After Rebirth, I Became My Ex's Aunt-in-Law

Fifteen compressions. Twenty. Twenty-five.

Damien’s arms burned, his shoulders shaking with the sheer, brute force of his efforts. The mud soaked through the knees of his ruined suit pants, the freezing river water dripping from his face, blinding him. He didn’t feel the cold. He didn’t feel anything except the absolute, world-ending terror gnawing at his sanity.

”Breathe,” Damien commanded, his voice tearing at the seams. It was a roar aimed at the heavens, a feral demand. ”I said breathe!”

He brought his hands down for one last, desperate, brutal compression against her sternum.

Aria’s spine violently arched off the muddy grass.

Her chest hitched—a sharp, unnatural spasm—and then came the most beautiful, sickening sound Damien had ever heard in his twenty-nine years of life.

She choked.

Damien instantly shoved his hands under her shoulders, rolling her onto her side just as her mouth opened. She expelled a violent, splashing lungful of river water onto the grass.

She coughed, the sound wet and ragged, her entire body seizing as her lungs remembered how to function, greedily sucking in the freezing night air.

”Aria. Aria,” Damien gasped, his hands hovering over her, trembling so badly he could barely track her movements.

Aria lay on her side, shivering violently, her teeth chattering so hard they clicked. Her eyelids fluttered, heavy and confused. The world was a blur of darkness, blinding helicopter spotlights, and the deafening rush of blood in her own ears.

She felt a heavy, radiating heat beside her.

She weakly lifted a hand, her numb, freezing fingers reaching out blindly until they brushed against the wet, sharp line of a familiar jaw.

”Damien?” she croaked, her voice barely a whisper against the wind.

The touch shattered whatever was left of Damien’s composure.

Damien completely collapsed. He folded over her, burying his face into the freezing, wet crook of her neck. He wrapped his arms around her shivering body, crushing her to his chest, a harsh, ragged sob ripping its way out of his throat.

”I’ve got you,” he wept against her skin, kissing her temple, her cheek, her hair. ”I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

”Sir! Step back! Let us work!”

A swarm of paramedics in high-visibility jackets descended the muddy embankment, their flashlights cutting through the dark like strobe lights. They fell upon Aria, immediately unfolding thick, silver Mylar thermal blankets to trap her body heat.

”Severe hypothermia,” a medic shouted over the chaos, pressing a stethoscope to her chest. ”Pulse is thready but there! Let’s get her on the backboard! Move!”

They tried to gently pry Damien away. For a terrifying second, he locked his grip, his golden eyes flashing with a wild, animalistic instinct to protect. But the sight of her blue lips brought his logical brain back online. He stepped back, his chest heaving, watching them strap her to the bright yellow board.

Above them, on the bridge, the police barricade had been established. Flashing red and blue lights painted the asphalt.

”Let me through! That’s my best friend! Let me through!”

Aria, drifting in and out of a dark, freezing haze, turned her head slightly toward the noise.

Zoe and Kai broke through the line of police officers, slipping and sliding down the grassy bank.

Zoe was a mess. She was entirely barefoot. In her left hand, she gripped her phone like a lifeline. Her right hand was tightly, undeniably intertwined with Kai’s.

She was buried inside an absurdly expensive, oversized, heavily studded Saint Laurent leather jacket. Kai’s jacket. It swallowed her small frame, the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Kai himself was wearing just a t-shirt, looking uncharacteristically serious and completely focused on keeping Zoe from falling down the hill.

Zoe spotted Aria strapped to the backboard, shivering under the foil blankets, her eyes open.

Zoe dropped to her knees in the mud, bursting into loud, ugly, unashamed tears of pure relief.

”Thank God, you’re okay,” Zoe sobbed, reaching out to touch Aria’s cold hand. ”I was so scared.”

Aria tried to smile, but her facial muscles wouldn’t obey. Her eyelids drooped.

Kai pulled Zoe back up as the medics approached. He looked at Damien over her shoulder. The two men didn’t speak, but a silent understanding passed between them. This meant war.

The deafening rhythm of the medevac helicopter intensified as it descended, hovering just feet above the grassy clearing near the riverbank.

The downwash was a hurricane. It whipped the tall grass flat and sent a spray of river water misting over the rescue crew.

”Load her up!” the lead medic yelled, covering his face against the wind.

They hoisted the backboard, moving quickly toward the open side doors of the chopper. They strapped an oxygen mask over Aria’s pale face, the plastic fogging instantly with her shallow breaths.

Damien followed them, a shadow that refused to detach.

”Sir, you can’t ride in the back,” a medic shouted, holding up a hand to block him. ”Standard protocol, we need the space—”

Damien didn’t even look at the man. He slapped the medic’s arm away with a force that sent the man stumbling backward, grabbed the handle of the helicopter door, and hoisted himself directly into the cabin.

The sheer, terrifying authority radiating off him silenced any further protests. The medics wisely backed down, securing the gurney and preparing for liftoff.

Aria lay strapped to the board, trapped in a twilight zone between freezing cold and complete exhaustion. She felt the vibration of the engine beneath her. She felt the oxygen flowing into her nose.

And then, she felt a large, warm hand envelop hers.

She forced her heavy eyelids open.

Damien was leaning over her, completely disregarding his own soaking wet clothes. His silver hair was a mess, his face smeared with mud and river water.

Aria moved her hand weakly under the thermal blanket, turning her palm so she could intertwine her freezing fingers with his warm ones.

She looked up at him, her vision swimming.

”Stay,” she whispered weakly, her voice muffled by the plastic oxygen mask. ”Stay with me.”

Damien brought her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles.

”I’m not going anywhere,” he vowed, his voice a low, gravelly promise. ”I’m right here.”

Aria let out a small, contented sigh, finally allowing the darkness to pull her under.

Damien watched her eyes slide shut, monitoring the steady rise and fall of her chest to ensure she was actually just sleeping.

He didn’t let go of her hand.

As the helicopter lifted off the ground, ascending rapidly into the night sky toward St. Jude’s Hospital, Damien looked out the small window at the dark, sprawling expanse of the city below.

The fear that had paralyzed him on the riverbank was gone.

The Vipers dared to come after his wife directly. They thought because he wore a suit and traded in stocks, he was bound by the rules of civilized society.

They had just thrown his wife into a freezing river.

Damien’s jaw locked. His golden eyes reflected the blinking red lights of the helicopter console.

The French mafia was about to learn a very painful lesson about why the city called him the Demon King.

He was going to burn them all to the ground.

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A/N: Check the Chapter comments for a super smexy illustration of the lovely Damien Sinclair~