Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Orla whirled around towards the washroom to see Owain standing in the doorway.
He wore loose gray trousers that hung low on his hips.
Tears pricked in the corners of her eyes at the sight of him.
Only now, seeing him up and moving, did she let herself feel the depths of the worry that she had been battling for the past week.
She had feared that he would never wake.
That she had missed out on her opportunity to be with the one person who had ever made her feel loved.
She rushed to him, throwing her arms around his middle and burying her face in his chest as she began to sob. He winced, but held her too, resting his cheek in her soft, coiled hair.
“Easy, the wounds are still healing.” At that she sobbed harder, rubbing her hands along his back and sides, needing to confirm that this was real.
“I thought you were going to die,” she let out between sobs. Owain tilted her head up to look at him, one hand remaining on the small of her back as he peered into her eyes.
“You saved me. I told you to leave, but you saved me.” His gaze was searching.
“I thought I would never see you again. That my last act would be to help you get away. When I woke up to find the cabin empty and you nowhere in sight, I feared the worst, that somehow I had managed to live and you had been taken.”
“I couldn’t leave you, Owain.” She looked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes. “You were going to die, and I had to do something.”
He held her close again, inhaling deeply as he seemed to choke back his own sob. “How’d you manage to get us here?”
Orla told him about dragging him through the border and getting the hippogryph to fly them to his mother’s cabin, updating him on the past several days and the vigil she kept over him. When she told him that it had been a week since they arrived, he let out a low whistle.
“It takes a while sometimes. The healing.” He rubbed his face in her hair again, seeming to relish in the fact that they had both somehow made it through their ordeal.
“That’s not even the longest it’s taken me.
Once, it took a full fortnight for me to regain consciousness, and even longer before I could walk. ”
She couldn’t imagine what she would have done if he had stayed unconscious for that long. Probably gone mad with worry.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Hmm?”
“When you were unconscious for that long. What happened?” Owain released a sigh, muscles tensing as he thought.
“How about I make you some tea, and I’ll tell you.”