“Yes.” Kay smiled. “You do.”
Emma slowly let her breath out and looked around the room. And then she could see it all. Shadows moved gently over everyone. Soft auras around Kay and Ethan and Bryn glimmered with blues and greens. She could clearly see the deep ocean-blue around Zach and even her own purple-red and charcoal.
Her Shadows were softer than the others, more cloudlike, but as she watched, they reached out toward Zach’s Shadows, and his reached back for her.
“I can see them,” she whispered.
Zach pulled her closer, his voice just as rough as hers. “Yes. You can.”
ChapterTwenty
Fuck it all.Zach groaned quietly. He had nearly walked away and left her.
At first, he’d been ready to fight them all to protect her. She’d started whimpering and thrashing and he’d drawn his Shadows into a long, lethal sword without even thinking. He’d been ready to rain hell down on everyone in that room—never mind that they were his closest friends.
They’d said they could help. They were supposed to be Healers, but they’d been hurting her, and he’d been ready to stop them. Emma had started screaming and the sound had opened something dark and potent inside him. A well of fear and rage that he had pushed down so many times, he could barely contain it.
Kay had taken one glance at his face and hauled him halfway across the room and commanded him to look. Really look.
Zach had stood there, Kay’s hand holding him pinned, his swords clutched in his hands, and he’d finally seen that Ethan was pulling dark, shriveled fragments of Shadow from Emma. One after the other, like removing ancient, blackened thorns.
He had stood, helpless, watching as Emma screamed and Ethan and Bryn worked to Heal her while Elizabeth murmured the details of what Emma was seeing. And with every word, his heart ached more, shards of ice forming in his chest. He hadn’t been able to protect her. He had to stand back and watch her suffer.
She had convulsed, the arching of her back so very like a seizure, and it had almost shattered him. There were things he couldn’t protect her from. He could lose her. God. He’d brought Emma into the Order at the most dangerous time in decades. He had sought her out and disrupted the life she’d built so that he could bring her back to the very place she’d been hurt. He’d put her in the sights of the man who experimented on her when she was a child. What the hell had he done?
That was when he’d almost run. The urge to walk out the door and just keep going had thrummed through him. He could take himself far away and never hear her scream, never see her cry, never have to face the fact that she could be taken from him.
Maybe he would have done it if Emma hadn’t asked for him. If Kay hadn’t looked him in the eye and told him Emma needed him. Emma’s soft voice calling for him had broken through all his churning thoughts and hauled him straight back to her side.
The rest was a blur. Emma waking. Taking her hand. Holding her as she saw her first Shadows. Her tears and her joy. Carrying her out to the car and driving her back to Elizabeth’s house. He’d hardly noticed any of it. All he could think of was how easy it would be to lose her.
Zach looked down at Emma where she lay curled up on Elizabeth’s spare bed. She hadn’t complained when he carried her up the stairs, helped her out of her jeans, and settled her under the covers. She’d immediately closed her eyes, too exhausted to notice that he kissed her gently and only held her until he was certain she was fast asleep.
Then he climbed back out of the bed and stumbled back to lean against the wall to watch her breathe. She was so beautiful. Her hair spread around her, her chest rising and falling gently as she slept. It would be so easy to climb back into the bed and hold her. Maybe if he lay there long enough, his heart would stop thudding painfully against his ribs. Maybe he would be able to take a real breath and let go of the rising sense of dread that had plagued him all day. Or maybe it wouldn’t help at all. Maybe he would lie there in agony, reliving Emma’s screams.
Is this what his father had felt, watching his mother suffer? God.
Even now, Emma’s Shadows reached for him. They were pale and soft, but no longer choked off by Gordon’s foul blood Shadows. She could see them, and she would feel the connection between them, just as he could. That constant hum of awareness.
Zach shuffled over to the window and looked out across the garden to the neighboring farm. Rolling green fields stretched away toward mountains in the distance.
He watched the shadows lengthen as the sun sank lower, like arrows pointing the way out the door and far away.
He rested his forehead against the glass. It was too late to think of running. It had been too late from the moment he held her hand and realized who she was to him. He could never leave her. He had to find a way to keep Emma safe. That was the only choice he had left.
Emma stirred, opening her eyes blearily as she reached for him. “Zach?”
He sat down on the side of the bed beside her and stroked her hair. It was tangled from sleep, but it was still so soft and shiny. Strong, and yet ultimately so delicate.
“Are you coming back to bed?” she asked, her voice still husky with sleep.
“I was going to let you rest. Maybe go for a walk.”
“I’ll come with you.” Emma lifted her arms above her head and rolled her neck, groaning as she stretched. Her tank top rode high as she moved, and he didn’t stop to think before lifting it further and settling his hand on her waist.
Her skin was smooth and warm, she was softly flushed and rumpled from her sleep, and her eyes were still hazy. She shivered as he brushed his hand up and over her ribs, goose bumps breaking out over her skin.
He leaned down, closed his eyes, and breathed her in, letting her scent wash over him. She was with him. She was safe. That was the most important thing.
