Page 182 of The Hunter's Empire

"That still counts as resistance."

Despite myself, I laugh.

Somewhere out there, Anton is apparently panicking over a woman, and somehow that might be the most shocking development of the entire week.

Nearly half an hour passes in easy conversation before another knock sounds against the hospital room door. None of us pays much attention to it at first, assuming it's another nurse checking on me.

Then the door opens. Nico stands there. And for a moment, the entire room goes quiet.

He looks as though he came straight from wherever he was the moment someone told him I was awake. His shirt is wrinkled, his hair slightly disheveled, and the dark circles beneath his eyes make it painfully obvious that the last few days haven't been kind to him either.

He looks exhausted. He also looks terrified. Not because something is wrong. Because he's only now allowing himself to believe that maybe everything is finally going to be okay.

Aurelia notices it first. "I think we'll give you two a few minutes."

Keith nods immediately.

A few moments later, the door closes quietly behind them and the room falls silent.

Not the awkward kind that demands to be filled, but the kind that settles naturally between two people carrying far too much history for words to ever feel sufficient. After everything that has happened between us, after the lies, the anger, the confessions, the blood, and the fear, language suddenly feels painfully inadequate.

Slowly, he crosses the room. His eyes never leave mine.

When he finally reaches the bed, he stops beside the chair that has clearly been occupied for days. My eyes drift toward it. Then back to him.

"So..." My voice comes out softer than I intended. "You really stayed."

A faint smile touches his lips. "I couldn't leave."

The answer makes something tighten painfully in my chest. Not because of the words. Because despite everything that had happened between us, despite all the reasons he could have used to leave, he hadn't. He stayed.

"You stayed for three days."

His eyes drift briefly toward the chair beside the bed. "I wasn't a very good company."

A quiet laugh escapes me. "I don't think that was the point."

For the first time, something softer appears in his expression.

"No." He says quietly. "It wasn't."

The man standing in front of me barely resembles the composed extraction specialist who walked into my life. Up close, the exhaustion becomes impossible to ignore. His eyes are bloodshot and there is a heaviness about him that makes him seem older somehow. More human.

"You look terrible."

His eyebrow lifts slightly. "So do you."

"I have an excuse."

"So do I."

Despite everything, despite the pain in my chest and the ache still running through my body, I find myself smiling. For the first time since walking into the room, so has he.

Then the smile fades. "I'm sorry."

The words come quietly enough that I almost don't hear them.

"Nico…"