Page 39 of Firefly

“Would you give Mama a minute, Sarah?” She choked on the words, holding in her sob.

Sarah hopped from the bed, skipping out of the room. “Get dressed for our birthday party, Mama!” she called from the hallway.

Rebecca swung her legs over the side of the bed, wincing as sharp needles stabbed her heels. She took one unsteady step, then another, and slowly the tingling subsided.

She stopped in the doorway, panting. “Thea. Thea!”

Thea came out of the room across from hers and rushed forward. “Rebecca, you shouldn’t be out of bed.”

“Help me downstairs, Thea. I need to go to the servant’s hall.”

Thea wrapped an arm around her, and together, they went down the stairs, stopping so Rebecca could catch her breath at the bottom. When they reached the kitchen, she sat, setting the small pink butterfly down on the counter.

When Rebecca was breathing normally, she stood, waving off Thea as she moved down the hall to the room that had been empty for more than a year.

She rattled the knob. Locked! Her heart jumped in her chest. “Alice! Can I have the key?” she shouted in her scratchy voice.

Alice appeared from her room and produced a key, fitting it into the lock. She jiggled it a few times. “That’s odd. It’s stuck.”

Rebecca slapped a hand over her mouth, holding in her squeal.

He was alive!

Chapter 30

Simon

Simon opened his eyes, half expecting to be back in camp, thinking he must have dreamed that he had returned the night before to find Rebecca and Sarah asleep in their beds. Not that he could dream in this state; he merely moved from one place to the other.

He had been so tempted to wake her, wrap her in his arms, and bury his face in her hair, drinking her in. But the sight of her, waxy and pale, had made him think better of it. And some part of him was terrified of what she would think of him now. He was not the boy who had left her.

On his long voyage home, beside the bodies of the men he’d called friends and the demons so cruelly stowed away in their bodies, he had more than enough time to consider all he’d done. Would Rebecca love this man—the one who made deals with devils and stood by while friends died? Could he ever love himself again?

He had thought he was a monster before. Now he knew what the word truly meant.

Eighty-nine men, stacked in their coffins, waited for Alexander to claim them. The eleven soldiers unlucky enough to be chosen to complete Alexander’s demand had marched back to the estate without a word. Whoever was helping on the other side seemed to control the demons inhabiting them as well.

Once Alexander had taken what he needed from the soldiers, he would bring a few of the men’s bodies home each day until he had retrieved them all. It was one benefit of being a wealthy shipping magnate in a small port; he paid a few men to look the other way until he could safely move his cargo, and once he was done with them, they would go to their loved ones to be mourned.

Simon slid out of bed, feeling strangely out of place in the small room. It was nicer than any of the places he’d stayed recently, but it was quiet, and the smell was different—that surprised him the most.

Moving to the door, he curled his fingers into fists and watched as the wood around the edges of his door bent back into shape. It was all he was capable of in his new form.

Twisting the handle, he pulled the door open and jumped back as something flew at him. Roses and fresh apples assaulted his senses as dark hair was flung into his face.

“Simon! You’re alive!” Rebecca peppered his neck with kisses as she hugged him.

He was paralyzed for a moment, frozen in place as every part of his being came alive at her nearness. Inhaling deeply, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, reveling in the feel of her in his arms.

He had dreamed of this a thousand times, hunched under tree branches in the rain, sloshing through mud, sitting with the men as they talked of the women they hoped to return home to.

He squeezed tighter.

Rebecca gasped, and he released her, pressing her back to look at her. Her skin was pale, dark circles lining her eyes while her colorless lips sucked in air.

“Rebecca.”

She waved a hand at him, taking shallow breaths. He could hear the erratic thump of her too-faint heartbeat.

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