Somehow, I know I’m no longer standing in my room.
What’s happening to me?
My body, I’m drifting. Floating in a black void.
I’ve never heard a silence like this before. It’s not like the night of my car accident, when the lightning filled my eardrums with a resounding echo. No, at least that kind of silence offered me something to hold onto. Something to fill the void. This here, it’s not even a shell. No walls exist to catch an echo, no air brushes my skin, and I don’t need to see to know it’s deserted in the most literal form of the word.
I can’t hear my heartbeat or my breaths. Don’t know if I’m alive or dead. The single feeling I’m left with is an impossible sense of abandonment. It’s a cold sensation. So numbingly cold. Not the kind that makes you shiver. The kind of cold that completely bypasses your flesh, reaching into your core and ripping your very soul open with a single slice, until it’s raw and naked.
And it’s the scariest moment of my life.
A sudden hot spark ignites in my fingertips, making me gasp, and a large hand wraps around my own through the darkness.
It’shim.
I reach out with my free hand, grasping desperately for any part of him I can get. Anything but this.Please, please make it stop.
There’s no way to spot him in the sea of black, and I’m grappling blindly with empty air until the hand holding mine squeezes and tugs me forward. I collide straight into his solid warmth. One strong arm wraps around my waist while the other comes up around my shoulders, fingers in my hair. He’s holding me so tightly I don’t even realize I’m crying until my body starts to tremble against his.
Piece by piece, his warmth sews me back together. My heartbeat finds its rhythm, air flows through my lungs, colors float into view as the darkness dissipates. The round rug, the rocking chair, the fireplace . . . I’m back in my room.
I don’t know how much time passes before his grip loosens. Hair matted to my cheeks from my silent stream of tears, I finally look up to face him. Those steely grey-black eyes pierce into mine, unreadable and daunting. His jaw is locked, lips pressed in a tight line.
He’s angry.
I don’t remember doing it, but my arms are wrapped around his neck, my fingers tangled in his thick hair. I drop my arms quickly, but he’s the one who pulls away. It’s not much, but it’s enough to leave me feeling strange and unsteady, knees weak. His eyes are locked on mine. Or maybe it’s the other way around. For a moment, no one speaks. The tension building between us is like a tangible force, a heavy current emitting from him and ricocheting off me.
It’s going to be a long night.
Chapter 29
It takesme a minute to find my voice, and I’m still breathless when I do. “Is that where you . . .” How do I even ask this question?Livejust doesn’t seem like the right word here, so I finish with, “Stay?”
As though the sound of my voice triggers something inside him, all at once his rigid stance diminishes and he’s whirling around so his back is to me. He rakes both hands through his hair, then clasps them behind his neck as he inhales a long, uneven breath. He waits a full three seconds before letting his arms drop and turning to face me.
His eyes are different now, the green gleaming through. There’s a rough edge to his voice, like a bomb trying to contain itself before it goes off. “Are you okay?”
“I’m—yes. I think so—”
“You should lie down. You need rest.” He’s scooped me up before I can process what’s happening, then takes steady, measured steps toward the bed. I would protest but it’d only be a waste of breath; we both know how weak I still am.
The blankets puff up around me as he sets me down, my head falling lightly on a pillow. He releases me and even though I still feel the soft strokes of his heat, I can’t suppress a shiver at the loss of his touch. He reaches toward the foot of the bed to retrieve the silky throw, laying it delicately over my body. Then he plucks up the rocking chair as though it weighs nothing, places it beside the bed, and sinks heavily down.
He avoids meeting my gaze, but I’m watching closely as he leans forward, eyes flashing brightly, jaw clenching. There’s so much emotion bottled up inside him, waiting to burst, that I can’t seem to single out any one more than the others.
“Hey.” I keep my voice gentle. “It’s okay. I’m okay now, thanks to you.”
He closes his eyes at my words, his lips pressing together in a hard line. “You were pulled in there, thanks to me.”
“What?” I sit up, adjusting myself so my back rests against the headboard. “You can’t seriously think that what happened tonight is your fault.”
His eyes flash open, centering on me. “It is my fault, Lou. You should never have been able to cross over while your heart still beats. It could have . . . it could have killed you. Or worse.”
I frown. “I can’t think of anything worse than if it’d killed me.”
He shakes his head, another quick tick of his jaw. “And let’s keep it that way. Tell me how it happened.”
“I—I don’t really know,” I murmur, my frown deepening. “One minute I was feeling sick, and the next I was . . . there.”
