cloth and then reached for my face. I backed up a step and teetered on the broken wall, and he tugged me back to him with a scowl.
“You have blood on your face.”
Oh.
Then with extreme care, he dabbed at my cheekbone and then above my eye.
“They didn’t touch you?”
“Well, the one guy kind of touched my foot, but more like I touched his head with my foot.”
A grin split his solemn expression, and a single muddy lamp came on, casting us in this eerie glow in the darkness. The cold grew even more biting as a breeze whipped across the court. The smell of the ocean had me turning my head. Were we close to the bay? The last city we’d been in had been a city on the coast. Maybe?
I really should have paid more attention, but I’d been so tired.
When he finished wiping my face, he let go and then washed his knuckles carefully. I would have offered to help, but he turned away. Lights pierced the darkness below on the court, headlights, accompanied by the rumbling growl of a vehicle.
Fear spiked through me as the headlights illuminated the body below and the unnatural angle it lay at.
I’d seen falls before.
The guy hadn’t been able to stop himself or catch himself. I’d hit him with that rock. Car doors slammed.
“Let me talk,” Rome said as he pulled me back away from the edge again. The hardness of his chest framed my back, and his head bent as he spoke right against my ear. “Don’t worry about Hawk. Just let me tell them what happened.”
I nodded because someone suddenly climbed up the wall. They were utterly backlit by the headlights, then almost as suddenly, the lights cut off.
“Are you all right, Dove?”
Vaughn.
Relief sagged through me. He grasped my face in his hands and tilted my head back as he studied me. Then he turned a hard look on Rome. I tried to turn because Jasper appeared from behind him every bit the wraith Rome had been earlier. His dark eyes bored into me, but he didn’t pause as he greeted Rome with a hard fist. I flinched, but Vaughn tugged me to him.
“Don’t look at them,” he ordered in that soothing voice. “Look at me. Are you hurt? Did they do anything?”
“No, Rome never let them touch me.”
There was another hard grunt behind me and the sound of flesh slamming into flesh, and I winced.
“Good,” Vaughn said, rubbing his thumb along my jaw in a gentle motion. “We’re going back to the car now.”
I shivered.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Jasper demanded.
“I was thinking she needed a break from the asylum and some sunshine. It was a good day.”
“A good day?”
Vaughn tugged me up against him and wrapped arms around me. I froze, not only at the close contact, but at the sheer heat coming off of him. He wasn’t even wearing a hoodie, and his sleeveless shirt left his colorful arms on display. “Guys, settle this later. She’s freezing, and we still need to clean up.”
“Starling’s okay, aren’t you?” Rome’s voice carried a twinge of pain in it, but try as I might, Vaughn would not let me turn around. Being pressed right up to him made me want to rub my nose against his shirt. There was something deeply clean and spicy about his nearness. Coupled with the chilly air, it erased the sour stench of the guys on the ground.
A shudder went through me. What the hell was I doing? I might have helped kill someone.
“We were done and heading back. They tried to surround Starling, and I took care of it.” Rome’s flat delivery pulled another frown from me. Vaughn had cupped the back of my head, and the soft stroke of his fingers against my scalp eased some of the tension.
“I want Dove gone before the rats get here.” An inflexible steel entered his tone. My eyes drifted half shut, both from the comforting way he held me and the soft touches. Nothing got too personal, and yet it sheared away the jagged edges of nervous energy.
“Go,” Jasper said. “We’ll clean this up. Make sure she isn’t hurt.” Then Jasper stunned me when he put a soft hand against my back and pressed his lips to the side of my head where Vaughn’s hand didn’t cover it. “You’ll be okay.”
It was a promise.
“What the hell were the 19 Diamonds doing down here, and are any of them alive to answer questions?”
I didn’t catch Rome’s