Page 102 of Reign

“Chase,” I whisper.

His head falls to the side at my voice, his onyx eyes shimmering through the shadows. He blinks. “Hey, sweet possum.”

“How are you … I mean, do you feel okay? Can I get you anything?”

Amazing, how after weeks of mental preparation and all the make-believe conversations I had with him in my head, that’s what I come up with.

“Nurse just gave me my meal.” He clears his throat, grimacing when his body moves with the gesture. “Wouldn’t say no to a sponge bath, though.”

“I’ll give you all the sponge baths you want if it means you’ll be okay.” I’m not surprised at the break in my voice. I only wish I’d held it in longer—I don’t want to fall apart in front of him so soon. “I’m sorry. You’ve gone through the most harrowing injury of your life, and here I am blubbering over you.”

“Hey, I like a good hot chick blubber.” His voice comes out soft. “C’mere.”

I shuffle closer, finding that hand I was so desperate to hold, but reluctant to put it to my cheek, now wet with a mixture of terrified and relieved tears.

“More than that, sweet possum. Get up here.”

“But I could hurt you.”

“No more than I already am, baby.”

I hesitate, but my mind’s already at his side. The mattress dips when I put a knee to it, and Chase flinches again. “Maybe this isn’t—”

His arm shoots out and he pulls me the rest of the way in, nestling me into his uninjured side.

The smell of him—a mixture of hospital and forest and him, has me relaxing against him as easily as if we were in my dorm room.

“I missed this,” he murmurs against my hair as he strokes it away from my face.

“I missed you,” I counter. “I thought you were—when I got to the dock, I thought it was too late.”

“Never. Well, maybe a few seconds longer and I might’ve been.” He keeps stroking, and my eyelids fall heavy like a cat’s. “Tempest told me what you did. How you fought the water and almost died of hypothermia to get to me.”

“I’d do it again.”

I feel his chin pull with a smile. “Sweet possum, you did. Isn’t that the second time you almost drowned? I gotta start calling you Lady of the Lake.”

“No way. I don’t want to ever see that placid, bullshit water ever again.”

His hand moves from my temple to my shoulder and squeezes. “Does that mean you’re out?”

“Out of what?”

“Briarcliff. The academy. Tempest also gave me the low-down on the temple, and the societies, and…”

“Sabine,” I finish for him.

“Yeah.”

I rise up on my elbow, wanting to see him and not just feel him. “Somebody called the police. Actually, a bunch of people did, once it was clear Sabine was losing ground and was obviously going to resort to violence to keep it. They came in right as she fell, swarming the temple. I’ve never seen Cloaks scatter so fast, and I thought I’d witnessed them at their most sneaky.”

“I heard it was a clusterfuck.”

“A lot of Cloaks had left before it got out of control—the ones called out by Violet, the powerful, older men and women. All that remained was … us. The kids. I keep trying to imagine what it was like to be one of the Briarcliff PD, walking into a bunch of rumpled high schoolers in fancy, torn velvet robes surrounding a woman bleeding out in the middle of the floor.”

“The three of you were on the upper balcony looking down.” Chase shifts to get more comfortable. “You, my sister, and Eden.”

“Wow, Tempest didn’t leave anything out, did he? I thought we weren’t supposed to upset you in your…”

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