Chapter Thirty-Five

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WAKING UP WAS A mundane habit.

An inconvenience if you were a light sleeper, and a nightmare if you were an insomniac. Waking up happened automatically and spontaneously, so much so that most people took it for granted—just like they took breathing for granted, and blinking and swallowing and all the other mechanical parts of a body that didn’t require conscious thought.

Waking up for me wasn’t like that.

I didn’t slip from sleep to immediate comprehension. My eyes didn’t snap open and energy didn’t shockwave through my body.

Waking up happened gradually, slowly, so painstakingly frustratingly I wanted to slash at my face and pry open the heaviness of my eyelids.

But my arms wouldn’t move.

My legs wouldn’t move.

Nothing would fucking move.

All I could do was grit my teeth and blink.

I traded the horrendous blackness for a world I no longer recognised and winced against the brightness even though night kept everything muted.

The lamp in the corner.

The moon casting Nirvana in silver.

It hurt.

I slipped again.

Just below the surface of awareness, I gathered strength that I’d lost while lying on my back for so long.

I clawed my way back through the grey and clung to everything Eleanor had given me. Every word was a stepping stone. Every sentence she’d delivered a life raft to sail free from my mental entrapment.

I blinked.

My eyes burned at the exposure to air and humidity. I glanced around my villa and reacquainted myself with the geckos above me, the thatched roof, the exposed beams, the driftwood furniture that was functional and unobtrusive.

How?

How was I here when I’d flown to Geneva?

Tiredness swept over me, unavoidable and thick.

I slipped again.

The next time I opened my eyes, it was a little easier. They only burned a little. They weren’t as fuzzy or as reluctant to stay open.

The triumph over such a tiny victory made my heart pump harder, finally working with me and rushing through my veins to wake up withered muscles and knock against weary bones.

My waking up happened in stages.

A systematic checklist where things came back online the more I settled firmly into my body. The urge to slip under didn’t hold as much sway. The fear that if I closed my eyes I’d vanish into the wasteland of nothingness was deleted by the rapidly growing feeling of home.

I was home.

Not just on my island but in the body I’d been born into.

Limbs refused my commands to move, but I forced myself to be patient. My body was familiar and comforting, unlike the horror of being detached and forgotten.

Blinking taxed me.

Exhaustion tiptoed back over me.

But I forced it away and swallowed.

I swallowed for the first time in weeks and tasted the faint flavour of sweet berries on my tongue.

That one action alerted my organs to resume their duties. My stomach growled with hunger. My lungs demanded a bigger breath. It was as intimate as slipping into Eleanor the first time. As humbling and enlightening as having sex with her because I was relearning my own form.

Tears of gratefulness stung my eyes, but I didn’t feel weak for wanting to cry. I was overwhelmed. I was ash-covered and fire-charred, hauling myself from the dust of my ruined remains.

Thanks to Eleanor, I’d been reborn.

She’d erased my prior life. She’d given me the opportunity to be reincarnated into whatever man or monster I wanted to be.

Eleanor.

I felt her.

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to thank her every fucking day for the rest of my life for what she’d done. She’d not only cursed me when she first arrived but broken a different type of curse that could’ve separated us. A hex that would’ve killed me if she hadn’t figured out a way to remind my senses of the vibrancy of love and life.

I had no concept of time anymore, but the moon slowly crept over the horizon as I wrangled muscles that’d atrophied and commanded nerve endings to twist my neck, so I could look at the most stunning, incredible woman sleeping beside me.

It took everything I had to look down.

It took every willpower not to break into pieces at the tears glistening like starlight on her cheeks and the twisted stress of her face. She’d lost weight. Her cheekbones were sharp in the night, her chin dainty, her eyelashes dark, and her entire beauty dauntless and devoted.

She twitched in her dream as if she fought against demons. She curled deeper into my side as sadness made her tremble.

Fuck.

My useless, decrepit body jolted as a bolt of pure love electrocuted me.

I loved this woman.

I loved her more than myself, my wealth, my animals, anything.

I’d loved her before, but now? Now, I couldn’t comprehend the depth that’d carved me out and filled me with eternal, ever after, and every unconditional love imaginable.

I love her.

Fuck, I love her.

I couldn’t stop staring.

I ignored the heaviness of my eyelids.

I shoved away the need to fall into a healing sleep instead of a caged coma.

I couldn’t leave her again...not until I thanked her.

Turned out, her strength was a savage thing. Her courage was so strong, it’d been fed into me with every drip of the IV and every whispered promise in my ear. She’d loaned me her fortitude, and I could never repay her.

