Chapter 13 #2
Her hands stop pushing. Then they grip, curling into my shirt, and she kisses me back, and she’s crying while she does it. It comes off her in waves. I pull her in and wrap both arms around her.
She breaks against my chest.
Her face lowers to my shirt, and she cries hard.
Hard, body-wracking sobs, the kind that have been locked up for a very long time in someone who does not allow herself to fall apart in front of anyone.
Her shoulders heave, and I stand in the lake with the water at my waist and hold her.
After a while, I put my chin on top of her head and just breathe.
How am I supposed to walk away from her?
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“I hate you,” she sobs into my chest.
“I know.”
She pulls an unsteady breath. “I really hate you.”
“I know.”
The water shifts around our legs. The trees on the bank are still. Each sob from this woman who has refused to let anything break her destroys me. I broke her. When she withstood everything else, I came along and wrecked her, and I will never forgive myself for that.
“Even if everyone else goes,” I tell her quietly, “I’m not going anywhere.”
She goes tense against me. “I don’t need you to stay.”
Her voice is hoarse.
“I know you don’t. But I would like to nonetheless.”
When she doesn’t say anything, my heart sinks. “Miranda, my son needs you. If you leave us, Ethan’s heart will break.”
And so will mine.
She makes a small, broken sound.
“That’s not fair,” she whispers.
“No.” I hold her tighter. “But I need you too. I need you here. I was an idiot. When I said those things, I didn’t think you’d actually leave. I’ve never been more terrified in my life.”
She presses her forehead harder against my chest. Her hands are still in my shirt, and she is not letting go. I look out across the water and feel the fated mate bond throbbing. My wolf is anxious. The truth is that she is everything I have outside of Ethan.
And I am all she has left.
The Accord is out there. The Council is out there. And I have no idea yet how to keep her alive inside the world I live in.
I hold her tighter, and I don’t let go.
The gravel crunches under the tires as I pull in. Every light in the house is on, and Linda is already at the front door.
I cut the engine. Miranda hasn’t moved. She’s been sitting with her arms folded around herself the entire drive back, still soaked through, staring out the window at nothing.
I get out and come around to her side. She’s reaching for the door handle when I open it, and before she can protest, I reach in and lift her out.
“I can walk,” she snaps, struggling.
“I know.” I carry her toward the front door anyway.
She turns her face away from me, jaw tight.
Linda steps aside without a word as we cross the threshold, her eyes moving over Miranda once, quickly, and then to me. I give her a small shake of my head. She presses her lips together and closes the door behind us.
“Sera?” I ask quietly.
“Waiting,” Linda says.
Sera appears from the sitting room, coat still on, bag in hand. She takes one look at Miranda in my arms and falls into step behind me without a word as I head for the stairs.
I carry Miranda up and into my room and set her down on the edge of the bed. Sera steps around me, sets her bag down, and pulls the lamp closer. She looks at the bandaging. Then she looks at me.
“What did you do, Grayson?” Her tone is sharp as whiplash, and I wince.
“I threw her in the lake.”
“You did what?” If looks could kill, Sera’s gaze would turn me into ash.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” I look away. “I was trying to help.”
She lifts a finger in my direction. “Stop talking and get out of my way.” She points at the corner of the room. “Stand there. Don’t touch anything.”
I go to the corner obediently.
Sera turns back to Miranda, and her hands and voice go gentle in the way they only do when she’s furious at someone who isn’t the patient. “I’m Sera. I’ve patched up half the people in this house. I’m going to take a look, all right?”
Miranda glances at me.
“Don’t look at him,” Sera says pleasantly. “He’s in trouble.”
She examines the bruising with her hands and her eyes and asks three short questions that Miranda answers in monosyllables. She unwraps the soaked bandaging with care, cleans the skin beneath, and presses two fingers gently against Miranda’s ribs. Miranda’s breath catches. She doesn’t make a sound.
“Breathe normally,” Sera says.
“I am.”
Sera works without rushing. Then she looks over her shoulder at me. “Get her something dry. What are you standing there for? Do you want her to freeze to death?”
“You told me not to move.”
“Don’t talk back. Just do what I told you to.”
Grumbling under my breath at the completely unnecessary tongue lashing, I go to my closet and pull out a white button-up shirt and a pair of sweats. Sera takes them from me and tips her head at the door.
“Out.”
I go.
I stand in the hallway with my back against the wall and listen to the low murmur of Sera’s voice on the other side of the door and the silence where Miranda’s responses should be.
When Sera opens the door again, Miranda is sitting on the edge of the bed in my shirt, the hem falling to her thighs, her damp hair loose around her shoulders. The sweatpants are so big on her that they’re pooled around her legs.
Sera rebinds the wounds in clean gauze, ties it off, and opens a small cloth pouch from her bag that produces three tablets and a cup. “Drink.”
“What is it?”
“It will bring the inflammation down and help you sleep.”
Miranda drinks it.
Sera sits back and looks at her for a moment. Then she packs up her bag and tips her head toward the doorway. I follow her out.
In the hall, she keeps her voice to barely audible. “The injuries are mending. But she’s human. Her skin has healed but not completely. If my healing magic works too fast, it will destroy her psyche. She’ll be fine in a few days. Keep an eye on her.”
“I will.”