“She hasn’t been responsive yet. She needs more time to rest,” a protective, sharp tone warnedhim.
“I understand. I just want to sit with her a while. You can stay if it puts you at ease.”
A huff from beyond his voice and the sound of scraping. A chair being dragged, maybe.
“Here.” It was a female. “I’ll be watching. And just a reminder thatshe’srecovering butI’mfully rested. You have five minutes.”
“Understood,” he stated with a clipped tone, and I tried to picture himin the abyss of my mind. Blue eyes, fierce as the sea, blinked back at me in the dark.
Those eyes. I knew those eyes.
“I don’t know where to start,” he whispered with a tentative nervousness. “With thank you or I’m sorry.”
“Start with you’re sorry,” the female barked at him from farther away.
“Do you mind?”
“Being next to her right now is not a privilege you’ve earned and you’re on borrowed time. Four minutes.”
She was protecting me from him. But I wasn’t afraid. No, I knew in my marrow he wouldn’t hurt me.
He let out a frustrated exhale.
“Reyva. You said you loved me. I was in a frenzied state—having so much of your blood at once—but, I heard you. I will not allow you to rob us of the chance to love each other. Please, come back to us. To me.”
I felt a limb somewhere in the physical world lift. He was holding me. A piece of me. His lips pressed ever so softly to the top of my skin.
A thin line of warm light broke through the darkness. Like a fiery sun rising on an orange horizon. Then, it disappeared again. Somewhere, muscles twitched. I wanted to feel more ofhim, to seehim.
“Reyva?” he called.
Yes,I answered. Only to myself. I tried again, but words couldn’t form. A low grunt of acknowledgement rumbled against my aching bones.
Then the light emerged again. Bigger and more brilliant than before. I blinked, welcoming in more and more of the light and room around me.
“Reyva!” There he was. Stormy eyes just as I’d seen them in the abyss. And a second face. The woman.
“She’s waking up!” she yelled and my head throbbed relentlessly. Her face disappeared as she kept shouting. She was demanding the healer be brought to me. But I didn’t follow her retreating form. My eyes stayed fixed on his.
“Hello, lovely,” he said, pressing the back of my hand against the stubble of his cheek.
It hurt, but I smiled, and croaked, “I meant it.”
A muscle feathered in his jaw and his eyes went still.
I breathed again, a painful breath. The symphony of pain rose in my body as I regained consciousness. “I meant it—when I said—I love you.”
“I know.” He kissed my hand again, careful not to move me too much. “I know you did, Reyva.”
“I love you,” I repeated in case the abyss took me again. He needed to know. Dommik deserved to know.
He set my hand down and fell to his knees onto the floor next to the hay bed. His hand gently stroked my hair as I kept whispering my declaration to him. But my body was so weak. I was so tired.
“I know, Reyva. I love you, too.” His fingers traced my cheeks before returning to my hair. I blinked slowly. “Rest, lovely. I’ll be here.”
The black murkiness of sleep crept over me, but there was no despair in this darkness.
Only hope. And love.
