He sat next to her and took her delicate hand in both of his oversized man hands. Over the past few days, he hadn’t been able to resist touching her. Didn’t know what that was about, only that it felt right to him and seemed to comfort her. A secret, crazy part of him thought his touch was the reason her body had been recovering so fast. But that was a thought his sanity couldn’t afford to think.
“You’re safe now. You’re in the hospital. You’re doing well. A little shaky at first. Your organs were failing, but now everything is functioning normally. The doctors can’t explain your rapid recovery, but they are thinking of releasing you later today or tomorrow. They just wanted to see you up and around first.” He touched her chin lightly, guiding her face around so it was aimed at his. “I’ve been right here with you the entire time. And I’ll be right here whenever you decide to talk to me.”
Part of him couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. When it came to her, his gonads had turned into nomads and taken off without him. Somehow, he was okay with that. Deep in his marrow, he meant what he said. He’d wait for her to come around. No matter how long it took.
He might’ve only met her four days ago, but she’d been inside his head for years, and somehow that made her intimately familiar. Not to mention that she’d waited all that time for him to find her and save her. The least he could do was offer the rest of his life as penance. If she needed time, he would give every second to her.
Her grip on his hand tightened, like she understood his words, but if she had, then why wasn’t he tuning in to her? He focused on her, waited for anything in her expression to change, an opening for him to squeeze his way inside and help her heal.
Her room had been kept mostly dark due to her sensitivity to sunlight—being locked in darkness for an extended time had that effect on a person’s optics. Here in the too-cheerful brightness of the waiting room, Xander drank in her features and let them imprint in his mind.
Her face had started to fill out, no longer seeming as skeletal as before. Her skin was no longer a shade of death, but a pale porcelain. Her hair amazed him—and everyone else. It was a near-perfect shade of white and had grown two inches in the four days she’d been in the hospital. Two inches. The doctors had no explanation for her hair’s rapid growth rate. Not to mention her body’s rapid healing rate. All her blood work just kept coming back impossibly normal.
There were so many things about her that defied explanation. She’d known his name. How? She’d been talking inside his head. How? He’d found her. How? The Bastard wasn’t talking.
She stood, then tugged him by the hand like he was a reluctant toddler. She walked to the corner of the room and stared at the ninety-degree angle the two walls created.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. That kind of behavior gave a person a special invitation to a padded cell. “Isleen. Look at me. Snap out of this.” Authority dominated his tone. “You will look at me.” His voice went deeper, more forceful than he intended, the sound of it resonating through the space.
“What the—” Kent rushed in the room with that look on his face, the look he always wore in Xander’s presence. “Don’t speak to her like that.” Kent’s tone didn’t carry the weight Xander’s had, but the guy’s face had gone radiant red with anger. You’re such an asshole. Treating her like that when she can’t defend herself. Someone needs to put you in your place. Me. It’d feel like winning a championship to reacquaint you with my fists.
Where was the slam upside the head? Xander waited for the pain. Nothing. “Say something to me.” He spoke the words to Kent, but didn’t take his gaze from Isleen.
“You’re an asshole.” A sludge-eating loser who thinks he’s better than everyone else because his family has money and he has an ability the BCI needs. The way you treat Camille like she’s your personal whore makes you the lowest…
What was going on? He still tuned in; he just didn’t get the pain. Not that he was complaining. And when he was with her, the noises that would normally overwhelm him seemed so insubstantial. When he was with her. What was it about being with her that affected his hearing?
Isleen swayed on her feet. He snagged her by the arms, and a cool zing of energy tingled through his hands. Suddenly, he couldn’t tell where his grip ended and she began. It was as if they had melded together. An ugly urge came upon him. The urge to shake her. Hard. And he did. One quick jerk that had her head flopping around on her neck. “Isleen. Snap out of it. Look at me.” That weird force sounded in his voice again.
“You’re hurting her.” Kent tried to pry one of Xander’s hands from her arm, but nothing could separate them. Xander had become an extension of her and couldn’t be torn away.
Her eyes transformed from unseeing and unaware to full frontal clarity, their color an expansive sea of clear aquamarine, but underneath the surface, shadows of dark and dangerous things swam. “Xander?”