I was relieved to be back at the safety of the cottage, watching over my charge. After washing the long night’s events from my body and my thoughts, I dried off and fumbled through the drawers in the bedroom. After pulling on a Union Jack T-shirt and a pair of white cotton panties, I jerked up a pair of sweatpants, eager to finally lie down and relax. And then my nail caught.
“Ow. Damn it.” The nail had torn at the quick. As I stood there, my sweatpants having fallen to my ankles, the air in the room changed, became charged with electric heat. I glanced up.
Jude stared at me. My heart dropped right out of my chest into my stomach. He still lay as I’d left him, but he tilted his head in my direction. His eyes—heaven help me—gazed vacantly. His irises were full black, the whites a murky gray, swirling with the mist of Lethe’s lair.
“Jude?” No response.
I jerked on the sweatpants and ran around to his side, picking up his hand and squeezing it between mine. His focus followed me. And though he stared fixedly into my eyes, there was no recognition, no spark of light, nothing. He didn’t resist when I took his hand. He didn’t move at all.
I brushed the hair away from his eyes. “Jude. Baby, can you hear me?”
His brow pinched together in a frown at my touch. He turned his head to the side, his vacant stare settling on the window, where snow drifted down in fat flakes.
“Can you hear me?”
Nothing. For minutes, I simply held his hand and wondered what to do next.
“Okay. Maybe you’re hungry. Maybe you’ll eat something for me now.”
I rushed into the kitchen and heated the stove at once. In the few days he’d been home, I’d managed to get him to swallow only a few spoonfuls of broth. Very few.
Knowing his system was still weak, I heated a bowl of tomato soup, adding just a dash of Tabasco the way he liked it. The way he used to like it, anyway. I couldn’t imagine how happy watching him take every spoonful would make me. He continued to stare out the window, but when I touched the spoon to his lips and coaxed him, he opened and swallowed.
“Good. This is good. Your body needs food, sustenance.”
I put the straw that was in the glass of cold water up to his lips, which were still dry but no longer cracked and bleeding. To my surprise, he drank half the glass, taking in long, deep gulps.
“Okay. What would you like to do now, Jude?”
I pulled his heavy hand between mine and pressed my lips to his knuckles, doing my damnedest not to cry at this paltry improvement. Still no response.
“That’s fine. You don’t have to say anything.” As if he would. “How about I just tell you what’s been going on in the world since you left?”
I had no intention of mentioning demons or hell or the Blood Moon. Nor would I tell him about the backlash of riots in France since the terrorist bombing at the Eiffel Tower, or how Europe was in a violent uproar at the prospect of future terrorist attacks. Sadly, no one had any idea that something far worse than a war on terrorism was coming. I’d not fill his mind with any of that negative shit, so I tried to think of trivial things to fill the silence and let him know I was here.
“Well, Kat and George aren’t fighting as much as usual. They seem to have come to some kind of truce. It seems, though of course, Kat won’t talk about any of it with me. For someone who’s as open as she is, she sure doesn’t talk about her love life.”
His gaze remained on the window. He blinked slowly, making no sign that he heard me.
“And Uriel is pretty cool. He’s taking a more active role in things. He’s changing my mind slightly on what I thought about angels and their stuck-up ways. I suppose it does require a lot of time to prepare for—” I stopped my rambling thoughts, realizing I was venturing into the topic of war. “And there’s someone I’d like you to meet. Mira!”
She chirped from the next room and flew in, flapping her wings for a messy landing on the bed. I slipped on my leather jacket and held out my arm. She hopped across the blue, black and green tartan lying on top of the quilts and climbed onto my leather-protected arm.
“Jude. This is Mira.”
Mira made a sort of purring-chirp. She rarely made this sound, for it didn’t sound like a bird as much as a contented cat. Jude’s eyes shifted from the window to my snowy companion. The swelling on his eye was gone. The bruising had transformed from deep purple to a mottled green. His cheek had only a small scratch left and a purplish splotch where the blood rose to the surface of his skin.
