Chapter 18 Luka
LUKA
I didn’t leave Lennox’s bedside for the next two days.
Two days and she still hadn’t woken.
Luce couldn’t figure out what Keziq had done to her. She wouldn’t know how the magic altered her memories until she woke.
If she woke up.
We didn’t know what Lennox would be like when she did wake. Did Keziq’s magic work? Would she try to kill me? Would I finally get Lennox back after all these weeks, only for her to hate me like she did the day we met?
It was supposed to be over. We were supposed to rescue her and I’d get her back. That was it. I didn’t anticipate, didn’t expect—this.
I hadn’t thought about what would happen after we found her. I never thought this could be our reality. All I had thought about was getting her back in my arms.
But now she might not even remember who I was to her.
I’d do it all over again if that’s what it came to. I’d win her over, make her fall in love with me. I’d do it all again for her. But still, the uncertainty of who she’d be when she woke—kept me from sleep, kept me tossing and turning.
It wasn’t only my own demons haunting my sleep, it was Lennox’s, too. I’d wake to her thrashing and screaming in reaction to whatever was happening in her mind.
“Come back to me,” I whispered, as I squeezed her hand. “Come back to me, Lennox. We’re not finished yet.”
I had no idea if she could hear me, and maybe it made me crazy to talk to her, but at this point, I didn’t fucking care. I needed her to come back to me.
And my voice seemed to be the only thing that would calm her during the nightmares.
Or at least that’s what I told myself.
I reached for my sword at the sound of the door creaking open. Who in the Goddess's name would be coming in here this hour?
I relaxed my grip on my weapon as Nol ducked into the room, his dark hair flopping forward and covering part of his face as he kept his gaze on the ground.
He hadn’t been back in here since the first night we arrived.
I didn’t even get the chance to talk to him.
I stayed with Kara at Lennox’s side until sunrise, long after everyone else left, not saying a word.
I could see the guilt lining Kara’s features, the same guilt I saw in my own reflection as she sat by her side. If Lennox didn’t wake up fully herself, it would eat at us both.
Nol froze in the doorway when he saw me. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t sleep, I figured I would come sit with her.” He backed up through the door. “I didn’t realize you’d be here. I’ll leave you.”
Luce told me he was struggling, as I’m sure anyone would have been after being held captive for so long.
On the outside, he looked better than he did when Luce carried him out of that building. It was a wonder what a bath and clean clothes could do. His hair had been cut too, it no longer fell to his shoulders but was shorter, cut similarly to mine.
“No, please come in.” I let go of Lennox’s hand, letting it rest back at her side. “I haven’t had a chance to properly introduce myself.” I gestured to the chair next to mine.
Nol closed the door behind him.
“Luka Rossi.” I held out a hand.
He let out a puff of air. “Nol Adair.”
“Nice to finally meet you.”
“You too.” Lennox’s brother sat beside me, his back stiff in the chair.
“You want a drink?”
Nol shrugged. “I haven’t had one in three years so sure, why not.” I winced but refilled my own glass and one for him. He was an Adair alright.
“To new beginnings.” I held my glass up to his.
“To new beginnings.” He clinked his glass with mine before bringing it to his lips. He took a sip and sputtered, coughing as he set the glass back down.
“Maybe I’m not ready after all.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
I managed a gruff laugh. “You better get used to it again before Lennox wakes up, she’ll make fun of you mercilessly if she sees you can’t handle your liquor anymore.”
“She would, wouldn’t she, although I don’t think I ever learned to tolerate my liquor. I never cared much for it.”
“More for the rest of us.” I swallowed the remains of my drink and reached for the decanter again. Nol might not need liquor to dull his pain, but I sure did.
“She told me about you,” Nol said quietly, his gaze fixed on his sister’s unconscious form.
The pressure in my chest intensified, the thread around my heart squeezing to the point of pain. “I bet it was all bad.”
Nol shook his head as he wrung his hands in his lap. “Quite the opposite. She did say she hated you at first, but she also told me how much you helped her. Told me you brought her back to life, out of the darkness.”
I looked over at Lennox’s motionless form.
She would wake up.
She would wake up.
“She helped me too.” She had. Before I met her—I had never imagined the life I could have with a partner.
I never envisioned the joy I could experience again.
Getting out of the Blood Court was something I didn’t know I needed until it happened.
The memories of my parents lingered in the hallways there.
The good memories with my father and the not-so-good ones with my mother.
Every time I walked through the main doors, I remembered the mornings I stumbled home drunk, too incapacitated to walk straight after my mother chose to abandon me.
The life I wanted with Lennox, the one we had just started—it was the new beginning I didn’t know I needed.
