1
Saint
The window in Cam’s clubhouse bedroom looked out over the whole compound. Some nights when he was somewhere else, I let myself in and stood by the glass, watching and waiting. For what, I’d never figured out, but I couldn’t count the hours I’d lost to watchinghim.
Cam.
My brother.
My president.
His cottage by the sea was different. I’d never been inside before now, and my observations had been limited to coastal traffic and wildlife. Never him.
Never Alexei.
I sensed their presence before I opened my eyes, but a guttural sensation woke me with a jump all the same, a gasp that ripped from my scratchy throat.
Habitual panic squeezed my chest. It was rare that I didn’t wake up and think I was somewhere else, another time, another place, and my senses came to life too fast. I fought the bedsheets, shoving them away before acoldhand hit my chest.
“It’s okay, wingman. You are with Cam.”
That voice.Alexei. My eyes flew open. He was beside me, crouching on the floor next to the bed, and I couldn’t decide what surprised me more: that he was still there, or that I was there at all.
In Cam’s bed.
He’s hurt.
Heart slowing, I sat up. Alexei’s hand fell from my chest and he rose, stepping back. His retreat felt wrong, but I couldn’t rectify it until I knew Cam was okay. Until I knew for sure that the bullet he’d taken for the club hadn’t killed him.
Cam.
My gaze found him. He was next to me, asleep, like he had been the first and the last time I’d woken up in bed with him. Only difference was I wasn’t naked like I had been on those occasions, and Alexei had stayed.
Cam was naked, though, a fact I got no joy from as I leaned over to look at him properly. Nothing had happened when we’d crawled into bed together. He’d passed out in two seconds flat, and eventually, so had I.
Had Alexei slept?
Cam would want to know. I’d find out for him, just as soon as I knew he was still fucking breathing.
I inched closer, taking in the dressed gunshot wound on his shoulder and the sling supporting his arm. The slash mark on his cheek, and the raised contusion on his neck where he’d been stabbed with a needle.He won’t like that.A stupid fucking thought, but it was true. Cam could handle a bullet. In our world, it made sense. The rest of it was a violation that would haunt him forever. The lost hours, the confusion. He probably didn’t remember how sick he’d been after, but I did, and it haunted me too. I watched his chest rise and fall with steady breaths, but all I saw was it heaving as I’d held him up over the bar sink. His pained groan as the drugs had torn him up inside.
His peaceful face now didn’t seem real.
I touched his uninjured shoulder. His skin was cool, and it was so unlike him thatmychest fucking burned.
A blanket was bunched around my waist. It hadn’t been there when I’d gone to sleep. I kicked it off, snagged it, and laid it over Cam. I wanted to cup his jaw and run my fingers through his messy hair, but despite everything we’d lived through, I still didn’t know how to touch him for no other reason than Iwantedto.
Alexei returned to the bed. He came up behind me, his quiet footsteps louder than usual, so I heard him coming.
He reached around me and grasped my wrist, pushing my hand back to Cam’s skin. “It is good that he is cold. If he was warm, we would worry about infection.”
I knew that. It was me who’d broken into a clinic to steal the precautionary antibiotics we’d dosed Cam with while he’d been unconscious in the bar. But I felt Cam’s warmth in my dreams, and its absence scared me.
“Come.”
Alexei backed off and beckoned me from the bed. He was dressed in Cam’s sweatpants and a T-shirt that must’ve been River’s, as it was too small to be Cam’s. Me? I was rocking the same grimy jeans I’d rolled in with. Only my shirt was missing.
I need a shower.