“Jump right here, Mira.”
I guided her onto the bed at his side and picked up his arm, sliding his hand over her sleek feathers.
“She loves to be petted. Can you imagine where I got her?” No response, of course. “She came to me the night…” I cleared my throat. “She came to me one night. I was very sad. I was missing you, and this beautiful orb of light rose up out of my chest, and out came Mira. Can you believe it? Sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.”
Mira chirped once, her eyes sliding closed as I continued to pet her with Jude’s broad hand.
“I couldn’t believe it myself at first. The whole experience scared me to death, but I have to tell you, Mira is quite skilled in fighting, which comes in pretty handy. But she’s a little spoiled.” I whispered the last.
Mira chirped twice in her fussy tone but never opened her eyes.
“It’s true, Mira, and you know it. How many hawks do you know who have a plush nest inside a warm cottage?”
Neither one of them answered me. Unable to hold his arm up any longer, I laid it back down by his side. Mira nestled onto the tartan at Jude’s waist and fell into a deeper sleep.
“Looks like you have a new friend, Jude. She likes you. But I suppose most females do, don’t they?”
His gaze had wandered back to the open window. I hopped up and stoked the fire, shifting the logs till sparks popped and the blaze grew brighter. After closing the grate, I turned to find Jude asleep again, Mira still cuddled into his side. But something was different about him. I couldn’t place my finger on exactly what it was. If I’d called George or Kat to come, they wouldn’t see any change in him. Other than the fact his wounds were healing remarkably quickly—some of the stitches already dissolving after only a few days since George had stitched him up—to the average person, he wouldn’t have appeared to change at all.
But I saw the difference. And I felt it. The tightness around his mouth had loosened. The strain of his brow had softened. The tension of his body had slackened into the pile of pillows and blankets. He no longer had the look of a haunted man wandering his tortured mind. If I could put my finger on the emotion swirling in the room—the fireplace casting warm light on the bed and walls, the white blanket of snow coming down outside, the sweet bird nuzzled next to the man I loved with all my heart and soul—the one word that came to mind was serenity.
I crawled onto the bed and wrapped my arm around his waist, watching Jude and waiting, hoping he’d wake again soon.
“You’ll come back to me, won’t you, Jude?” The fire crackled and spit up a spark in the grate. Before long, I drifted off into the most peaceful sleep since the day he’d been taken away. A warm throbbing cocooned my heart in the promise that my love would come back to me. I didn’t care what Uriel had said. I’d find a way to dispel Lethe’s dark mist shrouding Jude’s mind and soul. I’d find a way to bring him back to me. To us.
Chapter Sixteen
We’d fallen into a pattern where Jude would wake and stare out the window, sometimes at the fire, sometimes at Mira as she perched on the foot of the bed frame. And every now and then, he’d stare at me, but there was no sign that the lights were on inside, so to speak. His irises remained full black; the misty vapor still swirled in his eyes. I’d taken to using the iPad my dad had given me as an early Christmas present before I left to download and play Jude’s favorite movies. I refused to play the Tarantino flicks, still afraid violence might not be the best way to coax him from his shell
.
I didn’t know if he actually watched the movies, as his eyes kept their glazed look while he stared at the screen I propped on his lap with a pillow. Rio Bravo had just ended, so I removed the iPad.
I’d recently picked up my historical romance, The Captain’s Captive, which I’d stopped reading during our honeymoon and left on the mantel in the bedroom. Though I knew without a doubt that Jude would never in a million years read a romance novel, I’d decided to read aloud to him anyway.
Captain Sparr and his lady, Viola, had finally found a safe and warm cottage in the wilderness where they’d washed ashore. The cabin was conveniently abandoned and well stocked, so they lingered there before they sought out civilization where society would prevent an unmarried woman from being alone with a roguish man the likes of the captain. The two had already succumbed to a bit of making out, and now I was ready to see these two finally get it on. Captain Sparr had gone hunting for small game. Naturally, he had the skills to set traps with a bit of string and branches. Viola had taken the opportunity to give herself a sponge bath with water she’d heated over the fire in nothing but her thin white shift. I giggled to myself knowing exactly what was about to happen.
