With that thought, my awareness swept out around me, searching for something.
I was more than a collection of thoughts lost at the mouth of the abyss. I was a person with a body, a heart, a soul, and people I loved.
I tried to take a breath, to feel the telltale expanding and deflating of my lungs that would send my consciousness hurtling back to where it belonged, but nothing happened.
How could I be alive but not breathing? Was I—?
No.
I pushed down the surging panic and tried again, putting every ounce of my willpower behind it as I tried to remember how to breathe.
Fire scorched a line straight down my throat as reality came crashing into me. A cough wrenched its way past my lips as I sputtered for air, but there was something in the way, something choking me.
As my eyes opened, the void instantly vanished and was replaced by a burning light.
“Help!” A man’s voice shouted from beside me as I struggled to breathe.
Was it him who was choking me? Something was stuck in my throat, but despite the blockage I was still alive, still getting the air I needed to live.
“She’s awake!” Another man yelled, his familiar tone a mix of awe and terror. “Get this thing off her!”
Thing? What thing?
I couldn’t see anything past the light burning my retinas. I squeezed my eyes shut, attempting to trust the men as footsteps pounded in the distance, closing in on me.
Threadbare sheets scratched against my palms as my fingers curled into fists and I suppressed the urge to claw at my throat.
“They’re coming, Giana. Just stay still.” Warm hands grasped my arm, a familiar comfort sweeping over me at the touch.
A name. My name. It rolled off his tongue with practiced ease as though there hadn’t been a day that it wasn’t on his lips.
Lips I’d spent years fantasizing about before finally crossing that line, before hurtling myself into his arms and wishing he’d never let go.
Kellan.
I tried to speak, but nothing came out.
Too soon his comforting touch was wrenched away as a flurry of voices sounded around me.
“She wasn’t supposed to come out so soon,” a man said as he steadied my thrashing limbs. I hadn’t even realized I’d been struggling until his icy hands pinned my arms down.
“What the fuck is happening?”
Merrick. That was Merrick’s gruff tone mere feet away, but it was now muffled as the door clicked closed and more people surrounded me.
“He can’t be out of bed,” a man I didn’t recognize said.
Why did they shut him out? I wanted all my men with me, not whoever these strangers were.
“They need you to stay still, sugar.” Spade’s lulling, drugging tone filled my mind, but he was too far away, his hands missing from my skin.
It took a moment, but I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to relax as reality came slamming back into me like a freight train. Merrick was shot. Tommaso was dead. The last thing I remembered was the flames flickering too close for comfort, the heat blistering my skin, the agony threatening to consume me whole as smoke filled my throat, and the fire that devoured everything in its path.
Agony scorched along my windpipe as they removed the tube supplying air to my ravaged lungs. Pulling in each breath felt like someone was scraping my insides with sandpaper, but the familiar inhale and exhale of precious filtered air helped to ease the tightness clenching at my chest.
I pried my eyes open, fighting against the bright light and the burning dryness. I had to see their faces to know that they were truly with me, that we all got out of there alive.
“Giana,” Kellan breathed, my name on his lips like a prayer.
