Fade (41 page)

“What time is it?” I turned my head, trying to see a clock.

Dace hesitated, his eyes wary. “It’s two in the afternoon.”

“I have classes.” I wasn’t sure why that seemed important, but it did.

His expression went oddly blank.

“What’s wrong?” I tried to lift a hand to him, to stroke his face as he did mine. My arm fell back to the bed. Not good.

“Arionna, love.”

I frowned when he said nothing further. I looked at him and noticed how tense and wary he stood. A flicker danced through me. “What’s the date?”

“February twenty-first,” he said, watching me. “You were really hurt, Arionna.”

February twenty-first. I’d been sleeping for over two weeks? I tried to adjust to that and couldn’t. It suddenly dawned on me why the light looked wrong. It
was
wrong. The world marched on while I slept. I swallowed. “Can I have water?”

Dace reached behind him for a glass. He lifted me up in bed, bracing all of my weight, and put a straw to my lips.

I sipped greedily and coughed, then slumped against him.

He slid me gently back down in the bed, tucking the covers around me.

“Is Mandy okay?”

“She’s fine.” Some dark emotion floated through his eyes.

“And the …” I took a breath, scared. “Sköll and Hati?” I whispered.

He clenched his jaw. “They got away.”

Fear shuddered through me. They were still out there somewhere. They would come back. The reasons for that raced through my mind. My eyes flew wide open. “Dace.”

“What is it?” He stroked my face again, seeming so gentle and worried.

“I know who we are,” I said, seeking his eyes with my own.

“I know,” he whispered, still stroking along my cheek, trying to soothe me.

“You know?”

“I saw your thoughts in the woods that night.” He closed his eyes briefly and swallowed. “Ronan told me the rest.”

“They’ll be back,” I said, moisture building in my eyes as I remembered Sköll. He’d wanted to kill me, and not because he had to either. He’d
wanted
to do it, just like I’d wanted to kill him and Hati both. “They’ll come for us.”

Dace’s expression darkened. “I know. Ronan—” He snapped his mouth closed with a click. His jaw made that creaking noise again.

“Ronan’s helping?”

“Yes,” Dace sighed.

“I saw us.”

He glanced down at me.

“How we were,” I whispered. “I saw how we used to be. We were … we were Geri and Freki. We were whole.” Saying it aloud felt strange. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe the word, because I did. It was more that hearing them aloud didn’t sound as crazy as it should have. Everything else I’d heard and seen, even when I’d known it was true, sounded crazy in a way. This didn’t. It sounded right. More right than anything else.

Dace didn’t say anything, but his expression changed. Wariness grew in his eyes, causing them to cloud. A little sliver of fear wound its way through me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You—” He broke off as my dad rushed into the room.

“Ari!” Dad bellowed my name, a broad smile across his face.

I tried to smile at him. It wobbled as I remembered him crying.

Dace squeezed my hand and moved out of the way, making room for Dad at my bedside.

He swooped in, leaning down and dragging me carefully into his arms for a hug.

“I missed you, hon. Don’t ever do that again,” he whispered, his voice choked with emotion.

“I missed you too, Dad,” I said, trying to hug him. My movements were still weak, but better than my last attempt to move my arms had been. “How are you?”

“Fine now, sweetheart.” He pulled back and smiled down at me, tears in his eyes.

“Why am I here?” I asked.

Dad’s gaze shifted away from mine as if he didn’t want to answer that question for me.

I looked to Dace.

For a long time, he stared at me, not speaking. Finally, his wolf nudged at the link between us. Our connection felt stronger than it had been before, though I wasn’t sure why or how.

The wolf nudged again.

A soft rumble slipped through my thoughts, but he didn’t try to come into my mind or let me into his, like maybe he knew I couldn’t handle it, but needed to reassure himself I was really okay.

You saved me,
I whispered to him.

Sorrow rushed through our bond, and Dace’s expression crumbled. His head bowed beneath the weight of emotion. His shoulders shook.

