Darkest Sins (Perfectly Imperfect #9)

“They still think I’m too pretty,” he slurs.

We reach the bed in a few slow strides, just in time because, in the next moment, he drops to the mattress, unconscious. I lift his legs atop the covers one by one, then run to my sister’s suite, which is just across the hall from mine, occupying the other side of the upper level.

“Zara!” I whisper-yell as I shake her shoulder. “Wake up. I need your help.”

“What?” She blinks slowly, then squints her eyes at me.

“Come on.” I shake her again before rounding the bed to check on my daughter, sleeping on the other side.

When I’m not around at bedtime, Lucia won’t go to sleep unless my sister tucks in beside her. Since the two of them can’t fit on the little toddler bed, my daughter ends up sleeping across the hall at Zara’s. I adjust the duvet around her tiny body, then grab my sister’s hand and drag her to the kitchen in my suite.

“I need the first aid kit and clean towels,” I say as I pull out a pot from the cupboard and put it into the sink to fill with warm water. “And get me the soap from the bathroom. Now, Zara.”

She blinks at me, then turns on her heel and rushes out the door. As soon as the pot is half-full, I take a clean kitchen linen from the drawer and carry both to my bedroom.

Removing my demon’s shirt will be impossible, so I just leave it and focus on washing away the blood from his abdomen and side. The water quickly turns red as I rinse the cloth.

A sharp intake of breath sounds behind me. I turn around to find Zara staring from the doorway, a bunch of towels in her hands.

“It’s him,” I say. Two words, but they are enough.

Her eyes widen, sweeping over the huge blood-covered body lying on my bed, then she approaches. Kneeling on the floor beside me, she takes one of the towels and presses it over the knife wound.

It takes us ten minutes and three pots of water to clean the blood enough for me to focus on the cut itself. Based on the length of it, it’ll require about fifteen stitches.

“I’ll take it from here,” I say and use a cotton ball saturated with antiseptic solution to clean the skin around the wound. “You can head back. Can, um . . . can she stay with you for the rest of the night?”

Zara nods and rises, walking out of the room. The door shuts behind her with a muffled click a moment later.

Once I’m done disinfecting the angry flesh, I take out a syringe and a vial of anesthetic from my kit, ready to pump him full of pain meds, but strong fingers grab my wrist.

“No.”

I press my lips into a thin line and look up at my demon. “I’m done sewing you up without an anesthetic.”

He narrows his eyes at me, his gaze searching mine. The look is cautious, as if he’s trying to find evidence of deception. I lean forward, directly into his face.

“And you’re getting a shot of antibiotics right after,” I bark.

“Want to know what I did to the last person who came at me with a syringe?” His voice is low, with a dangerous timbre to it. “I squeezed the life out of that dickhead.”

“Good thing I have a horse tranquilizer in my kit.” I pull my hand free and jam the hypodermic into his side next to the cut.

As I pull the syringe away and reach for the needle and thread, he just watches me in silence. I’m struggling to focus on what I have to do, overwhelmed by being able to touch him again after all these years. So many questions roll through my mind—questions I want to yell into his face and demand answers to.

Where were you? Why didn’t you come, at least once, if only to let me know you’re alive? Why did you leave me?

I don’t ask any of them. What’s the point?

I begin the first suture. Even with the anesthetic, it must hurt, but he doesn’t make a sound. This is probably the fifth time I’m sewing him up, and not once has he complained. I work my way through all the necessary stitches, and if it wasn’t for a slight change in his breath, I might have thought he felt nothing at all.

“I’ll go get you some water. Do you want something to eat?” I ask as I secure a thick dressing over the wound.

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

When I leave my bedroom, I head over to the kitchen counter to get my phone out of my purse.