“I saw the Fade,” he said quietly.
“Did you?” She seemed to shudder, the bed transmitting a subtle tremor from where she sat. “It’s really scary to hear that. What was it like?”
He frowned. “White. Everything was white, but there was no light source. It was weird.”
“I would have found you, you know.” She took a deep breath. “If you hadn’t come back, I would … I don’t know how, but I would have found you.”
The exhale he released lasted a lifetime for him. “God, I needed to hear that.”
“Did you think otherwise?”
“No. Well, except for wondering if it was possible. You must have thought the same or you wouldn’t have worked so hard to save me.”
There was a quiet moment. “Yes,” she whispered. “I did want to save you.”
“And I’m glad it worked.” Really, he was. Honest. “I, ah…”
“You know that I love you so much, Rhage.”
“Why does that sound like a confession?” He forced a laugh. “I’m just kidding.”
“I really hate death.”
Okay, something was up. And not just about him. She sounded strangely … defeated, which was not the affect of a female who had dragged her hellren’s sorry ass back from death’s door.
Like, literally.
Rhage fumbled around to find her hands, and when he took hold of them, they trembled. “What else happened tonight? And don’t say nothing. I can sense your emotion.”
He couldn’t smell it, though. There was too much lesser in his nose and in his digestive tract. You want to talk about fucking GERD?
“It’s not as important as you.” She shifted up and kissed him on the mouth. “Nothing is as important as you.”
Where are you? he wondered to himself. My Mary … where have you gone?
“God, I’m tired,” he said into the silence between them.
“Do you want me to leave you so you can sleep?”
“No.” Rhage squeezed her hands and felt like he was trying to tether her to him. “Not ever.”
In the quiet of the hospital room, Mary found herself studying Rhage’s face as if she were trying to re-memorize the features that she knew darn well were indelibly marked in her brain. Then again, she wasn’t actually dwelling on all that ungodly beauty. She was looking for some courage inside herself. Or something.
You’d think, given her profession, she’d be better in a moment like this.
Tell him, she thought. Tell him about Bitty and her mother, and the fact that you fucked up on your job and you feel like a failure.
The trouble was, all that confession-oriented blabber seemed so selfish considering he’d died only about an hour ago: It was like running up to someone who’d been in a bad car accident and wanting to explain to them how your night had sucked, too, because you’d gotten a speeding ticket and a flat tire.
“I would have absolutely come and found you somehow.” As she repeated the words she’d already spoken, she knew he’d hit the nail on the head—because she did feel like she had something to confess. “Really. I would have.”
Great, now she was sick to her stomach.
Except God, how could she possibly tell him that she’d fought so hard to save him not because of them and their relationship, or even his Brothers and the tragedy his loss would have been to the whole household, but because of someone else entirely? Even if that someone else and all her problems were an arguably noble cause? Even if that third party was a child newly orphaned in the world?
It just seemed like such a betrayal of the two of them and their life together. When you found true love, when you’d been granted that gift, you didn’t make life-and-death decisions based on anybody else’s situations or problems. Unless it was your child, of course—and heaven knew that she and Rhage would never, ever have any children.
Okay, ouch. That hurt.
“What hurts?” Rhage asked.
“Sorry. Nothing. I’m sorry—it’s just been a long night.”
“I know the feeling.” He released her hands and stretched his enormous arms wide, the muscles carving out of his skin and throwing sharp shadows. “Come lay down. Let me feel like a male instead of a slab of meat—I wanna hold you.”
“You do not have to ask twice.”
Stretching out next to him on the bed, she put her head on his chest, right over his sternum, and took a deep breath. As the dark spice of his bonding scent bloomed in the air, she closed her eyes and tried to release all the chaotic recriminations that were tripping and falling around the inside of her skull, circus clowns that she found no amusement in whatsoever.
Fortunately, the contact with Rhage’s skin, his body heat, his vital presence was like a Valium without the side effects. Tension slowly left her and those bastards with the rubber noses, the bad wigs and the dumb-ass floppy shoes faded into the background.
No doubt they would be back. But she couldn’t worry about that right now.
“It’s beating so strongly again,” she murmured. “I love the sound of your heart.”
Loved also the steady rise and fall of his powerful chest.
And what do you know … the sight of all that smooth, hair-less skin over all those thick, heavy muscles wasn’t bad, either.
“You’re so big,” she said as she stretched her arm out and didn’t even make it around his torso.
The chuckle that rumbled through him was a little forced. But he followed it up with, “Yeah? Tell me how big I am.”
“You’re very, very big.”
“Just my chest? Or are you thinking of … other places?”
She knew that low drawl well … was utterly aware of where her mate had gone in his head—and sure enough, as she looked even further down his blanket-covered body, every inch of him was clearly still in working order, near-death experience or not.
Particularly a certain twelve inches. Give or take.
Her eyes went to the door and she wished the thing were locked. There were so many medical people around—okay, only three. But when you were interested in a little privacy, that was three too many.
As Rhage rolled his hips, that telltale thickening under the covers got a stroke that made him bite his lower lip, and Mary felt her body respond with a flush of heat. God, she hated the strange distance that had cropped up between them, that subtle disconnect she had been sensing for a while now: Somehow, even though their love hadn’t diminished, they seemed to have been losing touch with each other … in spite of the fact that they said their ILYs at all the right times, and slept in the same bed, and didn’t imagine being anywhere else with anybody else.
Although come to think of it, when was the last time they’d taken a night off, either one of them? Rhage had been so busy with the war and the attacks on Wrath and his throne—and ever since Bitty and her mother had come to Safe Place, Mary had had a professional preoccupation going that hadn’t left her even when she’d been technically off the clock. Hell, worrying about Bitty and Annalye had stuck with her even while she’d been asleep.
In fact, she dreamed of the little girl almost every day now.
Too long, Mary thought. It had been way too long since she and Rhage had focused on each other properly.
So, yes, even though it was a Band-Aid that would no doubt be temporary, and in spite of the public place they were in, and yup, without regard to the fact that Rhage had been dead earlier … Mary sneaked her hand under the sheets and moved her palm slowly down her mate’s ribbed stomach.
Rhage hissed and groaned, his pelvis rolling again, his arms straightening so that he could grip the bed rails. “Mary … I want you…”
“My pleasure.”