Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
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.”
Henri shot me a look, his eyes suspiciously wet.
My tears faded as bubbly laughter escaped. “You certainly sound like you. Just as mad as usual.”
“Mad?” He grabbed his chest with fake hurt. “And here I was excited to see you.” He reached for my hand and squeezed me so damn hard. “I thought you’d died on me, jaanu. I’ve been going out of my mind ever since I remembered.”
“Remembered?”
“Ah, yes. I might have had a touch of amnesia.” He shrugged with another smirk. “Nothing major. I’m too stubborn to forget for long.”
“You’re definitely stubborn.” Henri kept staring at Peter. If I didn’t know him, I’d say he had mixed feelings about Peter coming back from the dead, but I did know him. And I saw how much he struggled to stay composed. How much he fought the same crippling gratefulness threatening to send me into a faint.
Peter’s smirk slipped a little as he caught Henri’s gaze. Solemnity swirled between the two men as Peter held out his left hand, his right tucked tight in its sling. “I owe you a thank you, Ri.”