By the end of a nine-hour drive spent sandwiched between the other two cars in our caravan, the least significant of my injuries had become dull throbs and most of my sore muscles had stiffened up. But my cracked rib and pummeled face hurt like Dean had come back to kick me while I was down, and my head had become the source of all earthly misery.

When we turned into Marc’s driveway, my heart leaped into my throat. I didn’t want to go in the house. I didn’t want them to see me in my current state, and I didn’t want to face them after my failure. But they already knew what had happened—my mother had called Michael from the car right after we’d left—and I couldn’t avoid facing my own Pride. Not if I claimed to be their leader.

Vic pulled his car in behind Marc’s—which he’d left when we’d brought him back to the ranch—and we parked beside him, behind Ryan’s POS. Parker stopped right behind us.

Marc was out of the car before Jace could kill the engine. He opened the rear passenger door, but instead of helping me out, he got in next to me. “Are you okay?”

I put my head on his shoulder and let him hold me. “I have honestly never been less okay in my life.”

“Yeah.” He hesitated, and I knew there was more. “I only have the one bed. I want you to take it. You need to rest, and I’ll…I’ll just watch you sleep.” They’d have to watch me for a while, because of the head trauma. “I’ll have everyone else leave you alone until you feel like…being with people.”

“No.” I shook my head firmly, in spite of the pain. “I appreciate the bed—I feel like I could sleep for a month. But I have to talk to them first. How can I claim to be their Alpha if I can’t even face them?”

“It can wait a couple of hours,” Jace said from the front seat, twisted so that he could see us both.

“No, it can’t. It’s already waited more than nine,” I insisted. Someone knocked on the car window, and I looked up to see my mother peering anxiously at us. “Let’s go. They’re probably worried enough as it is.”

I made it to the house under my own power, but my left hip hurt with every step, so I let Marc help me onto the porch. Jace held the door open for me, and the collective gasp when I stepped into the living room could have silenced the crowd at Texas Stadium.

Michael stood from the couch, where he’d been talking softly to Holly, and briefly, I wondered how he’d explained all this to her. We could always tell her I’d fallen out of a tree….

“Faythe…?” Kaci stood in the middle of the kitchen, holding an unopened can of Coke, staring at me as if she didn’t quite recognize me. Or didn’t want to.

“I’m fine. Really,” I insisted. But as soon as she heard my voice—thus had to believe what she saw—she dropped the can, and it rolled under the nearest cabinet.

“Yeah.” Michael came closer, studying my face in the inadequate light. “Wherein ‘fine’ means ‘beaten to within an inch of your life.’”

“More like half an inch.” I tried to smile, but the expression felt all wrong. “But I really am fine. I wouldn’t mind sitting down, though.”

Marc led me to the couch where I sat next to Holly, who stared at me with her mouth hanging open. Her face was tearstained, her makeup a distant memory, yet she was stunning next to me, I had no doubt.

“What…? What…? What…?” But she couldn’t complete the thought.

“She keeps saying that,” Kaci said, sinking onto the couch on my other side. “Pound her on the back, and she may actually finish a sentence.”

The rest of the enforcers followed us in, carrying suitcases, and the minute he saw Manx, standing near one wall, rocking the sleeping baby in her arms, Owen dropped the bag he carried and made a beeline in her direction.

“You’re okay?” He peeked at the baby, then stared down at her like the sun couldn’t shine on a world without Manx in it. “Both of you?” The obvious fear and love in his expression broke my heart. Owen didn’t have a poker face; everything he felt could be read clearly on his features and there wasn’t a mean cell in his entire body. His heart could be broken so easily.

“We are fine.” She smiled up at him, her features mirroring the transparent relief on his. “Now.”

No, Manx wouldn’t break his heart. But life just might. Owen wasn’t a leader, and he was only a competent fighter. And in our world, men like that, ordinary, bighearted gentlemen, didn’t get to marry and raise families, because they couldn’t protect them.

At the sound of my mother’s heels on the scarred hardwood, I looked up to find her watching Owen with a mixture of pride and fear, as if she were thinking the very same thing. Then she glanced around the room for Ryan, and for the first time I noticed him standing in the corner alone, watching. His gaze met mine, but I couldn’t read his expression, and I didn’t have the energy to deal with him at the moment.

“Dean did this?” Michael knelt in front of me for a better look. He started to tilt my face toward the light, then seemed to think better of it. “How bad is it?” But he was talking to the doctor, who’d just come in the door with his medical bag.

“Who’s Dean?” Holly asked, her eyes still glazed with shock. “Some kind of mafia hit man? Why was he after Faythe? Is this some kind of…safe house?”