No Strings Attached

Chapter Twenty Nine

She lay her head on his stomach – the muscles solid and comforting beneath her cheek.

“You can’t give up on me now,” she was pleading softly, “Don’t get seduced away by heaven – I promise, we can do this, we can. But I need you here, Nate, I need you right here.”

She was running her fingers over the ink on his skin – the dragon no longer seeming alive now that there was no animation in his body – as he lay still, so did that fierce creature.

“There are so many things we need to do – so many memories we need to make – but I need you here!”

Jayden closed the door softly behind him; the image of the two of them – Nate looking ghostly against the crisp linen, strapped up and latched onto all that machinery, and Shannon’s dark head pressed desolately into his stomach, it felt almost too intimate for him. He ran his hands over his face as he settled into the chair in the corner – they’d have to go back for Ava soon, they’d been without her too long, and Tori was starting to panic a little. But she couldn’t drive back over there alone with everything that was happening.

And yet, how could they take Shannon with them right now?

“What if he doesn’t get better?” she asked softly – not raising her head. Jay hadn’t even realised she’d registered his presence at all, and he jumped slightly.

“Don’t think like that,” he said gruffly, sighing heavily, “He’ll get better, it just takes time.”

Nate was strong – physically, he was more than strong, it was almost fucking inhuman, and he had a head like a house brick – in fact Jay had seen him hit with a house brick before now, when he was about nineteen and ... nada. Nothing happened. He’d shaken his head and knocked his attacker unconscious.

Kind of made it all the more potent how much these guys wanted him dead that now they were here, Shannon curled up over his still body, while the doctors had put him in a coma to relieve the pressure on a head that had taken more hits than Muhammed Ali.

“We might have to think about it Jay, or at least I will,” she was muttering – her hands still running over the outline of ink in his flesh, “It might come to that.”

“You heard the doctor, Shan, they’re expecting him to come around – they’ll be bringing him around as soon as the swelling goes down – he’s unconscious because they’ve made it that way. This is all in the plan.”

“I also heard him say that there are no guarantees, and you did too. I just ... I need to be realistic about this.”

“What you need to be is positive,” he reassured her softly, “When he comes around, the first thing he’ll want to see is your face – safe and smiling.”

She looked doubtful as she raised her head, steeling her shoulders with a visible intake of breath, looking back at Jay with all of the stark desperation clear in her dark eyes.

“You really think so?”

“I know Nate,” he said quietly, “I know what he sees when he looks at you, how he feels when he sees you – you’re the light in his world honey. This is something that you and Tori don’t seem to understand about either of us – you’re everything to us, we’d move fucking mountains for you if we had to.”

“You really think any of that will matter if fate steps in the way?” his words, in a way, were riling her – it felt like he was living on fantasy. What if she lost Nate? What if he didn’t make it? It would be hard enough to cope without hearing shit like this!

“In the grand scheme of things, it’ll be everything. Not to be a sappy prick, but he’s got you to fight for now, and I’ve never seen him back down from a fight once ... ever, since he was four years old. You’ve been the hardest fight he’s ever gone through. Since the day he met you, he’s been battling – this is just a new layer. He’ll be here.”

Looking back to Nate – still so ruggedly masculine against those hospital sheets, even without the grace and power of his movements, and the dark, intense eyes that he’d set upon her, that sent her blood rolling through her body in waves of stark, depraved arousal, she adored him. He was everything to her, right or wrong as that may be, he was everything.

“I hope you’re right,” she murmured – sorrow settling around her like a cloak.

Jay cleared his throat quietly in the silence.

“Um, we were thinking about heading back,” he said gently, “I think you should come with us Shan, you need some rest. The doctor said he’ll be unconscious for at least another few days, come home.”

She was shaking her head before he’d even finished speaking.

“I’m staying with him.”

“But Shannon ...”

“Would you go?” she broke into his protests – her eyes roaring with a fierce and raging storm of protection for him, “If it was Tori here, would you be going anywhere?”

He swallowed, ashamed of himself somehow, even though he knew he had no reason to be – he was concerned for her, for her welfare, her health – not to mention the fact that Sebastienne was a crazy fucking psycho bastard that was evidently just everywhere in the shadows. Tori was basically hyperventilating with caution for absolutely everyone out there in the waiting room. He just wanted to pack them all off somewhere and have done with all this bullshit once and for all.

“No,” he heaved out a sigh roughly, dragging his hand across his overgrown stubble, “I don’t suppose I would be.”

“He’s been everything I’ve ever needed him to be – I need to do this for him.”

“Hospital security is aware of the situation – at least for the most part. It’s a private hospital; there’s been no issue in maintaining a clause that any visitors would need to be cleared through me first. When I leave, I’ll them that it’s us, and nobody else, so you have nothing to worry about as long as you’re in here.”

She nodded – she was still armed, she didn’t need to remind him, but she also wouldn’t be giving that pistol back until Nate was wide awake.

“You have everything you need? Money? Your phone?” he was asking, obviously hesitant to leave her, “We’ll be back later on – we have to collect Ava, and then I’m setting us up somewhere to stay nearby, because Tori wants to be here as well, and it is going to take some time going backwards and forwards. Shall I bring you anything?”

Anything she needed? Was there?

“No,” she whispered quietly, once again laying her head on Nate’s stomach, “Just stay safe.”