69. Fractured Loyalties
Marcus
I stood in the doorway of the guest room, arms crossed, watching my little sister guard the man who had almost died for me.
Zander had woken up briefly earlier, weak and disoriented, but the effort had exhausted him. He was sleeping again now, chest rising and falling in shallow, steady breaths. The heart monitor Doc had set up beeped softly in the background, a sound I had come to both hate and cling to. Mara refused to leave his side. She sat curled up on the bed next to him, one hand gently resting on his chest as if she could hold his heart beating through sheer willpower. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, but there was a fierce determination in them that I had never seen before.
She looked up when I entered with a tray of food. “He needs rest,” s