Dad noticed and cleared his throat. “I’ll give you two some time.”

He backed away from the bed.

“I’m okay,” I said to Dace as Dad and Ronan slipped from the room. I ached to reach out and put my arms around Dace, but I was too tired to move.
I’m okay,
I whispered.

He stood quietly for a minute, his head still bowed, and his shoulders shaking. When he lifted his eyes to me, they were burning with moisture. Pain and sorrow pierced me, stabbing like knives into my heart. “You died trying to get in,” he said. “I killed you.”

Tears coursed down my cheeks. I’d died and broken his heart. I didn’t know how to fix that. I didn’t know if it could be fixed. Everything he’d feared … I let it happen. “I’m here,” I said, “I’m alive. You didn’t kill me, Dace. You didn’t.”

A strangled sob broke from his throat. He reached for me as sorrow cracked him wide open. His forehead pressed to mine, his eyes boring into mine. “I’m sorry,” he said brokenly. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m here,” I whispered.

His tears fell like warm rain upon my cheeks.

“There’s something you aren’t telling me,” I whispered half an hour later.

Dace gripped my hand tightly in his, as if afraid to let me go. He no longer cried, but I didn’t think I’d ever forget that he had.

“There is.” He gazed down at me, his expression fierce.

“What?” I couldn’t breathe when he looked at me that way. His gaze contained so much love, so much devotion, as if what he and his wolf felt for me reflected in those eyes every time he looked at me like that. I thought maybe it did.

“I want to show you.”

I nodded, not sure what he had to show me or where.

I didn’t feel any pain when he swept me up into his arms, blanket, IV, catheter and all, in another of those sudden moves of his. He was so gentle, his arms never touching the bandages winding around my abdomen as he cradled me in his arms.

“Where are we going?” I rested my head on his shoulder, too tired to hold it up. I felt as if I hadn’t slept in weeks though, apparently, I’d done the exact opposite. Where the time had gone? I remembered so little of it. And unfortunately, Dace remembered every second of it.

“Outside,” he said, carrying me from the room. He was careful not to jostle me, holding me securely.

A nurse looked up from the desk as we passed, opening her mouth to say something. Dace shot her a glare, and she snapped her mouth closed, dropping back into her seat without a word.

No one else tried to stop us as he carried me through the hospital and outside. I don’t think anyone had the nerve to try. The look in his eyes screamed I belonged to him and everyone else would do well to mind their own damned business.

The sun shone brightly. I squinted against it for a minute, trying to adjust.

Dace kept going, striding forward with determination. When he reached the edge of the property, he settled us on the ground, cradling me like a baby in his lap. The skin beneath my bandages pulled tight, but for some reason, I still didn’t hurt. I ached, but mostly I was tired.

“Call for Buka,” he instructed me.

“She’s here?” I asked. Beebe had no hospital.

“She’s bound to you,” Dace said as if that explained it. I guess maybe it did.

“Buka,” I whispered, my eyes scanning the shadows around the trees, trying to pick her out. I felt her out there like the scent of something familiar tickling my nose. Buka’s scent.

She shot out from behind a tree like a bullet, racing toward me as soon as her name left my lips. Fuki ran at her heels.

“Buka,” I said happily as she slid to a stop in front of us, bringing her face right up to mine. Fuki stopped beside her, his tail twitching.

Buka whined and butted me gently.

“I missed you, too,” I said, my eyes misty. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Fuki yapped.

“You, too,” I said and smiled at him.

He yapped again, dancing around in excitement.

Buka leaned away, looking at me.

“I know, but I’m okay now,” I said and glanced up at Dace. “He’s very protective.”

Buka rolled her eyes.

“I know,” I said, chuckling a little at her.

Dace shifted, and Buka looked up at him before dropping back to sit on her haunches.

He dipped his head toward me. “How do you know what she’s saying?” he asked, his eyes brighter than usual.

