Chapter Thirty-Five
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Ily
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I WOKE AND STRETCHED IN THE sunlight.
Happiness beamed through my every cell. The indulgence of knowing I didn’t have to rush out of bed for a job or a Master...heaven.
Rolling onto my side, I hugged my pillow and looked at Henri.
He lay on his stomach, facing away from me with his arms above his head, and a sheet pooling around his waist.
My heart throbbed with love even while the tiniest whisper of annoyance formed. I’d loved having sex with him last night. I’d come, and it felt good, but...it hadn’t fulfilled that ache. That burn. That utter annihilation that I’d grown addicted to each time he fucked me.
Memories flashed through my head: him flogging me before mounting me. Him delivering pain as well as outrageous pleasure. My core clenched. I reached to run my fingers down his back—to wake him up and try to tease him into snapping only...
Sunlight cascaded over his skin.
I gasped in horror as I bolted upright.
His beautiful back.
The part of his body that I’d lusted after every time he’d marched around our room in Joyero after a shower. The long sleek lines of muscle. The powerful breadth of his shoulders.
All ruined.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I traced the thick savage grooves of scar tissue. Criss-crosses and lattice marks scarred him from top to bottom.
He stirred as I pulled the sheet off his hips.
I choked on more tears as I focused on the taut muscles of his ass and the sharp lines embedded there.
A lightning bolt of absolute hate shot through me.
Victor.
Fuck, I wanted to murder him all over again.
Rolling onto his side, Henri stiffened as he noticed my tears.
For a second, his grey gaze flared with hunger.
I waited for him to drink those tears. To pounce on me like he always had.
But then he pinched the bridge of his nose, grabbed a tissue from the bedside table and held it out to me.
“If you’re crying because of the state of my back, don’t. It doesn’t hurt. I’m okay.”
Taking the tissue, I blew my nose and forced a smile. “I didn’t realise how deep the scar tissue went. You always wear a t-shirt to bed.”
“To prevent you from seeing it.” Shuffling upright, he rested against the pillows. “I didn’t want it to turn you off.”
“Turn me off?” My mouth hung open. “Henri...how could you think—”
Someone’s fist pounded on the door, cutting me off.
He scowled and dropped his stare to my nakedness. “Just a sec!”
Launching out of bed, he shrugged into a t-shirt and black pyjama bottoms, then threw me a spare grey shirt from the freshly laundered pile. “Here.”
Slipping out of bed, I yanked it on just as he went to open the door.
Q stood on the threshold. Freshly showered, his dark suit immaculately tailored. He smiled at Henri, then stiffened as his gaze fell on my bare thigh.
His eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared.
I looked down at my leg then slapped a hand over the blue H scribed into my skin. Henri followed his brother’s stare, wincing at the memories of that day. The sapphire dust he’d rubbed into a fresh cut. Blue mingling with red.
A visceral punch of hot desire cut right through my middle.
I’d been out of my mind with lust.
I’d come so hard I’d—
I blushed.
Q sniffed and backed away. “I won’t ask. None of my business.”
“Agreed. None of your business.” Henri stepped in front of me, crossing his arms. “Why the early morning visit?”
Looking down the corridor, he narrowed his eyes as Tess appeared. Scratching his five o’clock shadow, he shifted uncomfortably. “Eh...”
I frowned and moved to Henri’s side. I’d not known his brother long but seeing him tongue-tied didn’t fit with his usual rather snappy, prickly personality. “Everything okay?”
Tess came toward us, a charcoal woollen dress framing her curves. “We just got a call. From the hospital.”
Q glanced at her and paced away to look out the window. “You tell them. I feel like I keep fucking everything up.”
“Tell us what?” Henri asked, a trace of suspicion in his cool tone.
Catching my stare, Tess winced. “Well...you know how we had some jewels healing here but the worst cases—the ones too damaged—” She flung her arms up. “Dammit, I can’t. Just...we need to show you something.”
Henri flicked me a look. “The last time Q showed me something, I found out Ily hadn’t died...only to watch her die a few weeks later.”
“Yes well, we promise no one is going to die this time.” Tess grinned with a guilty shrug. “We hope.”
“Meet us downstairs. There’s a car waiting.” Q stalked away. Snatching Tess’s wrist, he dragged her with him.
Closing the door, Henri scowled. “Any idea what’s got up his ass?”
“Nope.” I flung myself into his arms and kissed him. “But he’s not patient so I suggest we go find out.”
* * * * *
My nose wrinkled at the scents of bleach and dying.
I’d always hated hospitals.
Despite being found at one and my father working in one every day, I’d never been able to get over the stench or the energy of the place. The energy of hope and loss, fear and prayer.
