Broken Wings (Dark Legacy #1)

“Nope,” Dylan disagreed. “I just climbed a tree to check.”

I blinked at him. “You climbed a tree. Of course you did.” I dropped the subject and rubbed my eyes with my free hand. My whole body hurt, the burning in my throat felt like it was getting worse, my head was pounding and I was so cold my skin hurt. If Dylan said there was no town nearby, I was just going to believe him.

“Guys,” Evan called out. “We need to make camp soon. Jasper can’t go much farther.”

He’d been helping Jasper walk but now seemed to be pretty much carrying his friend’s unconscious form. Dylan and Beck exchanged a long look, then Beck nodded.

“We’ll make camp here. Dylan can continue on until he gets service for a distress call.” Beck’s orders were final, and no one questioned him. Not even me, for once.

Extracting my hand from his tight grip, I went to help Evan with Jasper. I wasn’t as strong as the boys, but I wasn’t useless. So many near death experiences in quick succession were reinforcing my desire to live, and I knew that meant I needed to be useful. These boys had no room in their world for dead weight.

“I’m fine, Riley,” Jasper mumbled in a sleepy, pain-addled voice as I propped my shoulder under his other arm and took some weight from Evan. “Don’t worry about me, you’ve been through enough.”

“What does he mean by that?” Evan asked, keeping his voice pitched low and quiet while I helped him prop Jasper against a tree. Beck was some distance away, looking like he was building a fire, but I still glanced nervously over at him before replying.

“Doesn’t matter,” I whispered, deciding to evade rather than outright lie. “We’re all still alive, right?” I met Evan’s gaze over Jasper’s head.

“For now,” Evan muttered. “If you’re hurt, you need to tell Beck. We don’t keep secrets from each other. Not when it concerns our well-being.”

I gave a bitter, raspy laugh. “All Catherine has done since the day I arrived here is keep secrets.”

Evan shook his head, like I was misunderstanding him. “Not Delta, Riley. Us. The heirs.”

It was the first time he’d called me anything other than “spare” and it was enough to shut me up. The four of them had an intense bond, but it was only in that moment that I recognized it as something totally independent of Militant Delta Finances.

A soul deep shudder chased through me as I glanced over at Beck. His broad back was to us as he crouched over his pile of tinder, and I wondered for the thousandth time what the fuck I’d gotten myself into. These four were closer than blood, but they were killers. Brutal, cold blooded killers. The world they ran in was dark, so dark that this wasn’t even their first plane crash. So, when faced with the prospect of being one of them, why wasn’t I running for the hills? Why did a thrill of excitement chase through me and warm my ice cold veins?

Jasper groaned in pain then, breaking the weird trance that I’d fallen into.

“I’m fine,” I insisted again, trying my best to talk clearly through the pain in my throat. Whilst evading Evan’s knowing stare. Dylan reappeared from wherever he’d gone and tossed a bag each to Evan and me. I hadn’t even noticed that they’d collected up the supplies from our previous camp, until now. In my defense, there was a lot going on in my head.

“Hop up, Riley,” Dylan told me, nudging my knee with his hand. “Evan, let’s put Jasper beside the fire, he needs warmth.”

I stood aside, feeling a bit like a spare wheel while they got Jasper situated and comfortable near the fire Beck had managed to get going.

“Butterfly,” Beck said softly, holding out a hand to me. Again. Was this some sort of weird symbolism? “Come here.” He held a warm coat in his hand, and when I moved closer to him, he gently unzipped the one I was wearing. “You have blood all over this one,” he explained as he pushed it open then paused. Numbness was overtaking my brain, and it took me way too long to understand his sharp intake of breath, rumbling chest, and intense perusal.

“Oh.” I looked down at my black bra. “I used my shirt for Jasper’s... cut thing.” I waved a hand, failing to find the right word for his injury. I was done pretending to be a doctor for one lifetime. But it wasn’t my bra—or the breasts within it—that held Beck’s stare. His thumb trailed over the rapidly darkening patch on my ribs where I’d caught a boot from my attacker.

“What the fuck is this?” Beck demanded in a low, deadly voice. His fingers then trailed up over my skin, sending a fiery path along my body before he brushed across my neck. “And this?”

I just shrugged, pulling my blood stained coat the rest of the way off and exchanging it for the clean one Beck held. “One of those... people... found me and Jasper,” I murmured, keeping my gaze down to avoid Beck’s. My fingers fumbled with the thick buttons of the coat, too cold to function properly. I just knew I needed to cover those injuries, because Beck didn’t appear to be doing anything except silently losing his shit.

“Dylan,” he said, that word a snap of sound.

In a flash, the deadly second to Beck was at our side. “Check her ribs,” Beck bit out, his eyes a gray so dark it was almost black. “And her throat. Some fucker tried to choke her.”

Dylan shot me softer eyes than I’d seen from him before. “Jasper told me you saved him,” he said as he pushed my coat open and gently stroked his fingers across my side.

I snorted before tiredly dropping my head back, clanking it against the tree trunk behind me. “Jasper saved me. That … assassin or whatever was strangling me, and he dragged himself out to shoot your blade my way.”

Soft fingers brushed across my throat then, and since Dylan was still prodding my side, I knew it was Beck. Touching the marks blooming on my fair skin. I didn’t open my eyes, somehow content in this moment to have two of the deadliest guys I’d ever met in my life, touching me. Protecting me.

“I think your ribs are just bruised,” Dylan said, breaking me from my stupor. “Let me know though if the pain gets worse, or if you have any trouble breathing.”

He moved on to my neck then, and this time I flinched as he pressed near the center.

“Your throat is bruised as well. But since you’re still managing to talk, somewhat, I think you’ll be fine.”

I nodded, finally opening my eyes. Beck allowed me to zip the new jacket up, and after that I moved closer to the fire. Dylan took off, heading to put out our distress call, and Beck went out to scout the area and make sure we were definitely alone. Creeping closer, I grabbed one of the blankets and draped it over Jasper. I pressed my hand to his head, worried by the slightly flushed look of his skin. “His vitals are steady,” Evan said from his perch nearby. “As long as Dylan can get the call out, we’ll be out of here by morning, and Jasper will have the best medical care in the country.”

I snorted. “Which country, Canada or America?”

It truly hit me then that this was my first time out of America. Shit, I didn’t even have a passport.

Evan and I remained close to Jasper, both of us checking on him. I forced some water into him at one point, and he didn’t even curse at me. Beck reappeared, scaring the ever living fuck out of me, because he made like zero noise. Despite the fact he was tall and built like a high level athlete.

Whatever those survival skills were, they’d definitely excelled.

For four dudes who had done nothing but torment and scare me in the short time I’d known them, I felt awfully safe right now, especially as Beck settled in on the other side of me, his heat seeping into the colder parts of my body.

“Still clear?” Evan asked, and Beck nodded.

“Nothing is trailing us, we took out the entire team.”

Swallowing roughly, wishing my throat wasn’t burning like a bitch, I had to ask. “Who tried to kill us?”

Beck met my gaze, and for a moment I thought he was going to tell me it wasn’t my business.

“Huntley Incorporated.”