Page 56 of Breaking His Exile

He pushed himself upright. The movement cost him—his face tightened, a muscle jumping in his jaw—and he braced one hand against the cot’s edge. “I’m fine.”

Guilt flooded her. She’d known he was in bad shape when he walked in, but she’d let him have his way with her anyway because she’d wanted it so badly. “How the hell did you come back with sex on the brain? You have a concussion, at minimum. Possibly cracked ribs. And someone stabbed you.”

“No.” He frowned down at himself. “I stabbed him.”

“Well, he got you back.” She pressed a gauze pad to the cut on his temple. The blood soaked through almost immediately. “Hold this.”

He took the gauze. His hand was unsteady. She watched his eyes, the pupils, and when she held up two fingers in front of his face, he tracked them, but slowly.

“Look at me.” She cupped his jaw and turned his face toward the lantern. “How many fingers?”

“Two,” he grumbled.

“What’s my name?”

“I just fucked you against the wall, and you think I don’t know your name, songbird?”

“Smartass.” She peeled the gauze away from his temple. The cut was clean—straight-edged, probably from the pistol butt Creed had used. She cleaned it with antiseptic, hissing through her teeth when he didn’t flinch, and taped a fresh pad over it. “You need stitches.”

“Not getting them.”

“Then you’ll have a scar.”

“Not the first. Won’t be the last.”

She moved to his ribs. The bruise spread from his sternum to his left side, mottled purple and black, swelling visibly along the lower ribs. She pressed gently along the bone, feeling for give, for the telltale shift of a fracture, and when her fingers found the spot, his breath caught.

“Here?” she asked.

He nodded. Tight. She reached for the elastic bandage in the kit. “Arms up.”

He lifted his arms. The movement pulled at the stab wound low on his flank, and fresh blood welled from the cut. Three inches long, shallow but angry, the edges clean—a blade had gone in and been pulled out, and whoever did it had known exactly how deep to go. She pressed another gauze pad to it.

“Who did this to you?”

“Creed,” Evander said. His voice had gone flat. “Former Army Ranger. Was a resident at Valor Ridge until two years ago. He was a problem from the start. Put a man in the hospital, got cut loose, ended up with the Sins.” He sucked in a breath. “He’s good. Better than I gave him credit for.”

She began wrapping his ribs. The elastic pulled tight across his chest, and he held his breath through the first few passes. “Does he know where we are?”

“No.” Evander watched her hands work. “He knows we’re on this mountain. He knows there’s a cabin. He doesn’t know where.”

“But he could find it.”

“Given time.” Evander’s hand came up and covered hers, stopping the bandage mid-wrap. “We need to go. Tonight.”

Rainey looked at him. At the bandage half-applied across his ribs, the gauze on his temple and over the stab wound already spotting through with fresh blood. “You can barely stand. We’re not hiking through backcountry in the dark.”

“I’ve done worse.”

“Not with me attached.” She finished the wrap and secured it with tape. “First light. We pack what we can carry, take Sable if she’ll follow, and make for the fire road. You know the terrain. I trust you. But we do it when you can see where you’re putting your feet.”

He held her gaze and opened his mouth like he wanted to protest, but then decided to let it go. His shoulders dropped a fraction. He nodded. “First light.”

She cleaned the stab wound last. Antiseptic, gauze, tape. He didn’t flinch. She wasn’t sure if that was toughness or damage, and it worried her. When she was done, she set the kit on the shelf and turned back to find him watching her, his eyes dark and steady in the dim light.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For what? Cleaning you up after you got yourself half-killed?”