She’d been the only reason I’d woken. The only purpose I had left on this planet that didn’t make me sink in sin.

“Ele—” My voice was a switchblade cutting into my unused throat.

I wanted to cough, to swallow and lubricate but those muscles didn’t work either. Water trickled from my eyes from exertion.

I clung to awareness but struggled to stay with her.

No! I have to talk to her. Please!

A flutter of feathers made me blink away the haze and focus on Eleanor’s gorgeously long chocolate hair. Most of it had strewn above her on the pillow, but tendrils tangled on her shoulders where she lay tucked on her side against me. Her fists had locked under her chin and her forehead nuzzled against my ribcage.

My mosquito net had been tucked back to make room for the wires creeping over me and needles puncturing within me, allowing two tiny parrots to nest wherever the hell they wanted.

And they’d chosen Eleanor’s hair as their bed.

Pika popped up first, his head cocking and tiny body bristling as if unbelieving that he’d heard my scratched whisper. Skittles appeared next, her delicate head with its sprigs of black feathers smaller than Pika’s tangerine brightness.

The muscles in my face remembered how to work, and I smiled.

I smiled so fucking hard it threatened to send me back under again.

“Pik—” I winced and swallowed. “Pika. Skit...tles.”

It happened faster than I could comprehend.

One second, the two caiques assessed me with sleepy, suspicious stares, and the next, the room filled with squawks and squeaks, blurs of emerald feathers, and the scratch of their talons against my face.

Pika couldn’t control himself.

He rolled down my cheek only to fly onto my head and somersault down my forehead and bite my nose. He trilled and cooed; he sang and muttered. Skittles sat by my ear and bumped her head against my cheek, giving gentle feather kisses with the occasional happy chatter and nip.

But Pika...he was a ball of zesty zeal. Bursting with happiness and unable to ignore the need to fly.

He swooped around the room, screeching his head off. He bashed into the lamp and made it rock on its stand. He looped in the air and spun to the bed. The spew of cackles and calls made my ears ache with noise.

Eleanor suddenly bolted up beside me. She scrambled to her knees, brushing glossy hair from her face and gawking at Pika as he performed cartwheels and caterwauls.

“Oh, God. He’s lost it. He’s cracked.” She stood on the mattress, her bare feet sinking into the white sheets as she tried to grab the chaotic caique from the sky. “Pika, it’s fine. You’re okay. You just had a dream or nightmare or...I don’t know what’s going on with you. But please, come here.” Her voice cracked as if she feared his mental capacity had broken. “Pika, stop. It’s okay. You’re not alone. I promised I’d take care of you and Skittles. Even if Sully—”

“Sully. Sully. SULLY!” Pika screamed and dive-bombed her hair. “Lazy, Sully. Hungry, Sully. Now, now, now!”

If I could laugh, I would have.

My heart had never felt so warm or so content.

Eleanor suddenly froze.

The bed rocked as she spun in place.

Her hair flung out behind her, cloaking her shoulders just as her gorgeous grey gaze locked on mine.

She gasped.

She choked.

She plummeted to her knees beside me.

And for an endless second, she just stared. Her hands clamped over her mouth and tears gushed from her eyes. But she didn’t reach for me. She didn’t leap onto my unmovable form or tackle me with a kiss.

Goosebumps covered me as fear did its best to make me doubt.

Had she said goodbye to me? Had she accepted that I’d never wake and now had to figure out how to accept I was alive?

She shook her head, a moan slipping through her gagging fingers.

“He...llo.” I grimaced, wishing I could sit up and grab her. That I could delete the distance between us and sink inside her to remind her, in every certain way, that I was alive. That I had the endurance to make love to her, to kiss her, to laugh with her.

Instead, I was locked in a different type of prison. This one I’d been given my life back, but I still couldn’t operate within it. I was still a voyeur, forced to lay prone on my back and wait for her to come to me.

“Elea...nor.” I swallowed twice. A third time. I tried again. “It’s o...kay, Eleanor.”

She shattered.

Crumpling into a little ball, she hugged herself as a wracking sob rocked her body.

She successfully ripped out my traitorous heart that’d started this mess and made me swallow down my own tears. I wanted so fucking much to touch her. To hold her.

“Come...here. Please, please...come here.” I arched my chin, triumphant at that small achievement all while cursing the rest of my unresponsive form.

