Page 183 of Cherish

The first thing I notice is how bright it is in here, the overhead strip lights nearly blinding in their intensity. The second thing is that the floor I’m lying on looks familiar, though I can’t quite place it yet. And the third is a childish drawing carved into the metal wall right in front of me.

It’s a stick-figure drawing, obviously done by someone very young, but it’s some kind of animal on four legs. The animal has a strange hooked tail and a lion’s head that it looks like the artist was trying to capture mid-shake.

It’s a manticore, I realize as I blink to clear my eyes. In a little T-shirt with a giant C on it. So not just any manticore, then. Calder.

My heart starts to race again as I realize exactly where we are and that a young Remy must have made that drawing, knowing that he would eventually meet her here.

Panic rips through me, but before it can get a firm hold, Remy reaches a hand out and covers mine. “It’s home,” he tells me simply.

And I get it. Bruised, battered, broken nearly beyond repair, Remy took us to the only place he could manage—the prison that was his home for most of his seventeen years of life. The Aethereum.

“You can always find your way home,” I answer. “Even in the dark.”

“Exactly.” He smiles faintly.

I turn my head then, in search of myhome, and find Hudson laying on his back several feet away. He doesn’t look good, but I can still see our string deep inside me. I hold on to that as I stagger to my feet and stumble across the slick cell floor to my mate.

“Hudson, baby.” I drop to my knees beside him and lean down, my head on his chest as I listen for the solace of his heartbeat. It’s still there, weak and a little thready, but there—and right now, that’s all that matters.

I sit up and smooth his hair back from his face. He groans, grabbing my hand with one of his swollen ones as he rolls onto his side. He pulls my hand to his chest, curling around me. “I thought I lost you,” he whispers.

“That’s funny,” I answer as I stroke his hair back from his face with my free hand. “I thought the same about you.”

“You did bloody yell a lot, didn’t you?” He laughs a little at that, which quickly dissolves into a coughing fit.

“Yeah, well, I would have stopped if you’d answered me.” I pretend to be offended. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“So sorry to inconvenience you. I was trying not to die.”

I make a disapproving noise deep in my throat even as happiness bubbles inside me. “And not doing a very good job of it, apparently.”

“Apparently not,” he agrees, leaning his head into my touch. “Fuck, it hurts, Grace.”

“Just more proof that you’re alive,” I answer matter-of-factly.

“I think I could stand with a little less proof,” he tells me dryly.

I shake my head. “Nope. After those damn bees, I want all the proof, all the time.”

His chuckle is weak, but it’s there nonetheless. “You make a compelling case.”

“I thought you were dead.” I mean it to come out a little flippant, a casual answer to his teasing comment. But it doesn’t sound like that at all. Instead, it comes out shaky and terrified and devastated. So, so devastated.

“Oh, Grace.”

He forces himself to sit up, and though it has none of his usual elegance and he’s swollen up with beestings and bear swipes, he’s still beautiful to me. Of course, he’s looking at me the exact same way, and I know I’m an even bigger disaster than he is. Still, if I wasn’t certain that it would hurt him, I’d throw my arms around him and hug him to me as tightly as I can.

I drop my forehead gently onto his chest—not to hear his heart beat this time, but just so I can feel close to him. Just so I can feel the rocky rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.

Around us, the others are starting to stir. They’re not doing anything so wild as getting up or even moving around, but they are waking up.

Flint curses as he shifts back to his human form from the dragon/human hybrid form he’s been stuck in all this time.

Jaxon rolls over from his stomach to his back, groaning.

Heather gasps as she comes to, arms swinging as if she’s still trying to hit one of those damn bees, while Eden and Macy don’t move at all. The only way I know they’re awake is because their eyes are open—and they are all whimpering in pain.

Remy is sitting up like Hudson and me, but he’s not looking good. His eye is somehow even worse—though I didn’t know that was possible—with pus and blood streaming from it like a river.

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