“Nothing,” Abilene was quick to assure her. “His head moved, that’s all. He turned toward you. He’s never done that this close to the end before.”
The words made no sense, but Abilene stated them so surely—as though they were fact. Just how many times did Oliver die? Farrah followed his arm back up to his face once more. Her fingers stroked his cheek. “I am here, Oliver,” she whispered, immediately feeling silly for doing so.
But Oliver turned his face into her hand so that she now cradled his cheek in her palm. And then he sighed.
Farrah’s throat felt thick. He needed her; she was helping him. Why did that mean so much to her? Fulfill her in a way she had never been fulfilled before?
“I’m just going to go make my rounds.” Abilene’s voice was suspiciously wobbly. She cleared her throat and spoke again. “Do you need anything?”
Farrah shook her head, still focusing on the scrape of Oliver’s partial beard against her skin. “We are fine for now, thank you.”
She barely heard Abilene leave the room. Everything within Farrah clamored for her to get closer to this man. To comfort him in any way that she could. She scooted the chair closer to Oliver’s bed with an awkward series of lower body movements since she could not bear to take her hands from him long enough to simply grab the arms and pull. She got so close that her knees were under Oliver’s cot and the mattress pressed into her abdomen.
She could reach more of him now, and, continuing to hold his hand with her left, began to run her fingers through his hair. It was longish—curling down to the collar of his shirt in waves—and so thick. Luxuriously cool against her skin and unbelievably soft. What a contrast to the rough abrasion of his jaw. Her fingers smoothed over his stubble once more before moving back to his hair.
So many textures.
She wished she knew the color of the hair she touched. The hue of his growing beard. He was beautiful; she knew it simply from the way Oliver conducted himself: with the confidence of an extremely handsome man.
She hesitated but a moment before allowing her fingers to skim over the planes of Oliver’s face, learning what he looked like through the pads of her fingers.
Striking, of course. Just as she suspected. He had a nose that was wider than she would have guessed. Strong, just like his jaw. Fine lines kissed the corners of his eyes, as though he smiled often and his face registered each grin as a memory. His cheeks hollowed slightly. His chin had the most tantalizing dip in the center.
Perfect.
Mine.
The fierceness of the sentiment did not surprise her, and that’s what worried her most. It was almost as though her soul and body recognized the fact that Oliver was hers long before her mind caught up.
“I brought you supper,” Abilene said from right beside her.
Farrah jumped and gasped, her heart thundering.
“Oh! I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Farrah gave a breathless laugh. “No, it is fine. I just did not expect you back so soon.” She could not keep the proprietary tone from her words; she wanted Abilene gone and her alone time with Oliver back.
“It’s…uh, been several hours since I left, actually,” Abilene said softly.
A pause. “Oh.” Farrah felt her cheeks heat. She turned back toward Oliver, focusing on the feel of his features beneath her fingers. All embarrassment vanished.
“I’ll just leave your meal on the table to your left, okay?”
Farrah forced herself to nod, not quite knowing what she was agreeing to, but understanding a response was required by the inflection of Abilene’s voice.
“Don’t forget to rest as well. There’s another bed. It’s on the other side of the table with your food.”
Farrah didn’t bother responding this time. She huddled closer to Oliver, her breasts brushing against his forearm. Her body immediately responded. A flush of heat swept up from her toes to her chest, and her nipples puckered.
She leaned back, severing the contact, and fought a wave of shame. She had…grown aroused by Oliver’s body. As he lay sleeping.
Unforgiveable.
And yet, as soon as the contact ended, she wanted it back again.
Abilene was gone; she could tell that she and Oliver were alone again by the empty feeling in the room. How long Abilene had been gone was another question. Time seemed to work differently of late.
It must surely be time for prayer.
Farrah leaned forward and brushed her cheek across the back of Oliver’s hand before reluctantly releasing him and pushing to her feet. She recited her prayers more quickly than she truly should, and when it came time to take her seat at Oliver’s bedside once more, she hesitated.
It was late; Farrah could feel it in her prolonged blinks and the weariness of her limbs. After what felt like an eternity, Farrah settled on the edge of Oliver’s bed instead of in the chair. She sat right at his hip, and the hard muscle of his thigh pressed firmly into her bottom. She tried to ignore it, but her entire body sang at the contact.
She should move. Go back to the chair.
She could not.
Farrah swallowed hard, reached down, and pulled Oliver’s hand into her lap, lacing their fingers together. Through sheer concentration, she was able to focus more on stroking Oliver’s hand than the pressure of his body against hers, and before she knew it, the rhythmic motion of her touch was causing her head to nod and her eyes to drift closed.
She blinked, and when she opened her eyes again, her cheek was pressed against Oliver’s chest; their hands were a tangled mess and resting on his stomach. She stiffened for only a moment before letting sleep pull her under again.
15
Day Seven of the Cycle
Even before he was fully awake, Oliver knew something was different.
His body was flooded with pain, but, for the first time in years, it was manageable. And something warm and curvy was curled at his side and over his chest. It felt like a woman, and without even having to think about it, he knew exactly which woman it was.
