“What does that all mean, Astrid?” Dani asked.
Astrid sighed, settling back in the chair. “It means that the magic that is keeping her unconscious is her own.”
“How do I get her out of it?” Luke asked.
“You don’t,” Astrid replied, her voice sharp. “You cannot force her out of the magic. She has to feel safe enough to break it all on her own.”
Luke turned in Astrid’s direction, ready to speak, but she stopped him with the stillness in her normally swirling silver eyes. “Johanna has … she’s gone through a lot, Luke. And I think throughout that time, even though the two of you were not together, she relied on any memory or thought of you to … separate herself from her trauma. She used you as her saving grace. But something tells me she also spent a lot of time protecting you, which is why she’s like this now. She’s stuck at a crossroads between those two thoughts. I don’t think she realizes that she’s not in hell anymore.”
Luke clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth to keep from shouting his rage. He was so incredibly tired of it being this way for them. Johanna deserved more and Luke wanted to give it to her, but yet again she was somewhere he couldn’t reach her.
He took a deep breath. “What can I do?”
“I think you’re already doing a good job,” Astrid said carefully. “She just needs a little more time. Has she responded to you in any way?”
Luke shook his head. “She moves a little sometimes. Small things. Expressions, mostly. I thought they were signs she was coming out of it, but they don’t seem to be, and they don’t seem to be responses to me either.”
“What about the day you found her?” Astrid asked.
Luke paused, thinking back. “Not really. I felt where she was.” He twirled a piece of Johanna’s hair around his finger. “And at some point I spoke to her, and the pain of losing her would either get stronger or weaker as if she was responding to me. But I haven’t felt, heard, or seen anything that seems like a response since.”
“Maybe …” Dani began, meeting Astrid’s eyes. At her nod she continued. “Maybe you’re wrong, Luke. Maybe when she moves, she is responding to you in her own way, and when she can’t, she sends the thoughts through you.”
“What do you mean, Dani?” Luke asked.
“What you’re doing right now, the way you’re touching her. In all the time I’ve been here, you’ve never done that. You tend to sit beside her”—Dani nodded to the chair—“not this. Maybe, you’re responding to her mental abilities. Since she can’t touch you, she’s asking you to touch her.”
Astrid nodded. “That’s exactly what I think is happening. Johanna clearly acknowledges you as her mate. She’s protected you for a long time, and I think it’s ingrained in her to continue to do so. Because Daniella, Greg, and Mya were here when you found her and helped to save her, Johanna has decided they’re safe. She can sense they provide you comfort as well, and because of that she trusts them. But other people will not feel welcomed the same way you all do, not until she deems them safe as well.”
Astrid crossed her legs, resting her head on her palm. “What you’re doing right now is responding to her pull. Your bond works like a conduit. The same magnetic system but on a mental and emotional level, most likely due to Johanna’s powers. And I’m sure that when she does wake up it will be even stronger.”
Luke bit his lip but nodded. It made sense, and if he were honest, he liked it. He liked knowing there was a secret connection between them, that Johanna knew and accepted him as her mate and trusted him to look out for her when she needed time to rest. He supposed, in a way, maybe that’s all this was. That was the mindset change he needed, the swing toward the positive.
Johanna would need time to heal from everything that happened to her, just like she would need time to see that they could work together. This was the beginning of that, her time to rest and recover her strength. If she was cognizant enough to orchestrate all of this, then she was aware enough to awaken on her own. He just needed to give her time, and that was something he could do.
A smile graced his lips as he turned to Astrid. “Thank you. I feel like you’ve given me the answers I needed.” Luke’s gaze shifted to the floor with a sigh. “I’ve been drowning for a while with all of this, and sometimes it felt like I couldn’t reach the surface no matter how hard I tried to swim.”
“That’s understandable,” Dani said, and he met her dark brown eyes. “You have every reason to feel that way. Just try to remember that no matter how dark it gets in those moments, you’re not alone. We’re right there with you. We’re reaching out to you, and we will always make sure you’re safe. You can breathe, Luke. You can breathe.”
CHAPTER 8
Luke’s heart felt lighter as he said goodbye to Dani and Astrid and walked back into Johanna’s room. For a moment he just stood there, observing her. He tried to see if he could feel the energy or presence Astrid had when she first arrived. He knew it was probably stupid to try, but he had to, because feeling Johanna in any way was better than not feeling her at all.
Luke approached the bed hesitantly. He had vowed to keep a respectable distance away from her until she was awake and able to consent to his touch, but even without feeling the pull from her again, he knew he needed this,theyneeded this. He sat on the bed instead of the chair. His hip pressed against her own as he captured her hand in his and leaned over her.
She was still, breathing normally, her golden hair spread around her shoulders and beautiful body like an angel. Angelic though she might be, Luke now knew that his little angel had fire in her. Luke breathed in her scent before brushing his fingertips through her mane, following the long tresses until they ended and curled around her waist. He traced back up the path until he reached her face, then caressed the softness of her full cheeks. He slid down her jaw, her throat, and stroked her pulse, feeling it thump against the pad of his thumb. He ended at her shoulder, and drew back just slightly, so he could take in more of her with his gaze.
“I wasn’t sure if I wanted a mate,” Luke began, then paused, shaking his head. “That’s not true. I didn’t want to find my mate. I was terrified to.”
He kicked his foot up to rest on the tufted frame of the bed. “When I was a kid, I thought my whole world had ended. I’d lost my mother to the plague, my aunt and uncle had fallen ill, and Greg was forced to leave us and join the army. Even though I had no concept of death at the time, I fully expected to contract the plague and end up like my mother.”
Luke stroked the back of Johanna’s hand. “But then Greg came back as a vampire. He saved us, and I was grateful. I was grateful to him and Erik for letting me be a child, and I kept that mentality far into my twenties as a vampire.”
He sighed. “I was restless, jumping from one thing to the next, gathering all the knowledge I could. I needed experiences to feel alive because I never imagined being able to live forever. I think,” his voice quieted, “no, I know that for a while there, I thought I was invincible.”
Luke took a deep breath, his shoulders sinking forward as he continued with his story. “I still thought I was invincible when the wars started. I bathed myself in the blood of others without batting an eye, because they were trying to take the one thing that mattered to me: my way of life. Greg, Mya, Erik, they were all part of that. Being a vampire has its perks, yes, but the biggest drawback is watching the faces of people you grow to care for die. I couldn’t, Iwouldn’t,let anyone take another person from me, and I used every ounce of my false invincibility to do so. And then we started saving people.”
Luke’s eyes met Johanna’s face, and even though her own eyes were closed, he still stared at them as if he could will them to open, as if he could connect to her, to make her understand him. “Do you know what it’s like to save someone’s life, to see them believe they’re going to die and then give them another chance to live? That … that did something to me.”