“I—” I frowned. I wasn’t sure how I knew. I just … did. Like with his wolf. My eyes widened, flickering to Dace’s. “Oh.” My lips formed the word, but no sound came out. “How?” I whispered, amazed.

“You died,” he whispered back, taking my hand in his once more. The words trembled on his lips. I had a feeling he would never be able to say them without pain. “Do you remember?”

I wracked my brain and then nodded hesitantly. “I couldn’t feel you,” I said. “It scared me.”

His eyes darkened with guilt, but he nodded anyway.

“I felt something else too,” I whispered. “When I slept.” I frowned, trying to remember. His heart had been breaking, and something inside me responded. My wolf responded to his pain. I glanced up at him. “I shifted?”

“Not quite,” he murmured as he raised my hand to his lips. “Your wolf didn’t come out completely, but she woke up.” He smiled, his eyes lightening again. “You’re healing fast, too.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I can feel it in you, you know,” he said, “and so can the wolves. It’s stronger now.”

A tear slipped down my cheek.

“I can hear my wolf in your mind, too,” he whispered in awe. “It’s like an echo of his thoughts. He truly does love you.”

I shuddered as a sob bubbled up.

“Does that scare you?” Dace asked, instantly alarmed.

I shook my head, crying openly again. It didn’t scare me at all. I wasn’t entirely broken. We weren’t entirely weakened. And Dace could finally hear the wolf. He could finally believe what I’d been trying to tell him. How could I ever be afraid of that?

“You can hear him? You can really hear him?” I whispered, needing to hear him say the words again.

“I can.” He looked down at me, his gaze holding mine captive as he stared at me with fire in his eyes. Slowly, the walls that had always kept me out of his mind shifted and then crumbled.

Emotions, thoughts, memories, everything he was and everything he felt settled around me like a warm blanket. His mind was as ordered and controlled as it had been when I’d caught glimpses before, but there was a subtle wildness winding through it like ropes of gold now, too. Freedom.

He’d truly let the wolf out of his cage.

“I love you, Dace,” I cried against his lips.

I love you, Arionna
. The thought didn’t whisper in my mind alone this time. It whispered in his, fanned across mine, and echoed in the wolf’s. We weren’t whole yet, but we were closer than we’d ever come before, and it felt like nothing ever had.

It felt like home. For both of us.

Epilogue

D
ace?” I murmured. I’d been awake on and off since he’d carried me back to my bed hours ago, and I could barely hold my eyes open. I didn’t want to sleep though. I wanted to stay with him. I wanted to stay in his and his wolf’s mind.

”What is it, love?” He settled onto the bed beside me, careful not to jostle me. I still wasn’t feeling much pain, and I was healing fast like he’d said, but Sköll caused a lot of damage and my wolf hadn’t woken enough to heal it all.

Dad said it was a miracle I’d come back. I didn’t tell him, but it wasn’t a miracle. It was fate. Dace needed me. Whichever god was in charge up there at the moment wouldn’t let him face our destiny coming without me.

As things stood, he, Ronan and the wolves barely managed to fight Sköll and Hati back. Dad confessed that, had I not been in such danger, he wasn’t sure they would have been able to do it. Dace had been fighting for my life, and Ronan had been fighting for both of ours.

Sköll and Hati were still out there somewhere though, and we still didn’t know who they were. We couldn’t sense them, and until we killed them, they’d keep coming back for Chelle and Beth, for Ronan, for Dace, and for me, too. They wouldn’t give up. They couldn’t. Just as Dace, Ronan, and I had been sent to stop them, they’d been sent to see this through. It was their destiny, and eventually, they would fulfill it.

I prayed we were able to beat them back one more time though. I’d already lost too much. I wasn’t ready to let the end of the world take Dace away from me, not when I’d just found him. Not when I’d already left him once. Unfortunately, I didn’t think destiny cared much for what I wanted.

That was a terrifying thought to consider.

”You still don’t trust Ronan, do you?” I said around a yawn.

Dace didn’t say anything.