“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “I need you to wake. You’ve been asleep for a couple of days now.” As his words sank into my bliss, I felt a darkness begin to puncture the light. My mind raced, showing me things I did not want to face . . . Meister dying under my hands, Grace screaming . . . and then . . . then Sapphira’s body in my arms, her hand growing limp in my own.
“Sapphira,” I cried, the impact of her loss instantly too much to endure. I wrapped my arm around my stomach and tried to find some release as the sadness gripped me. I felt arms cradle me and pull me to a hard chest. AK. I knew his scent. “I cannot take this,” I whispered and let the tears fall.
“Red.” He put his hand under my chin, forcing me to lift my head. “Look at me.” I did as he said, and his handsome face came into view. “She’s alive.” I stopped moving. I stopped breathing as his words washed over me. “She lived. Sapphira, she lived.”
Shock rendered me speechless, numbing me completely. “What?” I eventually choked out, reaching out to steady myself on his wrists.
“She’s alive. Fuck, Red, she’s awake. And she’s asking for you . . . she’s asking for her mother.” My chest tightened and my breath shook as I listened to his words.
“She died in my arms. She was born into my arms, and I was there as she died too. My baby . . . my girl . . . I saw her both arrive and leave me.”
“She didn’t die, Red.” His head turned in the direction of the bedroom next door. “She’s through there, and she just woke up. She wants you. She’s scared, and she wants her mom.” AK’s voice was husky and raw. His eyes shone as he looked at me, and I could tell by his face that he was not lying.
“She is here . . . with me,” I said, the words sounding like a trick. AK nodded, and devastation hit me. “I thought she was gone. I thought I had not saved her. I thought she died trying to save me. And I could not . . . I could not bear the burden . . . that she would have died for me, when I should have died for her.”
Tears flooded my eyes and I choked on my sorrow. AK’s hands cupped my face and tilted my head up. “Because she loves you, Red. She never knew you as her mother, but when it came to it, she took that fucking bullet for you because you loved her even when you were held back from telling her.” He nodded. “She knew. She fucking knew.”
I fell into his chest and broke down. I held on to his shirt as I shook my head. “I am sorry. I am so sorry . . . what I did, after what happened to your brother . . .” I heard AK fight back his sorrow.
“Just don’t fucking do it again.” He wrapped his arms around me. I looked up at his kind eyes. “I kinda like having you around.” He tried to smile, then kissed my lips. It hurt and I flinched, but he was gentle and brief. “Now get in that room and see your kid. This time it’s on your terms, Red. She needs you.”
“She needs me,” I said. Nerves fluttered inside me. Taking AK’s hand, I got out of the bed. I was dressed in a long nightgown that Bella had given me. My body ached, but I had to get to Sapphira.
When we arrived at her closed door, my hands started to shake. I turned to AK. “What if I cannot do it?” He looked at me curiously. “What if I am bad at this . . . at being a mother?”
“Impossible.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “You were fucking made for this moment, Red. All the shit, it led you right to this moment.”
He was perfect.
I slowly turned the knob and opened the door. I could not contain the emotions that hit me as I saw Sapphira, clean and awake in the center of the neatly made bed. Her brown eyes were scared and large, but when they saw me nervously enter the room, they filled with something else entirely. Gone was the fear, and in their place was . . . love. Love and happiness . . . and it saw my heart soar to an unknown height.
“Sapphira,” I whispered, my voice breaking as the sob I tried to hold back came forward. I walked as fast as I could to her bed and sat on the edge. Careful of her injury, I stared down at my daughter. I had never felt so blessed.
Her fingers twitched on the bed. As if they craved my touch, as if they needed me. I softly threaded my fingers through hers. I sighed and she sighed. Meeting her watery gaze, I said, “I thought I had lost you.”
Sapphira smiled and shook her head. Then her hand gripped mine tighter. “I thought I had lost you too.” Her voice was as sweet as it had been in my dream.
“You saved me,” I said, feeling my heart break at the memory.
“I had to.” She tried to get closer. I moved for her, placing my hand on her soft cheek. Marks still remained, but she had been cleaned. She looked like an angel. My angel. “I could not imagine a world without you in it.”
My eyes snapped to hers, and her skin blossomed with an embarrassed blush. “You could not?” I whispered, and I felt each of her words cement a permanent place in my heart.
“No.” A single tear fell down her smooth cheek. “You . . . you are my mother.”
I watched her try to smile through her tears. An elated laugh came from my throat, and I kissed her head. “Yes, I am,” I said and could not help but smile. I sighed and moved back. Sapphira looked to the doorway. I followed her gaze and saw AK standing there. I smiled when his dark eyes met mine. “That is AK.” He tilted his head in a hello. Turing back to my . . . daughter, I said, “He is my love. A part of my heart.”
“The one you told me about?” she asked shyly, ducking her head from his attention.
“Yes.”
“I met my aunt, Lilah.” She smiled. “I like her. She cleaned me when I woke.” I closed my eyes, embracing the wash of joy I felt as I thought of my beloved sister caring for my precious daughter.
I heard AK move from the door, and Sapphira watched him go. “Do we get to live the life you spoke of now? The one you told me existed if we only survived?”
“Yes.” I squeezed her hand. “We get to live the way we always should have.”
Her eyes fell nervously. “I . . . I get to be your daughter here?” A pause. “A real daughter?”
“If you want that,” I said, praying with every fiber of my being that she said yes.
She looked at me again through long lashes. “D-Do I get to call you . . . Mama?” The last word was a whisper. But it was a grace. A blessing, pure and simple. A softly spoken pardon for all of my wrongs.
A new start.
“Yes,” I said and took her gently in my arms. “Yes.”
Then my heart bloomed when she whispered, “Mama.” I closed my eyes and savored the sound. Fourteen years. Fourteen years to hear that uttered from her lips.
“Mama? What about the others? The other sisters that had been captured?”
My heart broke. “They have gone, sweetheart. No trace . . . and I fear no hope. The men here have tried to seek them out the best they can, but their whereabouts are tragically unknown.” Sapphira was silent at that news. I was not sure she could take anymore sadness. My daughter had had her fill in her young life.
“Mama . . . ?” Sapphira said softly, a few moments later. “Can you stay with me while I fall to sleep?”