“As we were fighting, she kept talking to me, forcing me to remember what it was like . . . before they came.” Dee pulled back, her lashes thick with tears. “And it was about Adam.” Her breath caught on his name. “She was talking about him, and I remembered more than just the pain and the anger. I don’t know, but it just snapped, and suddenly I was looking at her and I wasn’t hearing any of them anymore. My thoughts . . . they were my own.”
I closed my eyes again briefly, promising myself that I’d repay Kat a millionfold as soon as I had the chance.
Once Dee settled down enough that I knew she was okay and wasn’t seriously injured, I looked around the room. I hadn’t realized that Archer and Kat had left. Concern for Kat worried away at me now that I knew Dee was going to be all right.
I helped her stand. “How are you doing?”
Dee wiped the tears and blood—bright red blood that couldn’t belong to her—from her cheeks with the sleeves of her dark sweater. My heart thundered in my chest as she took a deep breath. “I’m okay, but Kat . . . It got pretty rough between us. Oh God, she probably hates me now. Like really—”
“No. She doesn’t hate you. If she did, she wouldn’t have tried to bring you back. Kat loves you like a sister, Dee. In fact, she’s kind of like your sister now.”
That statement pulled Dee out of her troubled thoughts. Her nose wrinkled. “What do you mean? Because that sounds a little . . . weird considering what you and her do and all that.”
I laughed, and damn, it felt good to be standing in front of my sister again and laughing. “Kat and I are married.”
Dee stared at me and then blinked wide eyes. “What?”
“Well, we’re not really, really married, because we did it with our fake IDs when we were in Vegas— Ow!” I stepped back, rubbing my arm right in the spot where Dee had punched me. “What was that for?”
“You two got married and neither of you told me?” She stomped her foot, shimmering eyes on fire. “That’s so wrong! I should’ve been a part of it.” She spun around. “Where is she? I’m seriously going to hit her again.”
“Whoa.” I chuckled as I grabbed her arm. “Can you wait to hit her again until we make sure she’s okay?”
“Oh yeah, probably a good idea.” Then she whirled around and threw herself at me, circling her long arms around my neck, and I stumbled back a step. “You two really did it?”
Dee’s lips trembled into a small smile and not the kind I’d seen on her lately. Not cold. Totally her. “That’s amazing,” she whispered as she pulled free. “I’m happy for you—for her. But I’m still going to punch her. After we make sure she’s okay. Oh God.” Her face fell. “What if she—?”
“It’ll be okay.” I placed a hand on her back, steering her out of the living room.
First person I saw was Archer. Of course. And he wasn’t looking at me at all. Oh no. His face was pale, his eyes wide and pupils dilated. Shaken up. I’d never seen him look quite like that before, and I sure as hell didn’t want to acknowledge why.
“She’s outside,” he murmured, staring at Dee, who was also staring at him, and they were like two people who had never seen another person before. Damn. “She’s okay.”
Dee was staring at Archer, and I bit back a curse. Her voice was low in her throat. “Go.”
At least she’d forgotten about hitting Kat. I resisted the urge to warn Archer to do . . . well, to not do anything, but as I walked toward the doorway to the foyer and stopped to look back at them over my shoulder, what I saw should’ve had me going off like a rocket.
I hadn’t heard either of them move, but they were standing toe to toe, and Archer was touching her cheeks with only the tips of his fingers as he gazed into her eyes. There was something sort of poignant about the moment. Yeah, I sounded like I’d be writing love sonnets by the end of the year, but in a moment of empathy and maturity I really hadn’t realized I was capable of, I didn’t lose my cool.
She needed this—she needed Archer, and who in the hell was I to begrudge her the solace when I had my Kat?
Blowing out a breath, I headed toward the front of the house and cringed when I saw the front door across the room. Oh, Lore and Hunter were gonna be pissed.
Kat was sitting at the top of the steps, curved slightly inward. As I walked around her and down the steps so I was in front of her, she slowly raised her head and her gray eyes met mine, reached right inside me, and squeezed my heart.
“She’s okay.” It wasn’t a question but a statement.
I nodded as I knelt in front of her. “Because of you.”
She shook her head.
“Yes. She told me what you did. She could’ve killed you, Kat.”
“I know, but . . . I didn’t want you to have to fight your sister, to have to hurt her. I didn’t want you to have to ever make that choice and live with what happened.”
It made me love her more than I thought possible. I placed my hands on her knees and leaned in, pressing my lips against her forehead. “Thank you. That’s not enough, but thank you is the best I got.”
“You don’t even need to say that.” Kat rested her forehead against mine and whispered, “I love you.”
I moved up to sit beside her, wanting to pull her into my arms, but I resisted because I could tell she was hurting. “Where?”