Renata
Phoenix sits beside Sarah, looking at her wound with almost professional curiosity. “How’re you feeling?” he asks.
“Is that a trick question?”
He chuckles. “Are you always this cranky?”
“Not usually,” Sarah coughs. “But, you know, gunshot wounds tend to irritate me.”
He chuckles. “Such a lightweight.”
“How about I shoot you and see how you do?”
“I’ve been shot at before.”
“But have you been shot?”
“Maybe I’ll just leave you here to bleed out,” Phoenix scoffs.
“Are you two serious?” I explode, unable to hold it in any longer. Both of them look at me as though I’ve completely lost it.
“Uh, I’m the one with the gunshot,” Sarah says weakly. “Why are you freaking out?”
It’s a damn good question, but I’m not able to appreciate it in my current panicky state. “Kian just went out there alone,” I point out, throwing my hands up. “There’s no one with him, and… and… he’s injured. It may not show but he’s hurt all over…”
Phoenix looks at me with deliberate calm. All that does is piss me off.
“What?” I snap, voice dripping with venom.
He’s completely unruffled. “You need to breathe.”
“You need to keep your goddamn advice to yourself.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Yikes. All I’m saying is, stress is not good for the baby.”
I glare at him. “Who told you I was pregnant?”
“Kian did,” he replies. “Right before he left. Which is why I’m here in the first place. To take care of you.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I can take care of myself.”
“Is that how you ended up with Rokiades in the first place?” he asks. “Was that you taking care of yourself?”
Guilt smashes over me first, extinguishing the anger. Every instinct I have to be defensive dies on the heels of the glaring and blunt accusation that I’m responsible for everything that’s happening right now. If I hadn’t run away, then Drago would never have called Rokiades. He’d never have captured me and used me as leverage to abduct Kian. None of us would be here right now.
Phoenix is right. He’s so fucking right.
“Can you two please stop?” Sarah moans, looking between us. “Christ, I might go ahead and die just so I don’t have to listen to you bicker anymore.”
The fabric I’d torn from the curtains is working wonders at stopping her from bleeding out. She seems to be more or less stable, though the pain still comes and goes in vicious waves.
Phoenix turns to her and shakes his head. Apparently, the two of them know each other, too. I feel extremely left out. Well, no. That’s not it. I don’t feel left out. I feel inconsequential. I feel useless.
All the people around me are fighting, and all I can do is sit here cowering in a corner while Kian fights my battles for me.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I mean it. “I’m just—”
“Scared,” Phoenix finishes for me. “I know. It’s okay to be scared. But my father and his men are here. So is Kian’s brother and reinforcements from Ireland. This is not a fight that Rokiades can win.”