Page 204 of Sage Haven
His heartbeat thundered beneath my cheek.
A living, frantic drum.
Proof.
Proof that I wasn’t dead yet.
His fingers tangled in my hair, shaking as they cradled the back of my head.
I clung to him. Or maybe he clung to me. I couldn’t tell anymore.
“Sage,” he choked.
My name—It sounded like a prayer and a plea. All tangled into one broken breath.
I tried to speak. To tell him I was here. That I was okay. But the words wouldn’t come.
He shook his head.
“Don’t.”
His forehead pressed to mine, his breath ragged and hot against my skin, “Just—don’t.”
And for once, I obeyed.
Because this wasn’t about just me anymore.
This was about him.
His arms tightened around me.
Like he could somehow fuse us together, if by holding me hard enough, he could pull me back from the edge.
Drag me out of whatever grave I had fallen into.
“You don’t get to leave me like this,” he said. His voice broke on the last word and cracked itself down the middle like a man with nothing left.
I let my body press deeper into his. Let his heat bleed into mine. Let the world fade around us.
And as I gasped against his chest, feeling his heart slam wild and desperate beneath my palm, one truth settled into me like gravity. Heavy. Inescapable.
I would never be able to count the number of times this man had saved me.
And I knew—I would never stop letting him.
46
REICH
She collapsed into me,weightless and fragile—as if the last thin threads of her endurance had finally snapped, unraveling with nothing left to hold her upright.
Her body pressed against mine, thin and trembling, as if the effort to stand, to breathe, to exist, had drained every ounce of her strength.
I felt the shallow rise and fall of her chest against me, the sharp, uneven shudders of her breath, the tremor that never seemed to leave her muscles.
She sagged into me like something hollowed out—as if even gravity had lost its claim on her.
I couldn’t believe it. She was alive. Against all odds. We found her. She was here.
