With no pressing danger looming, Jace took a moment to study Abby, watching the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. She was curled up in the chair, looking tiny and vulnerable. Her hair was tumbling down around her shoulders, falling across her face. He studied the wayward locks, his hand clenching against the instinct to brush the hair back from her face. He remembered the reassuring touch of her hands when Kiernan had been healing him, the way her voice had taken the edge off his agony.
Gentle.
Soft.
Kind.
Unable to resist, Jace rolled onto his side to face her. He cautiously reached across the space between them and brushed the stray lock back from her face. Her hair was soft, like silk, softer than he could remember feeling.
Her eyes flickered open. For a moment, she stared at him sleepily, as if she were still hovering between dreamland and reality. He smiled at her, and something turned over in his chest when she smiled back at him. "How are you?" she asked.
At her question, he suddenly realized that the pain that had been haunting him for so long was absent. He'd reached out with his injured arm...and it was much improved. The scars were shiny, but on their way to healing, and he could tell that the internal damage had been repaired. "Damn. I'm impressed." Then he focused on his shattered ankle. No pain. Frowning, he flexed it. To his shock, it moved easily, with only a dull ache of pain. He sat up, frowning as he moved it again, testing it in every direction. He had full mobility. "Impossible." He leapt off the cot and landed on his right leg. He braced for debilitating pain and a collapse to the floor, but his ankle held up. It trembled under the impact, but he was able to keep it straight and solid with a little focus. The faint ache was astoundingly minimal, easy to compartmentalize. Son of a bitch. His ankle had been reconstructed. He was back.
He sank back onto the cot and bowed his head, unable to contain his sudden rush of emotion. His ankle was healed. He was strong enough to be the alpha who protected his pack and his mate. He could do what he'd thought he'd never be able to do again.
"Jace?" Abby's hands slid over his bare shoulders. "It didn't work?"
He caught her hand and looked up. She was sitting beside him, her face inches from his. "You did this," he said, his voice hoarse.
Wariness flickered in her eyes. "Did what?"
He slid his hands through her hair, emotions thick in his chest. "My ankle was done. I couldn't be an alpha, or even survive in a pack with a crippled leg. It was over...and now it's fine."
Her face lit up. "It's healed? Really?"
He turned toward her, swinging his legs around her so he flanked her hips. "You did it. You brought me here. You ignored my orders and dragged me to Kiernan." He tunneled his hands through her hair. "You gave me back my life, when all you should have done was hate me." He didn't understand her. He could barely grasp what she'd done for him. He'd resigned himself to his useless leg, and to have it given back to him was overwhelming, a gift he would spend a lifetime trying to be worthy of.
She encircled his wrists with her fingers. "Jace, you need to stop," she said gently. "Hating yourself for what you did allows Grigori to win. You were coerced to do something completely against your nature. If I can see that, why can't you?"
"Because I relive her murder every second of every day." He tangled his fingers in her hair, needing to ground himself in her. Even as he tried to convince her of his guilt, at the same time, he needed her to argue with him, to not let him win. "I wanted to kill her. My wolf thrived on the attack. I felt it inside me, a sense of victory when she died. Do you understand? I became a monster that day. It wasn't simply that I killed her. It was that I wanted to do it." The words were ugly, a hateful ugly truth, but he had to say them. He was ashamed of what he'd been, of that truth, but he didn't want to hide from it anymore. Abby had given him so much. She deserved to know who he really was, and what he'd become inside.
Abby sighed, and turned toward him. She slid onto his lap and wrapped her legs around his hips.
Jace stiffened, his body going hard at the intimacy of the position. He pulled his hands from her and held them up, forcing himself not to touch her. "What are you doing?"
She clasped her fingers behind his neck and tried to tug him toward her.
He resisted, his hands still in the air. "Abby. You need to get off my lap. Seriously. Right now." Desire raced through him, a deep, relentless need to slide his hands through her hair and drag her toward him. To sink his mouth onto hers and claim her. To toss her onto his cot and strip off her clothes, layer by layer, until she was all his.
She ignored him. Instead, she leaned into him and pressed her mouth to his. Her lips were soft and tentative, igniting a fierceness inside him he'd never experienced. With a low growl, he opened his mouth, taking her offering with a searing kiss of unrestrained hunger. She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back just as fiercely as he was kissing her. The need was uncontrollable, raging through him with relentless heat. He'd burned for her since the first moment he'd seen her, fighting the battle every moment, but she shattered the last vestiges of his control.
"Kiss me, Jace," she whispered. "I want you."
Another surge of hunger, and his kisses became a frenzied, desperate claiming, far beyond his ability to control them. He needed to touch her, to kiss her, to feel her bare skin beneath his palms. His wolf craved her, and so did the man, unified in their need for the woman in his arms.
Abby was so brave, and yet, at the same time, so vulnerable. Her courage to bring him to Kiernan when Lucius was hunting them astounded him. Her ability to forgive him for the unthinkable was beyond comprehension, a gift he was clinging to desperately. She was brave, but at the same time, she was soft, offering Jace comfort and faith when he deserved none. He was so lost right now, drowning in the chaos his life had become, but she had stood by him, giving him purpose, never judging, never doubting. She saw in him the man he'd thought he was, giving him hope even when he knew he didn't deserve it.
She'd given him so much, and he felt as though he'd only taken in return. He knew he didn't deserve this moment with her. She should be punishing him, not giving him the most precious gift on earth, her faith, her trust, and her kiss. He knew this, but he couldn't make himself break away. He needed what she gave him. He knew that without Abby, he wouldn't still be alive. His soul wouldn't still be hanging together by a sliver, refusing to shatter completely.
He needed Abby in a way he'd never needed anyone or anything. He ran his hands down her spine, beneath her shirt, tracing each bone. Her body was a miracle to him, curvy, soft, and yet strong at the same time. Unrivaled elegance and beauty...and the body of a survivor.
He palmed her belly, pressing his hand against the hard ridges left behind by Lucius. Abby tensed and she stopped kissing him, though she didn't pull back. Suspended in fear, waiting for his next move.
Anger rushed through him, a fierce outrage that Lucius had taken away Abby's understanding of her beauty, stripping away self-confidence in who she was. She was wrong to fear his reaction to her scars. Resolution flooded him, and he shifted, rolling her onto her back on his cot.
The moment her shoulders hit, Jace stretched on top of her, sliding low enough to press a kiss to her stomach. Abby tensed, touching the top of his head. "Jace, you don't have do that-"
He caught her hand and kissed her fingertips. "Look at me, Abby."
She propped herself up on her elbows and looked down at him. The vulnerability on her face made his heart turn over. He pressed another kiss to her stomach, keeping his gaze pinned on her face. "When I look at you, do you know what I see?"
She shook her head once, her gaze riveted to his.
"I look into your eyes, and I see a woman who loved her sister, a woman who's so loyal to those she loves that she's willing to do whatever it takes to keep them safe, including teaming up with the bastard who killed her sister."
Her face softened. "Jace-"
He pressed another kiss to her stomach. "When I hear your voice, it's as if the angels have gifted me with a moment of perfection, a whisper of peace in a life that doesn't deserve it."
Her eyes began to glisten with unshed tears. "My voice has done so many terrible things," she whispered. "You might feel guilty for killing my sister, but I've been responsible for destroying good men and making them kill hundreds of innocents."