Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Nadya’s eyes seemed to get wider and wider as he went along, and then as he paused for a breath, his name came out of her in a way that could have meant anything.
“Kane…?” As if she couldn’t believe it, and not because she didn’t believe the story.
“You don’t have to be with me,” he said. “But what I can’t bear is the idea you think I ever betrayed you or used you. What we had was precious and important, and it was every bit the resurrection I needed. You were never an illusion to me. You were always real. And it has nothing to do with how I started as your patient, and everything to do with who you are as a female, as a healer, as… the one that I love with all my heart.”
Tears filled her eyes and she clasped the little pebble he’d left her tonight to her chest. “Kane.”
He put his palms out to reassure her. “I’m not asking for anything. I just needed you to know how I f—”
Nadya burst up from her seat and all but jumped over the table she worked at. The next thing he knew, she was in his arms and kissing him.
“I’m sorry,” she said against his mouth. “I didn’t know—”
“Neither did I—”
“—about what had happened—”
“Don’t apologize, I understand how you felt—”
“And I love you, too.”
That stopped everything. But only for a moment. “You do…?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “I love you, I love you, I love you, do you want me to say it some more? And I’m sorry I doubted you. I had my own things to deal with from my past and—”
“Shh,” he said as he dropped his mouth back down to hers. “All is forgiven. I understand completely.”
They were kissing again now, holding each other, reconnecting. And it was a long time before they came up for air.
As he brushed her hair back, he saw her as she had been. Saw her as she was. Was looking forward to seeing her as she would become—
A spontaneous burst of applause exploded in the long, thin room, so unexpected and shocking that the two of them turned and faced the sleeping quarters. Every single one of the patients that Nadya had treated with such care had poked their heads out of their berths and were clapping their hands, supportive eyes and wide smiles a blessing that felt like destiny’s approval that the pair of them had finally figured everything out.
And that all was as it should be.
Within the sound of so many hands being brought together, Kane tucked his female at his side, noting that she fit him perfectly. Then he stared down at her with love as she brushed shaking hands under her eyes to clear happy tears. When she was done with that, she looked up at him.
“Hi,” his female breathed.
Kane smiled down at his one true love and gave her a kiss. “Hi.”
EPILOGUE
It was the scent that brought it all back. Wasn’t that always true, though, the nose like an amplifier for long-term memories, sharpening the focus, the accuracy, the emotions, of them.
As Kane strode up the mountain trail, his footfalls cushioned by the layers of pine needles, a cool breeze against his face, he looked up through the entwined boughs above. The moon was full overhead and its radiant blue light pierced the canopy of pines, fracturing into cleaves of illumination that reminded him of the crystal chandeliers he had once lived with.
No more, though. He was no longer a member of the glymera.
And that was no loss at all.
He glanced over at Nadya. She was striding along with him, her hands in the pockets of a loose red jacket she borrowed from the Brotherhood’s nurse, her hair streaming freely down her back, her lips lifted in a private smile that he knew meant she was thinking about what they had done together in their shared bunk during the day.
Kane smiled himself. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”
Her eyes shifted to his. “Is it wrong that I never get tired of you saying those words?”
“Not at all, and hey, that works for both of us. I’m never going to be tired of speaking them.”
A quick tilt down and his lips found hers. Then he refocused on the rising trail ahead. “Almost there.”
When he’d told her he needed to come back to the mountain, she hadn’t hesitated. She’d clocked out of her shift at the clinic, with Ehlena, owner of the red jacket, taking her place, and off they had gone. They’d left the hospital through the front entrance, and walked out into the underbrush, into the night. When they’d gotten to the chain-link fence, he watched her dematerialize through it, but then he’d had to climb up and over the old-fashioned way.
With every grip and and release of his strong hands, he had thought about that night after the resurrection, when he’d returned to the camp as a different version of himself, hell-bent on finding his female and getting her out of the prison. Back then, he’d had no appreciation for the transformation he’d undergone. He’d only been along for the ride, with no idea that he was a host to an entity, that freedom of thought and action was now and forevermore relative, a negotiation instead of something unilateral.