“Captain Sparr opened the door and froze at the sight of Viola standing before the fire. The golden glow silhouetted the soft curves of her voluptuous hips and breasts. Slamming the door shut and dropping the satchel of hare he’d caught in his traps, the captain strode across the room in three strides, then took Viola in his arms. She gasped as he pulled her close, her full breasts pressing against his hard chest. ‘Oh, Captain. We mustn’t.’ His heated gaze seared her, drinking in her luscious parted lips. ‘It’s about time you called me Henry.’ Gripping his taut shoulders for balance and to try to resist the deep yearning spreading through her body, Viola whispered, ‘Why—why should I?’ A wicked smile cracked his rugged face as his lips descended. ‘Because a woman should cry out the first name of her lover when he pleasures her.’” I paused, feeling a shocking flush of heat crawl up my neck. Glancing at Jude, I snapped the book shut. I’d read quite a few romances, but never aloud. And here I was, spiraling headfirst into a hot sex scene while my own lover remained catatonic before me and didn’t even know my name.
“Maybe that’s enough reading for the day.” Inwardly laughing at myself, I’d been trying so hard to get to the part where Viola and Captain Sparr—no wait, Henry—finally got down and dirty. But when I read it aloud, my pulse had picked up a feverish pace and I realized how much I’d missed my own lover giving me pleasure. I found my gaze wandering to Jude’s lips—now smooth and healed—and imagined those lips on my mouth, on my skin. Perhaps reading the captain’s seduction of Lady Viola wasn’t such a good idea.
I tossed the book on the nightstand and found the broom. “I will say this, though,” I rambled, “that captain sure knows how to get into a girl’s pants. Or skirt, I guess, in this case.”
I swept around the hearth where soot had gathered and yammered to break the constant silence.
“I just wish we could get Netflix out here on Arran so we could watch some of the cool new shows. This one called Peaky Blinders looks awesome, Jude. I think you’d like the no-nonsense kind of guy Cillian Murphy plays—”
The sound of movement jerked my attention to the bed. Jude was sitting up on his own and gazed out the window. I didn’t know when he’d awoken. Barefoot and shirtless, I was glad George and I had managed to dress him in black workout pants when George popped in to check on him yesterday. Though Jude was much leaner of brawn than usual, he still weighed a ton for me to lift and dress on my own.
While he was here, George had said little to nothing the entire visit. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to have a conversation about Damas. That could wait, as far as I was concerned.
“Jude?”
He shoved himself off the mattress and took a labored step forward, seeming as if he might fall at any minute. I dropped the broom and ran to his side.
When I took his arm to help him, he flinched away and shot me a fierce look, his brow furrowed.
Palms out in a gentle gesture, I said in a soft tone, “Let me help you.” He still didn’t know who I was. Rather than let the sting of that reality send me into a pit of despair, I reminded myself that this step of him moving around was a good sign, a sign his body was healing, even if his mind didn’t seem to be recovering as quickly.
The second time I lifted his arm to drape it over my shoulder, he let me align my body next to his, though I felt him shiver and shift away at my touch. I guided him to the window. We shuffled forward till we were at the sill. He pulled away. Though I wanted his touch more than anything in the world, I stepped to the side and gave him his space.
He braced his hands on the sill. His knuckles were mostly healed from the abrasions pocking each one. I’d often wondered how he’d gotten them in Danté’s keep, for it looked like he’d punched a brick wall over and over. His back seemed to be healing as well as his front, even though Danté’s malicious abuse had mostly been heaped on his back. The whiplashes zigzagged in thin red welts. The stitches had nearly all dissolved, and I could make out the grimace of the devil being defeated by St. Michael the Archangel.
