Refuge(135)

“Here.” He placed a hand behind my head to support it and put a glass of water to my lips. I took a long, greedy drink before pushing the glass away.

Someone moved to the other side of the narrow bed, and it took me a second to realize it wasn’t my bed at all, but a hospital bed. Why was I in the medical ward? I struggled to remember what could have put me here, but the edges of my mind were shrouded in dense fog.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Roland asked, his blue eyes cautious. “You scared the crap out of us.”

“Roland?” I thought I had been dreaming when I heard his and Peter’s voices. “What are you doing here?”

His eyes flicked to Nikolas then back to me. “You don’t remember?”

“No, I . . .” Images began to emerge from the shadows: Thanksgiving dinner, a white van, Nate in his wheelchair, Nate standing, Nate chained to a wall . . . I covered my face with my hands as it all came back to me with merciless clarity. “Oh God, I killed Nate.” My body shook, and I could not get enough air into my lungs. Nikolas said something, but I all I could hear were the screams of the vamhir demon and the beating of Nate’s heart before it went silent. Arms encircled me and I turned toward Nikolas, curling against him as he murmured in my ear. It took several minutes for his repeated words to penetrate the grief choking me. I jerked away and stared at him in confusion.

“What did you say?”

Nikolas wore the trace of a smile. “Nate is alive.”

I moved my head slowly from side to side. “That’s not possible. I killed him. I felt him die.”

“You killed the vampire.” Tristan walked over to the bed, wonder shining in his eyes. “We have no idea what you did in that room, but Nate is alive.”

“You’re not making any sense. How can the vampire be alive if I killed him?”

“Sara, the vampire is not alive. Nate is,” Nikolas said slowly. “Nate is human again.”





Chapter 22





WHAT?” I LOOKED from Nikolas to Tristan to Roland, and they all nodded at me in turn. Disbelief flooded me, followed by a spark of hope. “Human? He’s human . . . and alive?”

“He smells human to us,” Peter said from behind Roland.

I gripped Roland’s arm because he was closest. “You’ve seen him?”

“Ow. Demon strength, remember.” He rubbed his arm. “We’ve seen him a few times. And you should know that he – ”

“Where is he? I want to see him.” I pushed aside the blanket and sat up. Dizziness assailed me, and I would have toppled out of bed if Nikolas had not been there to catch me.

“Hold on. You’re too weak to go anywhere.” He held me with gentle firmness. I struggled against him, but it was no use.

“Let me go! I have to see Nate.” Twice, I’d thought I lost Nate; first when he’d arrived as a vampire and then when I killed him – or believed I had. And now to find out he was miraculously alive . . . “Let go of me, Nikolas, or I swear I’ll never speak to you again.” They were harsh words and I didn’t mean them, but I was too upset to take them back.

“You never did like to be told what to do.”

My head whipped in the direction of the door, but my view was blocked by Tristan. It didn’t matter because I’d know that voice anywhere. “Nate?” I said in a small voice.

Tristan moved aside, and I watched breathlessly as Nate approached the bed. He wore a smile that warmed his familiar green eyes, and all traces of malice were gone from his face. Nikolas stepped back to let Nate take his place beside the bed. Nate laid a hand over mine, and I saw tears sparkling in his eyes. “Hey, kiddo.”

I reached blindly for him. He wrapped me in strong arms, and we clung to each other like we were each afraid the other would disappear if we let go. “You’re really here,” I cried into his shirt. “I thought I lost you.”

“I thought I lost you, too.”

“How is this – ?” The words caught in my throat as I suddenly became aware of what I was seeing. “Nate, you’re walking!”

His laugh melted the last of the ice that had filled my chest the moment he’d stood up from his wheelchair. “Tristan says my spine was healed when the vampire demon possessed me. And then you killed the demon.”

I fell back against the pillow and rubbed my temple. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“What do you remember?” Tristan asked.

The healer spoke for the first time since I woke up. “Sara has been unconscious for two days, and this is obviously overtaxing her. Perhaps we should let her rest before – ”