Page 882 of Coal Hearts

Brushing aside the curtain, I made eye contact with the person sitting up in bed. An arm in a sling, and love in his gaze.

For a second, every part of my nervous system stopped working.

I couldn’t think or blink or speak.

I just stared.

At a ghost.

At a soulmate who’d died.

A man who’d shielded me with his own life.

My fingers flew to the medallion-shaped scar on my sternum. Tears flowed quick and silent down my cheeks. I staggered forward. Henri almost fell over.

“I-Is this real?” I couldn’t trust my eyes until I touched him.

Until I knew for sure...

Hesitantly, fearfully, I stopped by the bedside and cupped the cheek of someone I never thought I’d see again.

His hand came up and covered mine.

His soft brown eyes gleamed with vitality and violent joy.

And then he tugged me closer and wrapped me in the biggest one-armed hug.

“Hi, jaanu...”

His voice.

His heat.

Oh God.

With a cry, I flung my arms around him. I buried myself into his neck. He smelled all wrong and still felt far too thin, but he was real. Real. “My God, Paavak...” Commonsense tried to tell me this wasn’t happening. That I’d tripped and whacked my head.

This couldn’t be real.

Could it?

Could he truly be hugging me? Holding me?

“It’s okay, Ily.” Peter kissed my hair. “Hey, no need to cry. I’m okay. See? I’m right here.”

I clung to him. I practically crawled on top of him.

He chuckled as I sobbed against his throat. “Hey, that’s ticklish without my collar.” He flinched away, his laughter so much lighter than any I’d heard on Victor’s island. Anytime he’d laughed back then, it’d been heavy with scorn and unsaid things.

Now it twinkled in the sunlight like fireflies.

I pulled away.

I met his eyes.

I stopped crying and truly saw. “It’s really you.”

“Told you.” He grinned. “Not dead. I didn’t turn into a vampire or sell my soul for another chance. I’m just me. Just a guy who’s scarred and skinny...a slave who escaped.”