Pika continued his loud celebration, and Skittles flew to her soul-mate, cooing in Eleanor’s ear, pecking at her hair so she could press into the crook of her shoulder and neck in sympathy.

Eleanor reached for the little parrot, and with her fingers on Skittles’s feathers, she looked up again. “Is this really happening? I’m not dreaming? I just dreamed you married me. We promised each other until death do us part, and then...you died. Two seconds after our vows, Sully. You—” She pinched herself, making Skittles squeak at the fast movement. She pinched hard enough to leave crescent marks of her nails in her forearm.

“You’re not...dreaming.” I coughed.

My muscles gathered enough energy to cough.

I grinned, not caring if it was sloppy or resembled a grimace instead of gratefulness. Every moment I stayed awake, my body slipped back under my command.

Just like she would.

Just like I was at her command. I would do whatever she asked and be whoever she wanted if only she would fucking come close.

“Jinx...”

One second, she was on her knees, and the next, she launched at me. Her cheek pressed against my heart. Her arms lashed around my chest. Her body on top of my body in a full-welcome, relief-filled hug. “Sully. Oh, my God.” Her lips danced over my cheeks, my eyes, my forehead, my chin.

Kiss after kiss.

Fast and furious, I couldn’t keep track of sensation, and the kisses all blended into one. I gasped as my nervous system struggled, threatening to short-circuit and send me under again.

“Eleanor...stop.”

“Shit.” Immediately, she slipped off me, resting on her knees, her chest rising and falling. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. Did I hurt you? I’ll go get the doctors.” She went to slip off the bed. “Damn! I sent them away for the night. The one night I send them away, and you wake up.” Her panic bled through her swift syntax. “I’ll run. I won’t be long. I’ll get help, and they can give you whatever you need.” She stood, raking her hands through her hair, one of my charcoal business shirts buttoned and hanging loose on her stunning frame. “You’ll need food and painkillers and—” She looked back at me, her hair once again flying every which way in her hurry. “Are you hurting? What do you need? Tell me and I’ll—”

“Eleanor...quiet.”

I winced at the crashing consonants in my head. Too much, too soon. Her panic bled into me, reminding me that I was in pain. That every little achievement in speech and motion cost me dearly, but she was so full of life, so fierce, so tenacious that I fed off her.

I stole more of her energy because her will for me to survive was contagious.

“Just...sit with me.” I swallowed again, wishing I could pat the bed so she’d join me, begging to stand and grab her in a hug. How long before I could do that? How many more weeks would I be bedridden and useless? “Please?”

Instantly, she sat on the edge of the mattress in the space between my waistline and hip. She dodged the tubes going into me and gawked at the heart monitor registering my beats in all their awakening mayhem.

Pika and Skittles instantly took perch on her shoulders, one on each, adorning her in green jewels.

“I can’t believe this.” She pressed her fingertips to the monitor’s screen. “So many times I’ve listened and watched this awful machine. I hated it. But now...now I love it because it shows the truth. You’re back.” Taking my hand in hers, careful not to jostle the IV line, she sniffed back her fresh tears. “I have so much to say, Sully. So much to ask. Where did you go? Could you hear me? What brought you back, do you know? You don’t need to worry about Drake, he’s gone. And the police have been dealt with and—”

“Stop.” I smiled gently. “I know...I heard you.”

She froze. “You did?”

“Every word.”

She blushed. “Are you angry with me?”

I winced. “I think the...question is, are you mad...at me?”

Her jaw tightened as she showed me honesty instead of lies. “I admit I hated that you went after me knowing you might not come back. That you forward planned your death by updating your Will and Testament. That you decided, without any consultation, that my life was worth more than yours.”

“But don’t you see?” I swallowed, slowly finding it easier to talk. “You are worth more. You have more...goodness in your little finger than I do in my...entire body.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

I frowned. “I couldn’t let him hurt you. I couldn’t let him...hurt anything ever again.”

“I know.” She caressed my knuckles. “One day I might ask what you did to Drake, but not tonight.” She risked a shy smile. “Tonight, I just want to hear your voice and feel your touch.”

I looked at where our hands linked, willing my fingers to twitch around hers.

I grunted at the effort and sweat broke out over my forehead as I managed to squeeze her for a second before my ligaments gave up. “I can’t move.”

“I suppose it will take time for your body to regain its strength.” She smiled. “But I’ll help. Every step.” Kissing my knuckles, she looked over her shoulder at the door. “I really should go get Louise, though.”

“Louise?”

“Your doctor.”

“You hired someone else?”

