The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,126

I lifted a hand to my chest. Blood stained my fingers, seeped through them. Wet warmth trickled down my back as I stumbled back a step and then my knees went out—

Someone caught me from behind. A Luxen. The one with blue eyes, the one who always had a lollipop. “She’s down!” he shouted, and I tried to pull away, but I didn’t seem to have control over my body. Blue Eyes was holding me as he went to the ground, on his knees. “Luc!”

Confusion clouded my thoughts as I stared at my hand, at the blood coursing down my arm, over the rapidly churning black dots.

I hadn’t seen the shooter. I hadn’t known the threat was there.

An arm slid under my neck, and the scent of pine and burning leaves surrounded me. Instinct fueled by the Source told me I would heal—that I just needed to find somewhere safe, and where I was now wasn’t safe. I needed to get away, but whatever messages my brain was sending to my body weren’t getting there. I tried to summon the Source, but the flutter in my chest was even weaker. The marks on my skin no longer appeared like glittering shards of onyx. I couldn’t move, and I wasn’t safe—

“You’re safe, Evie. I got you,” a deep voice intruded, a voice that belonged to hands gently brushing my hair back from my face. “I won’t let anyone else hurt you. You’re safe.”

I was being laid down, and the rapidly scattering dark clouds were replaced by a face I knew, by eyes the color of wild violets, pupils a brilliant white. Him. I knew his name. It was on the tip of my tongue.

Moving his hand from my cheek, he placed it on my chest. Mine had fallen limp and useless to my side. As if it were some long-buried reflex, I kept trying to summon the Source, but the hum of energy was faint and growing weaker.

“I think it went in through her back,” the blue-eyed Luxen said. “The chest is where it exited.”

Purple Eyes tugged at my shirt, lifting it. With a curse, he started to turn me onto my side, toward him—

Burning pain shot across my shoulders, so sharp and sudden that I screamed. The Source throbbed in response to the pain, pulsing out from me.

Purple Eyes grunted, jerking back, but he held on tighter. “I’m sorry, Peaches. I’m so sorry.” He continued to turn me until I was on my side, the agony an endless wave that tore another scream from me. “I know I’m hurting you. I’m sorry.”

The Source didn’t respond this time, not even when he shifted, pressing his hand to the throbbing pain. Heat flared from his hand, beating back the ragged stinging. The warmth flowed down my back.

“Open your eyes. I need you to do that for me. Please. Open those beautiful eyes.”

Please.

They weren’t open? My body seemed to obey that almost desperate plea as I forced my lids to lift.

His entire body glowed, not just his eyes, and the pulsing warmth was everywhere, ebbing and flowing. “There you are.” He smiled, but I thought it didn’t look right. “You’re going to be all right. Do you hear me, Evie?”

“I … failed.”

An emotion akin to pain tightened the lines of his features. “You did not fail, Evie. You did not. I failed.”

I opened my mouth, but a wet cough came out instead of words—a cough that tasted of rich iron.

“It’s okay.” The beautiful man’s face above me grew fuzzy around the edges. “It’s okay. I promise you. Just stay with me.”

He bent over me, and a shock of electricity flowed through me as he pressed his lips to the center of my forehead. Memories flashed of him doing just that time and time again. His lips against my temple, against my skin and my own lips. He’d kissed me many times before, because he was …

“I’m your everything,” he whispered, curling his body around mine. “You’re my everything.”

* * *

I woke up remembering everything.

Sprawled atop Luc with my cheek plastered to his chest, we both were nude from the waist up. A sheet was draped over us, and I had a vague recollection of Viv and Zoe stripping away my blood-soaked shirt and bra to examine the healing wound.

I cringed. Things were spotty, but I clearly and unfortunately remembered clinging to Luc like a squirrel monkey when Viv and Zoe tried to separate us. I was so bad that Luc had to carry