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Darien caught her staring. He lowered his hand from his face and brushed the hair off her forehead. “Nothing can keep me from you. You think I’m going to let some steel bars get between us when not even death was able to keep us apart three weeks ago?”
Loren flinched. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
He tightened his hold on her waist and pulled her snug against his side, his need to be closer to her forever as strong as hers. He snaked his hand up her shirt and hooked his thumb through the string of her thong.
They were quiet for several minutes. Loren wondered if Darien’s thoughts had gone to the same place as hers.
“I know I just said that I didn’t want to talk about it but…,” she began in a whisper. “What did it feel like? Dying, I mean.” Her throat tightened at the memory.
Darien shifted, the silky sheets rustling under their bodies. “I don’t know.” His voice was as quiet as hers and slightly hollow, as if the memory alone haunted him. “I was here one second and gone the next. It felt a little like sleeping but…but without any dreams.”
Loren thought it over. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“It wasn’t. The worst part about it was when I woke back up and I realized what my absence had done to you. How broken you looked, how…sad. You were so sad, and it made me sad, too. And angry—I was angry at myself for leaving.” He traced the spaces between her ribs, raising a shiver on her skin. “I never would’ve left you, yet I was forced to leave you that day. I hated myself for it. I think that must be the hardest part about dying: leaving the people you care about.”
Loren drew a shaky breath, and Darien drew one also, her arm that was slung across his chest rising with the movement.
“I want to be where you are.” She knew he understood what she meant—that she wasn’t talking about right here, right now. She wasn’t talking about life, although that was true too. And it always would be.
Death, and what happened after. She didn’t know where people went after they died, because really, how could anyone know? The best she could do was hope. It was the best anyone could do.
She fell asleep with her head on Darien’s chest, the two of them slipping away at the same time. And she hoped it would be exactly like that. As easy as sleeping. And together—always together.
—
Loren woke up in the night to the sound of Darien jolting out of bed in a cold sweat. It was hard to see him in the dark, especially with the sand of her own dreams still weighing down her body and mind, but he moved quickly, nearly crashing to the floor as he lurched to his feet.
She sat up, sheets and duvet ensnaring her waist, and rubbed her gritty eyes. “Darien?” she croaked.
He was pacing back and forth near the foot of the bed, the heels of his hands pressed into his closed eyes. The moonlight trickling in through the half-shut blinds illuminated the sheen of sweat on his back. His boxers clung to his skin—the only clothing item he was wearing—and his breaths were wild gasps. The harder Loren blinked her eyes, the more apparent it became that he was shaking.
Loren loosened the sheets and quilt from around her waist and kicked her feet free, swinging them over the side of the bed. When she spoke again, she kept her voice gentle. Quiet, so she wouldn’t startle him or make things worse. “Darien, do you—”
But he was across the room and at the glass doors that led out onto the balcony before she could finish her sentence. He swung both doors open, the force behind his actions causing them to slam against the wall. Glass quivered, and a painting hanging beside the doors nearly came off its hook. Cool night air that smelled of jasmine rushed into the room and sent the curtains fluttering.
Loren hurried to catch up with him, the grip of sleep on her mind making it difficult to work her limbs. She almost stubbed her toe on the bedframe as she edged around it, holding her hands out in front of her to keep from smashing into things, and made her way to the open doors.
She found him just outside, near the railing. His head was bowed, and he was gripping the wrought-iron, his knuckles showing stark-white through his skin. The moon was full tonight, the bright glow making it easier for Loren to see, but harder for her to choke down the truth of what stood before her.
She hated seeing him like this. No matter how many nights he jolted awake, it never got easier. In fact, it got harder. She had been staying in his suite since Kalendae, and although those nights were few in number, most of them had been spent like this. Seeing him weighed down by such emotional and mental anguish shredded her heart worse than any physical pain ever could. And to think he had been dealing with this by himself, and for so many years…
She cut off the thought; it was too painful to bear. What Darien needed right now was for her to be strong enough to lift some of the weight that was crushing him, so that was what she would do. She would do it every day for the rest of her life if he needed her to.
Darien released the railing and turned around to face her. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked physically drained. His features were burdened with a guilt she knew was growing heavier by the day.
Slowly, he lowered himself to the floor of the balcony and leaned back against the wrought-iron roses and vines. After a quiet moment, he tipped his head back, elbows resting on his propped-up knees, and closed his eyes again. He seemed to be focusing on breathing, on calming himself down with every exhalation.
Loren had been there before—too many times. She knew how it felt to have her mind gripped by a panic attack, how hard it was to assemble your thoughts and emotions when your soul was being ripped to shreds and you felt…mentally unhinged. Unstable. Broken in more ways than you could possibly fix.
She was careful to keep her footsteps light as she padded across the balcony, the cool temperature seeping into her bare feet. Slowly, she lowered herself to a crouch before him and set a hand on his knee. “Did you have another nightmare?” she whispered.
He kept his eyes shut tight, but he nodded once, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
She had forgotten to light the candles. It was something Darien had been reluctant to admit to her when they’d started sleeping in the same bed—his need to have some form of light in the room to help keep his nightmares and Surges at bay. It almost never worked the way he hoped, but she understood that it was his safety net—better to have one than not. After seeing the shame written on his face upon confessing this truth to her, she had vowed to light the candles every night, so that he wouldn’t have to.
And she had forgotten.
“It was another memory,” Darien choked out. “I was a teenager. Ivy came into my room with Soot—she was still a puppy back then. They were trying to get away from my parents and their fighting—” He swallowed, his mouth forming a tight line. As the seconds ticked by, Loren realized he wasn’t ready to say anything more about the dream.
