Hence me thinking I was hallucinating Hades. But when I blinked four times and he remained exactly where he was, I realized he was really here, in my hospital room. Kallum had gone to my place to check on Sirius after I’d begged him. His jaw had been stiff, eyes narrowed, but he’d finally agreed. That was after his tortured gaze flickered over my face, wearing guilt that did not belong there.
The only reason Kallum had arrived when he did was because he left his phone at the club after leaving early. No matter what I said, he was going to find a way to blame himself for this. For not staying until close. For hiring Dante in the first place. That’s the kind of good guy Kallum was.
He also went to your house in the middle of the night to check on your dog and get you toiletries and a change of clothes because you were laying in a hospital bed after being beaten up by an ex.
The man standing in the doorway was not a good guy. I knew that much. But I also knew my entire body relaxed, seeing him cross the distance between us. Even though he exuded fury. With every step. From every bone in his body. His handsome face was painted with it. No guilt. Not an inch of that. No, something else entirely.
He lifted his hand. It was large. I hadn’t noticed how big his hands were before. Nice, long fingers too. Those fingers traced a featherlight touch over the area of my cheek that felt tight and hot.
I shivered as he moved his finger down the area of my face that was swollen and bruised from Derek’s fist. He traced the bandage that covered the stitches I’d had to get because Derek had been wearing his fucking class ring.
Slowly, gently, he moved his finger across every inch of skin that was battered or bruised. Minutes passed in silence. I must’ve breathed since I would’ve passed out if I hadn’t, but it seemed like I held my breath the entire time.
I knew I looked bad. They hadn’t given me a mirror, and I wasn’t strong enough to go to the bathroom under my own strength yet. But I didn’t need a mirror. Not when I saw the sorrow in Sarah’s kind eyes and the guilt and anger in Kallum’s. Especially not with the deadly fury radiating from Hades’s entire body. It wrapped around me. Fusing with the anger inside of me. Yet he touched the violence on my skin as gently as if I was a newborn fucking baby.
I didn’t know how he’d known I was here. Kallum must’ve called him since he was the only one who knew what had happened. Sarah had the connection with the club, but I was pretty sure there were doctor-patient confidentiality agreements that stopped her from telling anyone who wasn’t an emergency contact that I’d been admitted.
My Aunt V was my emergency contact. There was no way anyone was calling her.
I don’t know when Kallum had called him, since he’d been by my side since the second he’d gathered me in his arms, assuring me that everything was going to be okay. The nurse had tried to shoo him away initially. He’d put up a fight, telling her he’d have to be dragged from my side, challenging her to find anyone willing to attempt that. Sarah had then deftly stepped in, obviously having had a lot of experience with pissed off alpha males.
Kallum didn’t like Hades. He didn’t like any of the Sons. It didn’t make sense. Maybe I had asked for him? I didn’t remember saying it out loud, but I’d thought of him sporadically.
It’s not like I was knocked out or anything. But I’d never been hit before. I’d had a lot of other, terrible, violent things happen to me, so it was somewhat surprising that I hadn’t been hit before. Considering all of the things I’d lived through, I figured I would’ve been able to handle being punched a little better. No woman should ever have to handle being hit, of course. In a perfect world, at least. Yet I was all too aware that this world was far from perfect. Though I did think that I was overdue for a period of my life when I wasn’t subjected to the violence of men.
Life didn’t work that way, though.
“He’s dead,” Hades murmured, finally lifting his hand from my face.
I felt the loss immediately. His touch leaving my face seemed to be more painful than anything else right now. Of course that made no sense, and I was currently on a lot of drugs.
“You can’t kill someone for me,” I croaked.
Hades’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, Freya, I can. I can kill the man who did that to you.”