My ribs protest as I finally settle onto my side beside her, the adrenaline long gone and the damage beneath my skin making itself known again, sharp and insistent, but it’s nothing compared to the peace settling into my bones as I watch her sleep.
My inner monologue is on mute, like onlysheis capable of bringing forth.
She’s here.
She’s safe.
She’s mine.
My hand moves on its own, smoothing down a strand of her hair, the curl wrapping around my finger like it belongs there, like it’s always belonged there, and I lean forward, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead, breathing her in.
“My heart only beats alongside yours, baby,” I murmur softly against her skin. “Sweet dreams.”
She doesn’t stir.
Doesn’t flinch.
She sleeps on, trusting me completely.
A smile pulls at my mouth as I lie there watching her, memorizing every inch of her face in the low light, committing this moment to the part of me that still remembers what it felt like to lose her.
She asked me to do it again...
And I would have given it to her a thousand times more.
Chapter Fifteen
Seraphina
Dandelions – Ruth B.
Iwake slowly, as though I am being returned to myself piece by fragile piece, carried upward from somewhere deep and unreachable and set gently back inside my body, and for a long moment I don’t open my eyes because I don’t trust the kindness of it, don’t trust that this softness has been given without condition, without cost. Flashes. Blood. My heart hammering in my chest. Trey’s tattooed form laying limp on the cold stone floor…
The sheets are warm around me, cocooned close to my skin, and they smell of clean cotton and something deeper beneath it, something familiar enough to make my chest ache before I fully understand why, because my body recognizes it long before my mind can catch up.
I lie there without moving, suspended inside the quiet, afraid that any small shift will break whatever fragile mercy has found me.
Move. Check. To be sure.
The silence stretches, watchful and whole.
I hear them then…voices. Low. Male.
My heart falters, not in fear, but in something far more dangerous than fear, something that rises slowly and painfully inside my chest, something that feels like hope.
I listen without breathing, straining toward the sound as it reaches me through the walls, blurred at first by distance and sleep, until one voice separates itself from the other, and the moment it does, I know him.
I would know him anywhere.
Trey.
My hand rises to my mouth, holding in the sound that tries to escape me, because it feels too fragile to release, and tears slip from my eyes before I can stop them, warm and silent as they disappear into my hair.
Another voice answers him, and I recognize Chace too, the familiarity, the safety in knowing I am surrounded by something stronger than memory.
They are outside…close.
Close enough that I could call for them.