“Am I dreaming?” he asked out loud. His voice was froggy with both sleep and the damage inflicted to his vocal cords by his day or so of screaming. Not dreaming then. There’s no way that terrible noise would come out of his mouth in a dream.
As more fog cleared, he realized what today was.
Today, he would die.
He drew in a shuddering breath and forced himself to open his eyes. He blinked several times, unable to understand why his eyes were open and yet he still could not see. As he blinked, his eyelashes snagged on something.
Her hair. Her hair was spread over his eyes. With his right hand, he gently brushed the strands away and winced at the brightness of the overhead light. Squinting down his body, he was frozen by what he saw.
His Impulse Mate was in his arms, and that thick braid she always wore was undone. Waves upon waves of coffee-bean colored hair covered them both. It cascaded over his chest and neck and down to his groin, the part of his body that immediately responded to the sight despite the pain that completely wracked him.
“Oh, my God,” he muttered. She was here. He was holding her.
With his words, she jerked out of sleep. Her head snapped up. She shoved her riotous hair from her face, and those gorgeous, sightless eyes met his. “Oliver?” Her voice was laced with panic.
“I’m here,” he said quickly, tightening his arms around her and running a soothing hand down her back.
She sat up more, and Oliver groaned in protest. “You are awake!” She reached over their heads, groping for—
He craned his head back and saw her fingers stretched toward the red call button. “No, don’t—”
Too late. She’d called for Abilene. Damn it.
Her head tipped toward him once more, and he saw concern in the way her eyes pinched at the corners. “You did not want me to send for your doctor?”
“I just want to be alone with you.” The words left him before he could stop them, and he worke
d to quickly backpedal. “They can’t do anything anyway, and it kills me how they lose it as I—” He stopped himself just in time. Fucking diarrhea of the mouth.
She straightened, pulling from his arms and severing their contact. The waves of pain he’d been managing shot straight into a tsunami. “No,” he moaned as his back began to arch involuntarily. “Don’t leave me!” The plea was desperate. Broken.
“Shh.” She threw herself across his chest and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I will not leave you.”
The pain immediately settled once more, ever present but simmering beneath the surface.
“Shhh,” she shushed once more. “I am here.”
He wrapped her in his arms, tugging her close so roughly that he worried he might be hurting her, but when she simply tightened her arms in return, Oliver nearly wept. He buried his face in that voluminous hair. If this was the way he was going to go this time, it was his best death ever.
“Oliver.” Abilene’s voice came from the door.
“Go away,” he said into his woman’s hair.
“But—” Abilene began.
Oliver lost it. He jerked his head away from his mate and glared. “It’s my fucking death. Go the hell away!”
Abilene held her hands up in the air and backed out of the room, shutting the door behind her.
Oliver brought his gaze to his mate’s face, unsure of what he would see there, but her features held no censure for how he’d spoken to Abilene. She trailed her fingers across his cheek, and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head.
“Why would you not tell me about your condition?” she asked in a whisper.
Oliver froze. “They told you?” He closed his eyes. “That’s why you’re here?” He felt on the verge of bawling like a stuck pig.
She gripped his chin between her thumb and finger. “They told me nothing.” Oliver’s eyes shot open. “I am here because I want to be. I am also not an idiot.”
She definitely was not that. “I didn’t want you to know,” he said lamely.
“That you will die because of me?”
Her eyes looked so fucking sad, he found himself reassuring her when what she had just asked was the mantra that had been echoing in his head for years. “I die because of a fickle stroke of fate,” he grated from between clenched teeth. “This is not your fault.” The words rocked him. He wondered if he could possibly believe them after years of blaming her.
Her gaze was so penetrating that he wondered for a second if she saw him. “But you die because of me.”
He didn’t want to answer that right now. He tugged her close once more. He didn’t have much time left; he could feel it. He didn’t want to spend the time he had left pondering questions he’d already determined the answers to. “Just…don’t stop touching me until the end. Okay—?” He drifted off where he would have used her name, closing his eyes and cursing at the reminder of their distance in every way but touch at this moment.
“Farrah,” she whispered into his neck so softly he barely heard her.
He froze. “What?” His question was breathless.
“My name is…Farrah.”
“Farrah,” he whispered. A surge shot up from his belly, and at first, he confused it with the feeling of elation he felt at this small show of trust from her. But it was not the elation, which the surge quickly overcame. It was the pain that would drag him under.
He gritted his teeth and crushed his mate to his chest. His breaths came in pants. He buried his face in her neck and tried to focus on the feel of her against him and not the terror that came every time this happened. “Farrah,” he groaned. “Be here when I wake up.”
She held him tighter. “Shh.”
“Be here when I wake up,” he begged, his words laced with sobs.
She hesitated. “I will be here, Oliver,” she said finally.
A sob did break from his chest then, and he was too afraid to feel ashamed. She would be here when he woke. He would have to comfort himself with that. And yet, as the pain got worse and worse, he continued to beg her, repeating the same request over and over. She did not hesitate to assure him anymore, but it was never enough. His words were wild and not even coming out of his mouth in the same order anymore.
