Page 8 of Broken Strings

Guilt claws at my insides, eating away at them like acid. I forgot her. Ah, God. She's my world, the reason I breathe…and I fucking forgot her.

"Baby." I reach for her, desperate to touch her, to convince myself this is real, to ground myself before the pain annihilates me.

"Don't touch me!" She shrinks back, her eyes wide in her pale face, tears dripping down her cheeks. "Don't you dare touch me, Grayson."

Grayson.Ah, goddamn. It's been so long since I heard that name. It doesn't even feel like mine anymore. And yet…it is. I'm Grayson McGregor.

At least, I was Grayson McGregor once upon a time. Before I was tied to a chair in a trap house and tortured almost to death. Before…fuck. Before I lost everything, including my soul.

"Mina, baby, please," I plead, reaching for her again.

The crowd around us is quiet, all eyes on us. They don't matter, though. This does. She does. She's the only thing that's ever mattered to me. And I've been trapped in hell for six years, a wall standing between me and my memories of her.

"You're not real," she whispers, her voice cracking. "You died. They told me you died." A sob wrenches from her throat, her petite body shaking.

My heart fractures, splintering into a thousand jagged pieces. I drag her into my arms, crushing her to my chest as if I can somehow absorb her pain, her grief.

Christ, all this time, she thought I was dead.

I bury my face in her hair, breathing in the achingly familiar scent of her shampoo. "I'm here, baby," I rasp against her ear, my throat raw. "I'm real. I'm alive."

She shakes her head against my chest, her hands fisted in my shirt. "No, you aren't. I mourned you. I b-buried you."

Each word is a knife to the fucking heart, twisting and cutting deep. I want to howl in rage and despair. I want to find the fuckers who did this to us and rip them apart with my bare hands. But I fucking can't. The only thing I can do right now is hold her while she cracks apart.

The crowd presses in around us, a throbbing mass of bodies and noise as they try to figure out what's going on. Faces swim in my vision, their mouths moving, but I can't make out the words over the roaring in my ears. All I can focus on is the broken woman in my arms. My wife. My reason for breathing.

"Priest!" Riley Jamison, Winter's manager, touches my shoulder, empathy written all over her face. "You need to get her out of here before this is all over the news. Take her backstage."

I nod woodenly, scooping Mina up into my arms. She clings to me, burying her face in my neck as sobs wrack her body. I carry her through the crowd, security guards clearing a path for us.

The screaming fans fade into background noise as I stride toward the side of the stage, desperate to get her alone. Backstage is chaos, roadies and techs rushing around. I ignore them all, heading straight for the green room. As soon as I'm over the threshold, I kick the door shut behind me and gently lower Mina to the worn leather couch.

She immediately curls into herself, hugging her knees to her chest as violent sobs shake her body.

I kneel in front of her, my hands hovering helplessly. I'm afraid to touch her, terrified I'll shatter her into pieces too small to put back together.

"Mina, please look at me," I plead, my voice cracking.

She raises her head slowly, tears streaking her pale cheeks. Those emerald eyes, red-rimmed and swimming with anguish, cut me to the fucking core.

"How?" she whispers. "How are you h-here? How are you a-alive?"

I shake my head, my goddamn heart bleeding, not sure how to answer that question. So I tell her the only thing I know how to tell her. The truth. "I came for you."

Chapter Three

Mina

Iflinch away from Grayson as soon as the words leave his lips, my mind a roar of confused chaos. Part of me is terrified that I'm dreaming and that he isn't real. That I'll wake up in my bed again in the morning, devastated all over again because this is just another damn dream.

The other part is terrified that this is real and he's really here. That he's really been alive all this time…and my whole worldended because he wanted it to end. All this time, he was out there. All this time, he could have come back.

And he didn't.

Which is worse? Being haunted by the ghost of the man you loved? Or realizing that he was never a ghost at all and simply didn't love you the same way you loved him?

I would have given anything to him. God, I gave up everything for him.

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