You can’t afford to call her your own, remember?
Oh, God.
I didn’t know who I was anymore.
I had no strength or desire to love.
Yet I wanted to love more than anything.
My hands reached for the medical texts, my fingers running down spines, my eyes squinting past haze, struggling to read. My broken arm throbbed from whatever I’d done to it last night. The fresh cuts on my knuckles oozed, and the scent of papaya kept teasing my memories.
The smell hissed as if it was stark evidence, collaborating Gemma’s claim that we’d lain beneath the stars together.
I froze, doing my best to imagine it. Two of us in the bath. My hands on her body. My cock pulsing inside her.
I hardened.
I choked.
Come on.
There had to be something in this godforsaken place that could help me.
Ripping out a medical journal, I carried the heavy book back to the chair and collapsed.
Sinking into the leather, I skimmed the contents until I stopped on concussion.
Holding my breath, I flipped to the right chapter and shook my head, trying to be free of the rocks and fog that’d never left me alone since falling off that awful cliff.
Given the absence of a diagnostic test or biomarker for concussion, the current concussion diagnosis is confirming the presence of symptoms after an individual has experienced a hit to the head or body.
I skimmed the jargon, racing to find what I needed.
Basic concussion:
Can cause irritability, tiredness, forgetfulness. The individual might suffer from—
I skipped to the next part.
I wouldn’t lie to myself and think I had a mild concussion. I wasn’t an idiot. Mild didn’t equal being so fucking tired I could barely stay awake for a few hours at a time. Mild didn’t explain while Gemma said I woke up as different versions of myself—
Wait, you remember that.
You remember...
I groaned, forcing my messed-up brain to dig deep, to shovel hard, to uncover things I didn’t want it to erase.
A rabbit!
I choked as images of sunshine and a juicy rabbit flashed through my head.
Cooked meat.
The scent of skin charring and the stomach-churning fragrance of my own flesh being burned by Lev—
Nope.
The shutters came down. The memory flickered out.
And I was left panting, holding the book as my gaze fell on something that explained my current circumstances and left me doomed all over again.
Severe concussion:
Can last for days, weeks or even longer. Common symptoms after a concussive traumatic brain injury are headache, blurred vision, dizziness, nausea, and loss of memory (amnesia). The amnesia usually involves forgetting the event that caused the concussion, sequences following after it, and sporadic deletion of day to day life.
I stopped breathing, snapping the page over, searching for a cure or at the very least a time frame on how long I’d have to deal with this shit.
But nothing.
Just a stupid footnote that the patient should see a qualified practitioner and be prepared for up to a few years of rehab.
Years?
Years!?
I threw the book at the fucking wall and howled.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
HIS HOWL TORE RIGHT through me.
I flinched on the couch in the games room, gripping my hands together between my legs, staring at the many animal skins and chessboards with tears in my eyes.
He sounded absolutely wretched.
God, I’m sorry.
He howled again, reminding me of the night in my tent when I’d heard an animal suffering. It wasn’t an animal that night. It was him. I’d heard Kas that night and somehow, without even knowing it, I’d been searching for him to put him out of his misery ever since.
I’d found him.
Yet I’d only increased his misery.
I hugged myself, rocking on the couch.
My heart pounded with pain. I was too bruised to even cry. Goosebumps prickled down my spine each time I thought about last night. How incredible it’d been to be touched by him, kissed by him, wanted and adored and appreciated by him.
But now...all of that is gone.
He’d proven that very eloquently.
He had no memory. None. Zip. Not a spec.
I alone had the precious recollection of how it’d felt to lie with him in hot water and know I’d found the one person I belonged to.
I was lucky, I supposed.
Lucky to have us when Kas was back to thinking we were enemies.
I’m not your enemy, Kas.
Never again.
Kas groaned, the vibrations of his despair echoing through the house.
My eyes prickled as I choked on a breath.
I’d left to get some perspective. I’d removed myself from his presence so I could grapple with the hardest decision of my life. Last night, I’d given my heart to a man for the very first time. I’d had stars in my eyes that things would be better now. That just because I was willing to share myself with him, all our troubles were over.
I sighed.
That isn’t the case at all.
We were back at the beginning.
And what I needed to decide now was...just how strong am I?
Just a few weeks ago, I would never have imagined I’d have the capacity to, not only sit here and contemplate all the ways I was willing to fight for him, but have faith that all my endless hope would be worth it.
He would yell, shout, curse, and deny, but in the end...he would know.
I’ll make him know.
He would come to understand that in this situation, I was stronger than him. I wouldn’t let him frighten me away. I wouldn’t permit him to scare me into silence.
I wasn’t weak-minded or stupid for not going home. I wasn’t turning my back on my family by choosing him over them.
In the end, I was choosing myself.
Because I chose you, Kas.
And you need help.
Standing, I smoothed down my peach dress and inhaled deeply.
I’d taken the necessary time to hold my decision, to pet it, examine it, and accept that there truly was no going back.
No matter the pain. The frustration. The tears.
No matter the setbacks, the inevitable arguments, the many, many struggles.
I was his, for better or for worse.
If I could be strong enough. If I could somehow, someway, grant him the peace he so desperately needed, then I stood the chance of claiming my soul-mate in return.
And wasn’t that the greatest prize of all?
Wasn’t that worth fighting for?
Kas made another noise, heart-wrenching and agonizing and my body made the final choice for me. I balled my hands and crossed through the games room back into the library.
He sat hunched over in the wingback, rocking over his broken arm as if it was the source of all his despair. His long hair obscured his face, his bare feet and casual clothing so at odds with the regal richness of this ivy-draped mansion. A book lay open on the floor by the wall, a dent in the hardcover binding.
My heart squeezed as I went to him.
He didn’t say a word as I hesitantly placed a hand on his shoulder and kneaded the tension in his muscle.
The connection.
The chemistry, kinship, and armistice that’d given us a fresh beginning last night could be found again. I merely had to be strong enough to survive him.
Slowly, he lifted his head, his good hand still locked over the cast I’d put on his arm. “I’m sorry.”