His fingers dug into her back—into her arms—as his grip roved her body. And then, he did not have any power left to hold her. His muscles failed; his arms dropped to the bed. As a wave of darkness swept over his eyes, he managed to part his lips one more time and beg her to—
“Be here when I wake up.”
16
She could not stop sobbing; she was losing her mind. She curled over Oliver’s chest, her ear buried in his sternum so hard her head was beginning to ache. No thud of his heartbeat filled her ears, no matter how much she strained to hear it.
Be here when I wake up.
She clung to the missive. He would not have said it if he was not coming back.
“Please,” she sobbed into his chest. “Please come back, Oliver.” She clutched at the fabric of his shirt. “You made me promise, and I am here. Now, you come back. You have to.”
A hand landed gently on her back. “He’ll come back. He really will come back.”
It was Abilene’s voice. Farrah shot up, shoving her hair from where it stuck to her tear-covered cheeks. “Why do I care so much?” she wailed, able to recognize the overwrought panic in her own voice. “Why does this hurt?”
“Okay,” a different voice said. Dahlia’s. “This is some bullshit, and she deserves to know, Abilene. Look at her.” After only a slight pause, Dahlia said, “He is your ideal mate. That’s why you care. You haven’t Impulse-Paired with him—like he has with you—because you can’t see him. When we looked at our mates for the first time, we paired with them. But, even without that, you obviously feel a draw to him, and I think you always will.” Dahlia grabbed her hands and squeezed. “That’s why it hurts so much. He’s yours, and his death destroys you, even if it will not last.”
Farrah’s sobs were hiccups now, and she sucked in ragged, jerky breaths. “He-he’s coming b-back?” Of all the catastrophic things Dahlia had just revealed to her, that one thing was all she could focus on right now.
“He’s coming back,” Dahlia confirmed, stroking more of Farrah’s hair from her face.
Farrah paused, some of her panic draining away. “If you are lying to me, I will hurt you.”
Another squeeze of her hands. “And I’ll let you.”
It was the best possible thing Dahlia could have said. Just like that, Farrah believed her.
Someone switched off the monitor that had been buzzing with a flat-line tone, and the sudden absence of the grating noise helped alleviate another helping of Farrah’s stress. For the first time since feeling Oliver’s body go limp in her arms, she could breathe again.
Dahlia released Farrah’s hands, and Abilene said, “You just sit right there if you’d like. I’m going to take out his IV and these other tubes.”
Farrah swallowed. Because he’s dead and doesn’t need them anymore.
“He won’t need them when he wakes up,” Abilene said, somehow guessing where Farrah’s thoughts had gone. She effectively rerouted Farrah’s worry with a simple phrase.
If they weren’t careful, Farrah would grow to like these women. That was as dangerous as anything else this place offered with its lures of safety, security, regular meals, and—
Farrah reached down, finding Oliver’s hand. This whatever it was between them was its own nearly impossible-to-resist lure.
My mate? Yes, she would be asking Oliver about that as soon as she could, wanting to hear the answer from his mouth rather than Abilene and Dahlia’s. She wanted to gauge his emotions in the inflection of his words as he explained to her—in detail—what in the world was going on between them and why he died because of her.
“It’s done now,” Abilene said softly and from right beside her. “Do you…do you want to be alone with him, or would you like some of us to wait
with you…?”
“Alone,” she said immediately. “Please,” she added to soften the harshness. They had, after all, done much to aid them both. Descent courtesy was required.
“Of course. Someone will bring you meals regularly.”
Farrah didn’t bother acknowledging that. She doubted she’d have an appetite.
“It’s going to be all right.” Abilene placed a hand on Farrah’s shoulder. “Just remember that if you start to panic. This death is not permanent, and he will be fine.”
Farrah did acknowledge her with a nod this time. A short moment later, the door closed, and Farrah knew she was alone with Oliver. Alone with her thoughts, which clamored so loudly she almost wished she’d asked one of the women to stay with her to distract her.
Mate. Mother. Death. Immortality. Secrets.
These words and so many others were her company as Farrah sat at the edge of Oliver’s bed, held his hand, and waited for him to live.
17
Day One of the Cycle
Oliver came to with a massive gasp.
Immediate panic.
Just as his mouth opened to emit a scream, his brain registered that his gasp had been echoed by another.
His eyes shot open.
Farrah.
His thundering heart paused, and when next he felt a beat, it was slower—calmer—than it had been only moments before. His mate was here in his bed with him. The effect that had on him in myriad ways was indescribable.
Oliver frowned. Of course, Farrah herself did not look calm. Both of her hands were pressed over her mouth as though she were holding more of those gasps in. Her toffee eyes were wide and roving. She spread her fingers slightly. “Oliver?”
Oliver’s face split into the most ridiculous grin. He could feel it in the scrunching of his eyes and the burn in his cheeks. She had said his name. And she appeared to be concerned over him.
This was the best fucking day ever.
He reached out and stroked up her arm to her wrist. “Hey, baby.”
She rolled her eyes and dropped her hands to her lap. Oliver took the opportunity to mesh his fingers with hers, and the smallest hint of a smile tipped her lips at the corners. He felt like laughing out loud.
Of Blind Fate (Operation: Middle of the Garden Book 5) Page 11