Page 69 of Bound By Love
“Shit,” he muttered again.
“If she’s dead, we’ll have to destroy him,” Saxon said.
Ronan returned to digging into the pile. “We don’t know anything for sure yet. Keep digging.”
Lucien glanced back at Saber before looking to Callie and Elena; Brie knelt at her brother’s side and brushed away his filthy hair to reveal the lump already forming at his temple. Asher knelt beside her.
“Let me know if he moves,” Lucien said.
“Should we tie him up?” Callie asked.
“Do you have any chains?”
“No.”
“That’s the only thing that will hold him, and probably not even them if she is dead. If he so much as twitches, let one of us know.”
“I’ll watch over him,” Brie vowed as she rested a hand on her brother’s arm. “He’s not going anywhere without me.”
Lucien exchanged a look with Asher, who looked anything but pleased with this, but Asher gestured toward the pile before resting his hand on Brie’s shoulder. Lucien hesitated as he studied them.
Asher probably shouldn’t be down here. The demons were gone; this open Hell dimension was closed, but Brie had seen Asher’s demise down here, and the demons being gone didn’t necessarily mean he was out of the woods.
Could Saber, not the demons, cause Asher’s and, therefore, his sister’s demise?
Lucien started to say something about it but decided against it. Asher was a grown man who wouldn’t leave Brie’s side no matter what Lucien told him.
“Be careful,” he said.
Brie glanced nervously between them before focusing on her mate.
“I’m not leaving,” Asher stated.
Brie sighed before shifting her attention to her brother. She studied him with the intensity of a surgeon getting ready to cut. Lucien had no doubt she’d let them know if Saber moved again.
He turned to Callie before he started digging again. “Stay near me and away from him.”
Her fingers brushed his. “I will.”
CHAPTERFIFTY-SEVEN
Sweat drippedoff Ronan as he tossed another rock down to where the Bobcats had resumed their beeping and removal of the stones. The clatter of rocks and the grunts of strenuous work were the only sounds filling the air for the past two hours.
No one dared to speak as they worked to uncover Caro. Saber had stirred a few times since then; Lucien, Asher, and Killean had knocked him out again.
He would wake with a headache and concussion, but they would be the least of Saber’s problems if Caro was dead.
Ronan lifted another rock and discovered an upturned hand with its delicate, bloody fingers curled inward. No fingernails remained, and a jagged slice ran down the palm.
Ronan barely knew the woman who forged the swords for them, but he stroked her fingers and palm as his heart sank. She was cool to the touch, not deathly cold, but she could easily be heading that way.
Fuck.
“She’s here,” he said.
Stones and dirt crunched as the others stopped working and started toward him. Someone must have signaled the Bobcat operators as the machines went silent.
Ronan lifted another rock and another. Nathan, Logan, Lucien, and Kadence bent to help dig her free. Unable to get any closer, the others hovered nearby as they waited.
