Page 55 of Luca

My fingers hovered an inch from his cheek when his eyelids flew open.

Bright green surged from clouded pupils.

Our bond flared back to life.

LUCA

Well, that fucking sucked.

My vision came into focus, fixed on the unfamiliar ceiling beams above my head, the flecks of gold paint, and hanging candle fixtures. My fingers twitched against cotton sheets that felt too luxurious for an ordinary tavern. I didn’t dare lift my head to study their pattern in case my body splintered into pieces like a table with no screws to hold it together. I wasn’t exactly in pain… Scratch that, I was in pain, but the piercing throb in my temples and sickening ache in my torso were gradually fading to a dull irritation as if painkillers were finally kicking in. There was a green tinge glistening at the corners of my eyes, an aura of sorts shrouding the room, and I didn’t understand it. It made a sound. A trilling hum, and I wanted to reach out and touch it, to beckon it closer and study it, but I didn’t get the chance as my mate’s face came into view, tear-streaked, disheveled, and devastatingly angelic.

I smiled.

“You’re alive,” he whispered, the sound strained.

“Just about.” My voice wasn’t much better, all croaky and dry from disuse.How long has it been?I patted mindlessly for Cair’s hand, not quite reacquainted with my motor skills it seemed, but it didn’t matter, as he took my hand instantly in his, cradling it to his chest. “Sorry if I made you worry.”

A choked whimper tore from Cair’s throat, and that small, wounded sound was the only warning I got before he broke. He sobbed andsobbed, as if his body could no longer contain the war of emotions inside him, and he had no other choice but to release it. I flinched in alarm, and the disorientation that veiled my consciousness stalled my reflexes and knocked my senses sideways.

Quicker than I ever remembered it happening before, panic welled inside me, that familiar heaviness pressing down on my chest, my mind suddenly blank as I watched the love of my life—my entire world—shatter in front of me. I should’ve thrown my arms around him, hugged him to me and whispered sweet comforts until his tears ran dry, but I was frozen.Stunned. I had seen him cry before, had reassured him through a number of tragic situations, though never like this. This was different. This was pure, raw heartbreak, and I was drowning too fast in my own head to find a way to fix it.

“Cair…”

He cried harder, his shoulders trembling, and desperately, he brought the back of my hand up to his cheek and nuzzled forcefully against the knuckles. Like he couldn’t yet believe I was there, as if I were a figment of his grief-stricken imagination and nothing short of melding his skin to mine would settle that torture. It was excruciating to watch, knowing he was so viscerally hurt that he was forced to expose the vulnerability he’d always so persistently bottled up, and I was doing nothing to ease that discomfort. My heart felt as if it were seized in an iron grip. My lungs constricted, releasing no air, and my inaction made it more difficult to bear.

He needed me, and I was crashing.Failing.I had to console him, to convince him that everything was okay, that he could fall apart and I was there to catch him, to reassemble the fragments—as he’d done a million times for me before—but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t?—

Faint wisps of emerald flame flickered behind him, that same light from earlier, but now rippling and chirping out in the open like a sentient entity, an apparition waning in and out of existence. It should have unnerved me further, but all I felt was confusion and an odd sense of attachment—like it were an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in years. A peculiar source of support that quelled the looming dread.

For mere seconds, I eyed its movements with tunneled vision, and it seemed as though time itself paused to allow me to catch up, everything muted in the background as I regained focus. The fog began to lift, and the bone-deep instinct to soothe my distressed mate finally flared in my gut, provoking me into motion. I shook my head and the stir of the room came rushing back as if I’d surfaced from underwater, the world moving at its natural pace once more.

The green light disappeared for a second time.

I pushed through the pain of lifting my free hand to stroke the loose hair between Cair’s horns, hoping the gesture grounded him. “I’m sorry, my love,” I rasped, throat tight. “Let it out. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

“I thought you were gone,” he sobbed through shaky exhales, leaning into my caresses, desperate for the contact. “I felt your soul leave me. You were dead; I felt the bond snap. I thought I was never going to?—”

“I know,” I hushed him softly, only to coax him into taking a full breath. I couldn’t sit up, but I guided him toward me, urging him to bury his nose in the crook of my neck, not realizing until his bulk surrounded me that I yearned for the closeness too. “But you can’t get rid of me that easily.” I kissed his temple. “I promise.”

We stayed like that for a while, both of us in desperate need of the chance to regulate, to just savor one another’s presence. Cair gradually calmed with every hiccupping gasp of my scent, his body swaying with exhaustion, but I used what little strength I had to keep him steady. He didn’t speak, but he touched me, hands trailing down my sides, my collarbones, my neck, his fingers so achingly delicate and unsure. It had tears flowing down my own cheeks.

He must have sensed their salty tang as he withdrew just enough to cup my face, his thumb cruising through the wetness as his other hand found my hair, playing with the curls. Feather-light, he brushed over my lips. They were dry and no doubt cracked, but it didn’t stop him. It was as if he was tracing me, following each line and curve to make sure everything was still the same. Reassuring himself that I was still the same Luca he had lost.

As if needing further confirmation, he inched forward, impulse leading him, but he seemed to blink back to clarity, and started to retreat.

I clutched at his shirt. “Do it.” The words left my tongue as a plea, a hopeless little whisper, and the way he looked at me, the gratitude in his red-rimmed eyes had my heart splintering into a million tiny shards.

With no further encouragement needed, he closed the distance, doing what he’d set out to do, and oh-so-softly pressed his lips to mine. It was sweet, and it was brief, but it was perfect, and once we parted, it was only so he could rest his forehead against mine, not yet ready to pull away completely. He closed his eyes, his frame sagging as if that small taste of me had lit up a sign in his head that said “he’s yours” and he could finally let himself unwind.

“You’re really here,” he rasped, his breath fanning my lips, and that one simple line broke me a little bit more. “You didn’t leave me.”

It was obvious he’d spent the last however long in a state of tension and anguish, so lost inside his mind that he could barely trust his instincts to tell him the truth—that I was here, that it wasn’t a dream—until he had kissed me.

“I’m here.”

I knew I had died. The second before my eyes had closed in that meadow had been wholly different from fainting. It wasn’t the same sensation as sleep or unconsciousness. At first, I’d hovered under the surface of my skin, not really connected, but not entirely detached either. I could sense my mate somehow, could detect the embers of his being inside me before I started to rise, observing my body sprawled out on the bed, but as shapes and shadows—a feeling—not an actual picture. I was aware just enough to perceive the journey between the planes of existence, my soul clinging on with everything it had, but then… nothing.

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