Zane stiffens and lifts his head. “Hot damn. If I’d known… Did he hurt you?”
I shake my head. Not really. Nor had it been pleasant. “I thought it was normal. He was a musician. A bad boy. He was older. He was busy and didn’t have much time for me. He was my first boyfriend.”
Zane’s hand inches up from my stomach and rests between my breasts. “What did the fucker do apart from throwing you into a pool?”
I swallow hard. “I found out he cheated on me. Well, as he put it, we never did say we were dating, so technically he wasn’t cheating on me. Just fucking. He fucked every female in the vicinity, including me.”
Zane’s eyes narrow, darkening to charcoal black. His jaw clenches so tight his teeth grit together. “Motherfucker.”
“I was so upset. I thought I loved him.” I frown. “I think I was in love with the idea of being in love. With the idea of him falling for me. Anyway, I was disappointed and confronted him during the party after one of their concerts. We had an argument. He was drunk. He pushed me into the pool and…”
I inhale and force the words out. “The pool was very shallow. I hit my head and back on the bottom. I don’t remember the details. I think I remember floating underwater, unable to move, panicking. But it may be dreams I remember. Doctors said I lost consciousness the moment my head cracked on the tiles of the pool bottom.”
“Christ, Dakota.” Zane’s breathing picks up, and his hand slides up to my throat, to my jaw, cupping it. “Were you okay?”
Tears burn behind my brow. After all this time, just retelling the story makes me want to cry. “No, I wasn’t. I had swelling in my brain, and I hurt two vertebrae in my back. My right arm was broken in three places. They operated and took out the disc shards, drained fluid from my head, repaired my arm. But they couldn’t wake me from the coma.”
“Coma.” Zane’s voice is strangled. The color drains from his face. “You went into a coma?”
I take strength from his hand on my jaw, its warmth and its solid weight. “For five weeks. I had a feeding tube stuck into my stomach. Here.” I reach down, touch the spot over the cloth, where I know a small scar remains.
“Five weeks. Holy shit.” He worries the barbell in his tongue, sucking on it. “And then you woke up, like me.”
“Not like you.” This is the hardest part. “When I finally woke up, I was told I was paralyzed. Two of my vertebrae were damaged. I couldn’t feel much from the waist down, but I felt my toes, and I insisted I’d be able to walk again. They didn’t believe me. But I proved them wrong. I threw myself into physiotherapy and exercise. Worked my body to exhaustion every day, so that I slept fourteen hours every night. It took me a year to walk again properly.” I chew on my lip. “My left side is still weaker. But I can walk, and dance, and run. I’m a survivor. Told you.”
I wait for Zane to say something. But he’s silent, his eyes hooded. Maybe he’s processing what I said. Besides, I’ve gone through the story as fast as humanly possible, not wanting to linger on what was one of the worst times of my life.
His hand on my jaw shifts, sliding down my neck, over my arm, to my side. At the same time, his other hand is slipping under my back, gathering me to his chest. Before I know it, I’m rolled on my side and enfolded in Zane’s embrace, my head tucked under his chin, my chest resting against his heart.
It’s racing a hundred miles an hour, and his arms tighten around me until I can’t breathe.
“Zane…” I choke. “Zane.”
His hold relaxes marginally. His body is so tense it’s trembling. Muscles shift on his chest as he twists until he lies on his back. He pulls me up, so that I’m sprawled half across him.
“Better?” he asks, and I nod. I lie still, listening to his heart thump, noting when it starts to slow.
“I’m okay now,” I say, because I have a hunch he needs to hear it. “It’s been three years since the accident. I’m fine.”
“Did he call the ambulance? Did he take you to the ER?”
“Collin? No. He left the party.”
His hold tightens again briefly. “I’ll kill that motherfucker.”
My chest clenches painfully. “He’s already dead.”
Zane’s heartbeat picks up again, drumming under my ear. “How did that happen?”
“He crashed with his bike while I was lying in a coma. He was…” I close my eyes. “He was thrown off and broke his neck on landing. Died on the spot.”
Silence stretches, marked by the beating of Zane’s heart and my own painful breaths.
“I’m not sorry,” he finally whispers. “He deserved worse.”
Maybe. What it means is that I can’t hate him. Not for being a coward. Not for freaking out and running when I was brought out of the water, unconscious. I don’t hate him, but I can live with his death.
“I won’t let you fall again,” Zane says quietly, his voice rumbling in his chest.
He’ll fight the monsters. He’ll wrap his magical dragons around me to keep me safe. “I know you won’t.”
“I’ll give you wings.” He strokes my back, along the bumps of my spine, and I wonder if he feels the surgical scar under the colors of my tattoo from fixing my broken discs. “I’ll help you fly.”
“And you’ll fly with me,” I whisper, warm and content and comfortable on his chest.
“Maybe.” There’s an odd note in his voice, a catch. Somehow I don’t think he’s talking about flying anymore. I look up into his beautiful eyes, and I see the ghost of a doubt.
“No,” I say and reach up to touch his face. “No maybes. I’m with you. This is for sure.”
And that’s a promise I’ll work on making him believe every day of my life.
Epilogue
Dakota
A month later
Rafe accompanies the last notes of the song with a wicked drumroll, and even that is soon drowned in the applause of the small crowd gathered in Halo. The bar is dimly lit as always, but that doesn’t deter me from scanning the sea of faces for my friends as I let go of the mike and struggle to catch my breath.
Audrey’s red curls and Tessa’s platinum tresses catch the light. Then I see Dylan, standing like a pillar behind her, and Ash, then Tyler with his arms around Erin.
Zane isn’t with them. I don’t expect him to. I wave, and bow, and then turn around to get my stuff from the back.
A dark silhouette leans against the wall, arms folded over his broad chest, the crest of his hair casting a shadow over his face. He’s at his usual place, and I smile. He has my back. He’s always there to catch me.
And then his lips turn up in a wicked grin. He pushes off the wall and lets his gaze rake my body from head to toe. Shivers wrack me when he grabs my hand and tugs me through a door into…
“What’s this place?” It’s a small room with a couch and armchairs. Cozy.
“Private room. Kenneth said I could use it.”
“You know the bar owner?”