Something about him—no, in fact, everything about him—began to stir something cold and rusted inside her.
The tendons in her neck pulled tight as she strained to see his face. Angling her head to hear more of that silky, dark voice. His presence drew everything in her to full attention. Her skin went tight and hot and confining. Her pulse pounded like the wings of a caged bird, trapped inside her chest.
Her instincts knew this man. Her heart knew, even if the illogic of it left her mind struggling to catch up with the rest of her.
Curiosity twisted into desperation as the man began to move. Letting his arm fall away from the other woman, he pivoted toward the bed, moving too smoothly, emanating too much raw power for a human.
Because he wasn’t human.
All the air left Mira’s lungs as he approached the bed where she lay.
“Impossible,” she whispered. “No . . . this can’t be real.”
But it was real—he was real.
Not an angel. Not a ghost, either, but flesh and blood. Alive.
The impossible answer to so many of her hopes and prayers.
“Kellan,” she whispered.
Her shock was so profound in that moment, they could have uncuffed her and she would’ve had no strength to lift her head, let alone prove any kind of threat. And even as she strove to make sense of what she was seeing, a part of her heart was going cold with an awful realization.
If it was he, what was Kellan doing here after all the time he’d been missing? How could he possibly know these people? What did any of them mean to him?
“It is you?” she asked, needing to hear him confirm what her mind still refused to fully believe.
Without answering, without meeting her searching eyes, he glanced down at her. Drew away the blindfold from her face and gently removed it from around her head. All the while, deliberately avoiding her gaze.
“Candice,” he murmured. “Bring me the contact lenses.”
Of course, Mira thought. Kellan would know about her gift. Kellan knew everything about her. He had been her best friend for most of her life. The only person who truly had known and understood her.
The dark-haired woman handed him a small dish filled with clear liquid, then quietly exited the room. He fished out one of the pair of purple lenses suspended within. Mira could hardly breathe as he took her face in his hands and carefully put the lenses into her eyes.
Once they were in place, her powerful ability muted, he finally lifted his hazel gaze. Oh, God . . . there was no denying that it was he. Under the thick mane of copper-infused hair, his greenish brown eyes were deep set and intense. His cheeks seemed leaner now, razor-cut and strong, his square jaw framed by the trim lines of the goatee that gave his handsome face a darkly mysterious edge. But within that rakish beard, his mouth was grim, unreadable.
He gave her no words of comfort. No explanation for how she’d come to find him here, living among killers, thieves, and traitors. The very enemies he’d been fighting against when he’d been one of the Order.
Mira stared into his eyes in agonizing confusion. One part of her was elated and relieved to the very core of her being to see Kellan living and breathing, so undeniably real and alive. Another part of her was in abject misery, realizing that his death had been a mistake—or worse, a lie. And now, the bigger betrayal, to see him standing among these people, treating them as friends—as family—while she had been left to mourn him alone.
“You died,” she finally managed to croak. “I was there. Eight years ago, almost to the day, Kellan. I watched you run into that warehouse. I saw it explode. I still have shrapnel scars from the debris that fell out of the sky that night. I can still taste the smoke and ash from the fire.”
He stared at her in a terrible silence.
“There was nothing left of the building,” she went on. “Nothing left of you, Kellan. Or so you’ve let me believe, all this time. I cried for you. I still do.”
His eyes remained on Mira, but he spoke no words. No plea for her forgiveness. No insistence that it had all been some unavoidable mistake.
She might have been tempted to believe him. The way her heart was cracking open in her chest, she might have been willing to accept any crumb of explanation he gave her. But he offered her nothing.
His silence was killing her. “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
He swallowed. Glanced down. “I’m sorry, Mira.”
When his eyes returned to hers, they were somber. Sincere, for all she knew of him now. But they were unflinchingly remote.
“You’re sorry.” Her shattered heart turned to cinders under the cool simplicity of his response. “Sorry for what part?”
“All of it,” he replied. “And for what I still need to do.”