Ash looked like hell when he walked into the sterile white of the hospital room. His cut was scuffed, his face a map of fresh bruises, and his movements carried the stiff drag of a man held together by stubbornness more than strength. The dim lights above hummed, casting shadows under his tired eyes.
Cordelia was already asleep, her chest rising softly beneath the thin blanket. The bruises mottling her skin looked paler now, healing, but they still stabbed at Ash’s gut like knives. He had thought he’d braced himself for this sight—he hadn’t. Seeing her battered, fragile, laid out against the white sheets—it unstrung him all over again.
He pulled the chair close to her bedside and lowered himself into it with a grunt. Every muscle screamed, every wound pulsed, but he didn’t care. His hand
