Page 79 of Venomous Heart
Finally, a long, long time later, as her body screamed with exhaustion, her head drooped toward the mattress and Ava curled up against Arlen. She brought her legs up on the bed and closed her eyes, shutting out the entire world around them.
Pain gripped her like never before, and her mind refused to recognize the feeling. Her hands ran up the naked skin of one of Arlen’s arms, feeling the tiny bumps of the marks under her fingers, and she finally understood. Despair took hold of her, cold and dark.
Ava cried, Arlen’s good, male smell in her nostrils. She cried until the tears refused to flow from her eyelids, until her stomach cramped with pain, and until her head pounded like vicious little animals were trapped inside it, clawing their way free.
And then, she cried some more.
Ava cried for the life she never got the chance to have with Arlen, for the love she never got to confess, for the children she never gave him.
Until, finally, her eyes closed and darkness swallowed her in its greedy embrace.
Days passed as Arlen slept.Still, Ava refused to leave.
Outside, the world kept going. People came and went, giving her news of the aftermath of the battle, and she listened. Some of it mattered, most of it didn’t.
All she cared about was the body lying in the bed at her side.
At night, she slept nestled against Arlen’s shattered body as he lay there, his life pulsing through tubes hanging from the ceiling, his face absent and his eyes closed.
Then, as she was lost to the darkness in a dreamless slumber, a hand closed around her shoulder.
“Leave me.” Her voice sounded wrong, broken, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care anymore if she sounded weak. “I’m not moving.”
“I can’t feel my arm, Little Wonder. Your head has been resting on it for hours.”
From the darkness, that voice reached her, familiar and cruel. Dreams should never be this cruel. Ava’s mind rebelled against the slumber trying to desert her. She didn’t want to wake. She wanted to keep sleeping, wanted to hear that voice again, even if the sound of it sliced through her ribs and stabbed her already bleeding heart.
“Arlen. I want to hear your voice again.”
The hand moved, closing around her neck, wrapping long fingers over her flesh. Warm. Solid.
Real.
“I can talk until you’re sick of it, my Little Wonder.” That voice again, but clearer. Nothing like in a dream.
Ava struggled, pushed the darkness away. Her eyes opened and she moved in the bed, careful not to rest her weight against Arlen’s body for fear of hurting him.
And then she saw the most beautiful pale blue eyes in the entire Ring.
“You’re awake.” Her voice shook and a giddy laugh bubbled to her lips. “Arlen, you’re truly awake.”
“I’m usually awake when I talk.” His full, firm lips lifted in a half smile as his pale eyes twinkled.
Ava laughed in a short burst. She sat up on the bed, cradling his handsome face in her hands. The face that had haunted her dreamless sleep like a phantom. The face she wanted to stare at until she was old and frail.
“I thought I’d lost you.” Sobs came up to her throat and she let them. Tears welled in her eyes and she embraced the wetness slipping down her cheeks. “I was so scared.”
“I’m not that easy to kill.” Arlen lifted a brow, then moved his body slightly, and the movement made him wince. He stared down at himself, then a grim expression passed over his features. “But it does seem like someone tried his best to do so.”
“Will Harl shot you with an ionic gun. I don’t know how you’re still alive, but you are.”
Arlen nodded and he blinked, like the memories of that terrible day were coming back to him from the depths of his brain. His eyes turned sharp as they settled on her again.
“Uril?”
“Dr. Yrakan gave him the Exo-Heart.” Ava couldn’t help the smile that spread over her lips. “He’s doing fine, but he’s still in recovery. I haven’t seen him yet, but I was told he’s doing great. Edmila hasn’t left his side.”
“And the boy?”
