are you OK, Em?” he asked, kissing the back of her head.
I nodded, breathing hard.
Shan and Ozzy tossed some of the blanket and pillows onto the bed with us, but pushed the cot and makeshift nest out into the living room. There was tension between them. Probably Shan’s fault, if history held true.
“What are we going to do about Freya?” Caspian waited until Shan and Oswald were back in the room before he spoke, his voice small.
“If she doesn’t wake up in the morning, someone has to mark her,” Oswald said.
Shan glared, but didn’t argue. He would have said the same thing.
“Who’s going to do it?” Cas asked.
No one spoke.
That was the question, wasn’t it? If she didn’t wake up, which one of us was going to claim her and make her hate us in the process? Caspian was the easiest choice — it was impossible not to forgive him — but if he did it he would be guilty for the rest of his life. Oswald would be second best, but the two of them had barely had a chance to interact with Ozzy in a human form. Shan and Freya would clash for the rest of eternity if he was the one to do it.
The only one left… was me.
She’d nested with me, sure, but we weren’t close. We barely knew each other. I would always stay by Caspian and he had decided to stay the rest of his life by her, so we’d never have to be apart. Even if we weren’t mates in the traditional sense of the word.
It would torpedo any chances I had at a real relationship with her, something I’d been just starting to contemplate, but I would live.
If she hated me, I would live.
I didn’t tell the others out loud, but if she wasn’t awake in the morning, I would claim her as my own and suffer the consequences. They were probably making the same pact with themselves internally, but I wouldn’t let them bear the burden.
“We’ll decide if it comes to that,” I said after the heavy pause. “Hopefully, she’ll wake up.”
* * *
Night faded into daylight, and Freya was the only one of us asleep. I’d drifted in and out through the night, my body taking the rest it needed to work on healing my wounds, but none of the others had so much as closed their eyes. Oswald sat on a chair across the room, staring with honey brown eyes, while Shan had crawled into the bed with us, his body pressed to Caspian’s.
I stretched my arms above my head and groaned with pain, but there was less than the last time I’d moved. Slowly but surely, the near-fatal wound was knitting itself together.
None of us said anything until the sun was high in the sky, no longer casting colourful dawn light over us. Then, I brushed my fingers against her hair, hoping the soft touch would spur her to awaken. No such luck. I sighed.
“Who’s going to claim her?” Oswald asked, his hands fisting the fabric of his sweatpants. “I’ll do it.”
“I can do it,” Shan said. “She already hates me.”
