Page 20 of Lost and Bound
Warmth, at last, and I hadn’t realized I’d been bathed in icy chill until it surrounded me.
That bright thing had come back, only this time it didn’t hurt.
Consciousness slipped away again.
And then it returned, only this time it wasn’t a dream.
I could feel my body. Really feel it, from my scalp down to my toes. All of it felt battered and beaten.
Eyelids. I had those. I forced them open. And then blinked, unsure what I was looking at. I finally figured out it was a chest, hard with muscle and furred with blond hair.
I had arms around me. I had legs tangled with mine.
We were both naked.
And alive, fuckingalive. I closed my eyes again for a second, dizzy with the realization.
I’d lived. He’d gotten me out of there. Somehow, he’d done it.
My neck protesting the movement—and gods, why shouldn’t it, hadn’t it been ripped to bloody shreds…recently? It felt like years ago—I tipped my head back.
Tipped it back on his bicep, it turned out, because I found myself staring into his hard, expressionless face, his glowing eyes meeting mine, icy silver and frozen flame.
Calder. I swallowed hard.
“Calder,” I murmured.
A tremor went through him, shaking that impassivity for a second. His mouth tightened.
“You remembered.”
I swallowed again, my throat horribly dry. “Hard to forget the last word you think you’re ever going to hear.”
He flinched, actuallyflinched, his eyes flicking away from me like he couldn’t bear to look at me. My own eyes widened in shock. His arms tightened around me, as if he could get me any closer. I was tucked against him, completely wrapped in him.
Calder stared over my shoulder, jaw clenched so hard I expected to hear his teeth grinding.
“How am I alive?” I finally asked, when it looked like he was going to stay stony-silent forever. “You didn’t think it would work. I didn’t honestly think it would work.” I stopped, horrified, as belated panic slammed into me. Oh, fucking gods,maybe it hadn’t worked, maybe this was some kind of dream, a hallucination or a horrific afterlife made of false hope and—I struggled, shoving him away, trying to sit up. “We didn’t—oh fuck, we didn’t—it didn’t work, it didn’t—”
He let me go enough that I could wrench myself up, propped on my elbows and staring around me wildly.
It took a second for what I was seeing to penetrate the fog of terror.
No concrete walls. No cell door. No toilet and sink in the corner.
A bedroom. Pale-blue walls with dark wood trim. A dresser, with some pictures and a vase on top. A window, a real fucking window, framed in white drapes and with sun shining in. An open door, with a glimpse of a bathroom through it.
An actual bathroom. With a shower. I could see part of a blue shower curtain.
With little white seashells printed on it.
They looked so incredibly real. No hallucination or afterlife would’ve included that detail, would it?
The seashells blurred as my heartbeat rocketed up into the stratosphere. Everything blurred. I couldn’t feel my limbs.
Calder dragged me back into his arms, cradling me against his chest. I huddled there as he ran his hands all over me, pushing heat and strength into me.
The bond. I felt the bond, and I knew that had been the bright thing in the darkness. Strong, living magic pulsed through it and suffused me until I sang with it.