Henri held my hand as we followed Tess and Q.
We’d flown here.
By a private helicopter.
I knew Henri’s brother was loaded but until that moment when he shoved us into a helicopter with a sparrow logo on its tail and threw a headset at us, I hadn’t truly understood.
France had unravelled like a children’s story book as we flew to the roof of a hospital only to land and be immediately greeted by a doctor in a blinding white coat.
That doctor led our procession.
He hadn’t said a word, just nodded at Q and started walking.
Nerves popped in my stomach the longer we walked through a labyrinth of white, stark corridors. Nurses raised an eyebrow as we cut through their station then turned left and continued all the way to the end.
There, the doctor rested his hand on the doorknob and gave us a look. “I must apologise for the mix-up. We should’ve tried harder to confirm identities despite the patient being uncommunicative until this time. I’m not sure how such paperwork wasn’t thoroughly—”
“Just open the door,” Q barked. Stepping aside, he arched his chin at Tess to join him and added, “You two go in. We’ll stay out here.”
Nerves exploded into full-blown panic. “What’s going on?”
The doctor twisted the doorknob and pushed it open. “I think it’s best if you see for yourself, and then...we can chat.”
Sharing a worried look with me, Henri tugged me forward and we stepped into the hospital room.
Winter sunlight spilled inside, bouncing off pale green curtains wrapped around the bed at the end. Our boots squeaked on the linoleum as we made our way to the window.
Brushing aside the curtain, I made eye contact with the person sitting up in bed. An arm in a sling, and love in his gaze.
For a second, every part of my nervous system stopped working.
I couldn’t think or blink or speak.
I just stared.
At a ghost.
At a soulmate who’d died.
A man who’d shielded me with his own life.
My fingers flew to the medallion-shaped scar on my sternum. Tears flowed quick and silent down my cheeks. I staggered forward. Henri almost fell over.
“I-Is this real?” I couldn’t trust my eyes until I touched him.
Until I knew for sure...
Hesitantly, fearfully, I stopped by the bedside and cupped the cheek of someone I never thought I’d see again.
His hand came up and covered mine.
His soft brown eyes gleamed with vitality and violent joy.
And then he tugged me closer and wrapped me in the biggest one-armed hug.
“Hi, jaanu...”
His voice.
His heat.
Oh God.
With a cry, I flung my arms around him. I buried myself into his neck. He smelled all wrong and still felt far too thin, but he was real. Real. “My God, Paavak...” Commonsense tried to tell me this wasn’t happening. That I’d tripped and whacked my head.
This couldn’t be real.
Could it?
Could he truly be hugging me? Holding me?
“It’s okay, Ily.” Peter kissed my hair. “Hey, no need to cry. I’m okay. See? I’m right here.”
I clung to him. I practically crawled on top of him.
He chuckled as I sobbed against his throat. “Hey, that’s ticklish without my collar.” He flinched away, his laughter so much lighter than any I’d heard on Victor’s island. Anytime he’d laughed back then, it’d been heavy with scorn and unsaid things.
Now it twinkled in the sunlight like fireflies.
I pulled away.
I met his eyes.
I stopped crying and truly saw. “It’s really you.”
“Told you.” He grinned. “Not dead. I didn’t turn into a vampire or sell my soul for another chance. I’m just me. Just a guy who’s scarred and skinny...a slave who escaped.”
I winced at his attempt at a joke.
“Way too soon for that sort of humour, Paavak.” Henri wiped his mouth and shook his head. “I...I’m having a really hard time seeing you alive when I saw you with my own fucking eyes. You were dead.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” Peter smirked. “You told me I couldn’t die, remember? Back in the kitchens? You gave me explicit orders not to give up, so...I didn’t.”
Henri shifted to the other side of the bed, his steps uneven. He towered over both of us as I wiped my tears with my jumper’s sleeve.
Poking Peter in the shoulder, Henri breathed, “H-How?” His voice cracked. “I know what I saw that night. Your lips were blue. You didn’t move. All the jewels saw you die.”
Sitting higher in bed, Peter didn’t wince with pain or show any sign of death.
Shadows smudged beneath his eyes and a beard framed his lips, but he didn’t look anywhere close to dying.
“Apparently, I’m hard to kill. I mean, I had good training from all the other times Victor tried.
I guess I’ve gotten rather good at coming back from some pretty nasty shit.
” He shrugged and looked down at his body.
A flower-dotted hospital gown covered him, and he winced when he moved his slung arm, but his skin glowed a rich dark tan.
“And I’m not even high! Well, I’m on a few painkillers, but I haven’t needed to self-medicate.
Being free is the best drug in the whole damn world. ”
He glanced at me then Henri. He laughed again. “You two should see your faces.”