We had needed each other more than either of us had realized at the start.
“She wanted to get back to you,” Nol continued.
She had to wake up. Our story wasn’t done yet. We were only getting started. We had finally found our way back to each other. We’d only finished patching each other up. We still had mending to do, but we’d do it together. But if she didn’t wake up—
“She’s strong, she’ll fight this,” I said through the lump in my throat.
“I have no doubt she will. Lennox has always been strong and determined. This isn’t how she goes.”
I nodded, not taking my gaze from Lennox. Nol had a point; if Lennox Adair was going to die, it wasn’t going to be like this.
It couldn’t be like this. She wouldn’t allow it.
I wouldn’t allow it.
“But when she does wake, Luka, I promise you this. If you hurt my sister, I will kill you.”
I laughed, tearing my gaze from Lennox to give Nol my attention.
“It’s not funny.” He crossed his arms over his chest, his brows were pinched, and his mouth set in a firm line. He may take over from his mother with his dark hair, the opposite of his sisters, but he was related to Lennox and Kara alright.
“You look like your sisters when you’re pissed.
” My statement only angered him further, causing his nostrils to flare.
“Calm the fuck down. I’m not laughing because what you’re saying isn’t true.
But if I hurt Lennox, I have no doubt she’d kill me herself.
And if she didn’t, you’d have to get in line. ”
His expression softened slightly. “She stabbed me you know. The first week we met. I think I started falling for her right then and there. And that wasn’t the last time she threatened me. Lennox has no problem putting me in my place or telling me exactly how she feels, good or bad.”
Nol smiled softly. “I’m glad that hasn’t changed.”
“She talked about you too, you know.”
“I’m sure none of it was good. She was mad at me for abandoning her.”
I crossed my leg over my knee. “She was. She was pissed. And even more so at you and your father for leaving this mess for her to clean up.” I swirled the liquid in my glass. “But she’ll forgive you. The arranged marriage you left her led us to each other after all.”
“My sister is in love with an optimist.” Nol clicked his tongue. “You must be really good for her.”
I let myself smile softly. “I like to think I am.”
“You went back in for her.” He looked down at his hands. “Thank you. I—I wanted to but Luce—”
I stopped him. “Luciana told me what happened—as much as I hate to admit it, Luce did the right thing. Lennox would have slit her throat for not getting you out. And—” I sighed deeply.
“Luce used that same nasty trick on me when Lennox gave herself to Adreona. They both knew I wouldn’t leave otherwise.
” I took another sip of my drink. “That is a fight I still need to fight with your sister when she wakes.”
Nol chuckled. “I can see it.”
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “See what?”
“How good you are for her, from this conversation alone, I can tell you’re good for her.”
“You’ve got to stop saying shit like that when my mate is in a coma.”
“Why?”
“It’s going to make me an even more emotional wreck.”
“She’s going to wake up.”
“I sure fucking hope so.” Because if she doesn’t…I can’t imagine my life without Lennox Adair in it. She’s my other half. Without her, I feel incomplete. Like a part of my chest has been cut out.
Nol remained silent as I continued. “I don’t know if she told you about my past, but when my father died, my mother left.
She couldn’t handle his death or being my mother.
It fucked me up; I didn’t realize how badly until I met Lennox.
She filled the gaps in my soul that had been missing since everything that happened with my parents.
Without her, I feel empty again, lonely. ”
And part of me was still fucking pissed at her for leaving me. For sacrificing herself for Kara. I couldn’t blame her for her actions, but I could be pissed.
“I just hope she wakes up.” I shuffled back in the chair. I couldn’t continue this conversation anymore.
“I’m going to try and sleep, you’re welcome to stay if you want.”
I closed my eyes, ending the conversation before Nol could say anything.
Nol and I sat by Lennox’s bedside until sunrise. When Luce discovered us, she banished us. Told us we stank and couldn’t return until we had bathed.
Declan had somehow managed to get me to eat while I was downstairs too, making me feel half normal for the first time in days.
“Luka!” Kara’s voice rang out in the dining room of the small inn. “Luka!” she shouted again, her feet slapping on the wood as she rushed down the stairs.
My chair screeched on the floor as I took off to meet Kara at the base of the stairs.
“Luka!” My stomach tightened. Whatever news she had better be fucking good. I couldn’t handle anything else right now. I caught her as she flew down the last stair and rounded the corner.
“What?”
Tears streaked her cheeks, her green eyes wide and glassy. My grip on her arm tightened.
“What’s happening, Kara?” She blinked rapidly, causing another tear to fall.
“She’s awake.”