“You collapsed in Geneva, remember?” She shivered and looked away, her face haunted with memories. “I did my best with CPR, but the mercenaries brought you back to life with a small defibrillator. Once the ambulance crew arrived, you were transported to the hospital.” Her shivers turned into a shudder. “I didn’t like it there. Snowy and cold...populated.” She risked a half-smile. “I requested to bring you home.”

“You flew me back?”

What the hell else had this wonderful woman done?

“Campbell arranged it.”

“But you did all that? You were with me the entire time? You kept breath in my body and—”

“I did what I needed to do to keep you.” Her eyes narrowed with ferocity. “No way was I letting you go.”

My chest clenched with her loyalty, glowing with a return vow. “I love you with all my fucking heart.”

“Don’t talk to me about hearts. That’s what started this mess.” She tried to laugh, but it was hollow. “God, Sully...seeing you collapse? It...” She bit her lip and looked away, doing her best to control her grief.

My body crawled with itchy frustration to touch her, heal her, eradicate those brutal memories. “I’m so sorry I put you through that.”

A lonely tear ran down her cheek.

“Hey...” I fucking cursed that I couldn’t capture that droplet and bring her down for a kiss. “It’s okay. I’m here. And I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

She nodded, swiping at her cheeks and forcing another smile. “I won’t let you. I’ll make sure Louise, her team, and Dr Campbell keep you right here with me.”

“Where is Campbell?”

“Still here. He keeps threatening to retire, but I know he’s waiting around. He doesn’t want to leave until you’re okay.”

I frowned. “I want him off my island.”

“He brought Jess back and Cal and Skittles. I know he betrayed you, but—”

“I don’t want to talk about him.” I’d woken a newly born man. Thanks to Eleanor, I had no imprisoned women and no nefarious guests on my shores, but I still had guilt for what I’d done and rage toward the man who’d gone behind my back and ultimately smeared the blood of Serigala’s creatures on both our hands.

“I understand that,” she murmured. “We have plenty of time to catch up later.” She kissed my knuckles again, raising my dead arm, stretching out frozen muscles and locked joints.

I groaned at the mixture of pleasure and pain.

She instantly lowered my arm. “Does that hurt?”

“The opposite. It’s a relief to be in a different position.”

Without a word, she brought my arm up again and rested it high on her lap. With exquisite care and worship, she massaged from my wrist to my elbow, all the way to my shoulder.

I grew hard.

I couldn’t control any part of myself, but it turned out her touch was still an aphrodisiac I couldn’t ignore.

“You have no idea how good that feels.” I dug my head into the pillow, flinching as my cock kept swelling and pain lanced the tip.

She continued to massage me, and I continued to thicken.

I gritted my teeth against the growing discomfort but had to concede when she reached my neck and dug heavenly fingers into seized and tight muscles.

My sexual thirst overflowed. My bodily hunger snarled. And the pain in my cock became unbearable. “Stop.” I swallowed. “Please, you have to stop.”

Instantly, she tore her hands off me. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

If I could blush, I would have. The unmentionable housekeeping of looking after someone in a coma wasn’t exactly bedroom talk with the girl I wanted to pounce on and claim. “Eh, I’m guessing I have...a catheter in?”

Her cheeks pinked. “You do.”

I forced a chuckle, proud that I could achieve yet another skill. “I’m hard.”

“Oh, God. I shouldn’t have touched you. I’m so sorry.”

“Woman, shut it.” I turned my head, thankful that I could do that even while cursing the lack of so many other things. “Kiss me.”

“What?” Her eyebrows shot into her hairline. “There is no way I’m kissing you. You literally just said you’re in pain.”

“Kiss me.” I couldn’t stop looking at her mouth, despite the pain in my cock, regardless that I’d woken with tangled priorities of wanting sex over the ability to walk.

“You just woke up after being dead for six weeks.”

“All the more reason to kiss me.”

“I’m not kissing—”

“I’m already hard, Eleanor. The discomfort is already there. Kiss me...let me say a proper hello to you, and then you can fetch the doctor and put me out of my misery, okay?”

She paused. “I’ll fetch the doctor now. She can remove the catheter and—”

“I need to kiss you.” I sent every command through my limbs to sit up and grab her. I managed a few hand twitches and leg shuffles, but that was it. “Kiss me, goddammit.”

“But—”

“I won’t ask again, Jinx.” I glowered. “Come here.”

She shivered, and her nipples pebbled beneath my shirt. The material gaped as she leaned over me, giving me a glimpse down her cleavage to the weight and femininity of her chest.

