Queen of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #4) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,234

her eyes locked on me, a permanent shadow of regret, defeat and failure stamped into her irises.

I got to my feet, sharing a look of relief with my boys, but it was short-lived as Kyan cursed and fell to his knees, dropping back onto the ground and sending a spray of snow out around him.

I threw myself down at his side with a panicked scream, clutching his hand as he gazed at me for barely a second with a thousand desperate words burning in his eyes.

“No,” I gasped in fright.

“Was I a decent husband, baby?” he rasped and tears splashed down my cheeks in a torrent as his hand rested against my cheek, feeling all too cold.

I cupped it to my face as panic clutched every piece of my heart and wouldn’t let go. I couldn’t lose him. My dad had taught me to face the end of the world, but had never taught me how to make it through this. Because Kyan Roscoe’s death was an apocalypse of its own kind. And I wouldn’t be a survivor.

“You’re the best kind of husband, Kyan. One who’d do anything and everything to save me,” I choked. “And I promise your wife will do the same for you.”

“The rest of you assholes better look after her,” he breathed, his voice seeming to fade away. “Make her smile every damn day.”

They all started making complaints, commanding him not to give up and swearing to look after me for the rest of forever with him at their sides. But I got the awful feeling he didn’t believe he’d be there for forever with us and the thought of that was tearing me apart.

Peace filled his features then his eyes fell closed and I frantically tugged the phone out of my pocket as I started to call for help, yelling at him to stay right here with us.

Saint plucked it from my fingers as Blake and Nash knelt down either side of me in the snow. “Just keep talking to him,” Saint commanded me. “Your voice will keep him here.”

I started saying Kyan’s name and begging him to stay, telling him about the life we were going to make together, all five of us.

“Hold on, brother,” Blake growled passionately as Nash checked his pulse then started performing CPR.

Oh god, oh god.

It was all happening too fast and terror was thumping through my veins.

I gripped Kyan’s hand, holding onto him as my tears started to flow and a real sense of terror encompassed my heart.

I couldn’t lose him. I needed him as surely as I needed the sun to rise. There was no us without Kyan. No Night Keepers, no anything. But as Nash worked to keep his heart beating, and Blake breathed air into his lungs for him, I felt death leaning over my shoulder, daring to come for the man who feared nothing. Not even the Grim Reaper.

“You can’t have him!’ I screamed from the depths of the nothingness in my chest. And I held onto him tighter, refusing death itself. Because no force in this land could take one of my Night Keepers from me. I was their protector, their saviour, their queen. And they were my kings of the dark, my immortal beasts. So if death was here to claim one of us, it had better take us all.

ONE WEEK LATER

T he four of us sat in silence as the time ticked by, none of us wanting to say or do anything other than just feel the emptiness of the space that Kyan should have resided in.

I felt hollow without him here. Like this barren space in me would never quite be filled again. It wasn't like when my mom had died. Though I'd never get over losing her, I was fairly certain that I'd finally come to terms with it. What had happened to her wasn't right and it hadn't been her time, but she'd at least lived. She'd known love and family and had seen her dreams come to fruition. But Kyan...he'd barely even begun to find out who he was without his family's shadow hanging over him. He’d barely even gotten a taste of love. It wasn’t his fucking time.

I blew out a slow breath as I looked at the unfamiliar view outside the window, open planes coated in snow looking back at me blandly. None of us had been home in the week since it had all happened. Since we'd gone up against Troy Memphis and lost.

Saint had