I dragged my eyes away from his wounds and leaned on the window frame next to him. He gazed through the pane. The heavy gale had passed last night, leaving a dusting of snow on the ground and a gray but clear day. Mira swooped in circles out over the sea.
“Would you…would you like to go outside?”
He turned his head toward me without saying a word, but I knew that was what he wanted.
“Okay. Good. Great.” I smiled, my pulse pounding. This was an excellent sign. “You come and sit here and let me help you get dressed.”
He let me guide him to the chair propped in front of the fire—the one where I’d snuggled in his lap during our honeymoon as we kissed and whispered our love to one another.
Push it away, Gen.
If I let myself think of the way things used to be for even a second, I’d tumble back into the abyss of despair. This black-eyed man saw me as a stranger. But at least a friendly one.
I found a white T-shirt and slipped it over his head. He helped me get it through his arms, so at least he wasn’t a vegetable. He remembered how to put clothes on, though his body was still too weak to do it on his own. I found his charcoal-gray cable sweater and slipped it on him. A quiet tension filled the room as I knelt on the floor with his foot in my lap and tied the laces of his boots. When I looked up to find him watching me with intense concentration, I almost thought he remembered me.
“Jude?”
He blinked once, meeting my gaze, but still made no sign of recognition.
With a smile, I stood and said, “Okay, then. Wait here.”
After scurrying to slip on my thick coat because the temperature was somewhere around ten degrees, I bolted outside with one of the wooden kitchen chairs. Within five minutes, I had Jude through the door and out in the frigid air. Well, certainly frigid to me. He’d always loved the climate here. I remember once standing on the cliff’s edge with him, shivering till my teeth chattered, while he wore nothing but a long-sleeved shirt and a bright smile on his face as if we were basking on a sunny beach somewhere. I wanted to find that smile again. I needed to find it again.
Once he was settled, I ran back inside and brought out the green, black and blue tartan, the one from his descendants, the Campbell clan. I wrapped it over his lap and made sure his hands were tucked underneath, then stood back and watched him watch the sky.
Mira loved to soar in the blustery clouds right off the beach. She looped down, then up, then did figure eights, came closer, then swooped back out over the sea again.
“She’s showing off,” I said, knowing I’d get no response. “To be honest, I think this is her way of flirting with you.”
He made no sign that he heard me, but I could see his eyes following her every move. There was life in those eyes. That was the
important thing.
When I awoke the following morning, I found him seated in his comfy chair by the fire, his hands clasped in his lap. When I scrambled out of bed to check on him, his gaze flitted from the fire to me, resting a moment, then swiveled back to the glowing coals. If he were his old self, he would’ve conjured fire with the snap of his fingers to warm the room. But he either couldn’t do it or didn’t know he had this power. Still, he was out of the coma, and that was enough to make me giddy as a schoolgirl. I refrained from jumping up and down with glee for fear of scaring him to death, but inside I was doing celebratory cartwheels.
“How about some breakfast?”
Knowing he wouldn’t answer, I went ahead to the kitchen, quickly lit the stove and scrambled some eggs. We’d not yet tried solid food, but the man needed protein. With the plate of fluffy eggs in hand, I settled on a stool close to him and forked a bite. As I raised the fork toward his mouth, Jude lifted his hand and wrapped it around mine, stopping me in midair. My heart kicked into fifth gear. This was the first time he’d touched me. Oh, I’d touched him often while dressing him or helping him sit up or walk outside, but this was the first time he’d initiated contact.
His gaze was less bleak, less desolate, less empty. The mist didn’t move as quickly behind his eyes. As a matter of fact, the vapor seemed to clear for a moment, though his irises were still dark as pitch. His lips parted on a rusty request. “Let me.”
He slid the fork from my hand and slowly picked up the plate from my lap. I let out a short laugh, a tear sliding down my face. I swiped it away quickly before he thought I’d gone insane. To hear that voice—though broken and hoarse—my heart soared.
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