Ah, fuck.

More pain shot down my cock.

This wasn’t the smartest idea. I would suffer the moment her lips pressed on mine, but I would trade a million fires and a thousand drownings just to kiss her.

Kiss her after I thought I’d lost her.

Kiss her every hour of every day to make up for lost time.

“Sully, this probably isn’t wise.” She hovered over me, her soft breath minty and warm on my lips. Had she kissed me while I’d been under? Had I been able to taste her like I’d tasted icy berries, or had I slipped too far?

How did she know how to wake me? What possessed her to go against practitioner’s orders and attempt to nurse me back with sensation?

She truly was a goddess who owned me life and soul.

“I don’t care.” I strained to sit up, willing my head to come off the pillow but only causing my heart rate to spike. “Stop teasing and kiss me.”

“I’m not teasing. I’m deliberating.”

“Kiss me.” I focused on her stunning silver stare. I licked my lips, craving her. My balls tightened and another shot of pain ran hotly through my cock. “Kiss me, then get the doctor.”

“What if—”

“I’m not asking, Jinx.”

Her elbows buckled, and her mouth pressed hard against mine.

She moaned.

I groaned.

Pika and Skittles took wing.

Their feathers fluttered around our heads as I opened for her and my tongue slipped into her mouth. I hunted her, wanting to lick her, dance with her. I couldn’t move any other part of my godforsaken body, but I could kiss her and remind her that our chemistry still blazed bright, that our bond and link had only manifested into something unbreakable.

When her tongue met mine, I sank into the wet eroticism of our kiss.

She deepened it, pressing my head against the pillow and brushing our noses together as we feasted and suffocated, switching from sweet hello to savage desire.

This lust was different, though.

It didn’t just hold the singular urge to mate and join. It wasn’t elixir desperate or selfish need for a release.

This had a different sharpness. A pain that spoke of separation and risk of never finishing our love story. It was still salted with goodbye.

Never.

I would never say goodbye again.

I bit her bottom lip, easing another moan from her chest.

She kissed me deeper, making me harder, ensuring pain became difficult to ignore.

A flicker of being locked in Ace’s cage and at Drake’s mercy came and went. Eleanor had found her way back to me, despite me sending her away for her safety, and I’d found my way back to her, despite the blackness of my end.

I’d promised her something when I’d lain broken and bleeding in that cage.

“If we survive this, Eleanor Grace...I’m going to fucking marry you.”

“Is that a proposal?”

“It’s a vow.”

I smiled against her lips. “So, you dreamed that you married me, huh?”

She winced. “You died the moment I said I do.”

“I won’t do that next time.”

Pulling away, her lips glistened and her eyes searched mine. “What are you saying?”

I longed to push aside the hair cascading over her shoulder, to hook it behind her delicate ears, to cup my fingers around her nape and bring her mouth back to mine.

Instead, all I could do was fetter her with words. “I have a new vow to give you, Eleanor.” My heart rate picked up, exhilarating and exhausting. “The day I can walk on my own, I’m marrying you. You will say yes because there is no other option for us. You will promise to honour me, cherish me, and accept everything that I am, because I refuse to let you go.”

The room swam, black spots appeared on my vision.

I clung to awareness, forcing words through fumbling lips. “You brought me back from death, Jinx. You fought for me, and you own me in every fucking way. I know I don’t deserve you, and that I’ve done unforgivable things—things that you’ve wiped clean for me. I adore you in every fucking way a man should love his woman, but I’m warning you, if you don’t marry me, then the contract between us will be reinstated.”

I grew lightheaded and sick. The beeping of my racing heart on the monitor grated on my temper. “You will remain shere as my prisoner because if you shink you can put yourself in danger for me. That you can shtand by my side even while I hurt you, drug you, and die on you...well, you don’t shknow me well at all.”

Her finger pressed against my lips. “Hush, Sully, you’re slurring. You’re tired. I’m going to get Louise—”

I bit her finger.

I sucked it into my mouth.

I convulsed with the pain of needing her and the pain in my cock from being so hard.

I needed her to agree. To say yes, she would be my wife because I couldn’t survive with any other alternative. I couldn’t fade again and not know she belonged to me body, heart, and soul.

But I never heard her answer.

I’d reached my limit.

My eyes rolled back.

I couldn’t hold on to consciousness anymore.

I slipped.

But this time, I didn’t slip into darkness.

I slipped into dreams where I was free to touch her, kiss her, fuck her, and get on one knee to make her my wife.