“Will she survive?” he asked curtly, though he didn’t mean to, but he was worried.
Bethane placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Do you want her to?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “I want her to live.”
“Why?” she asked walking around the bed to stand opposite him.
“That’s a foolish question,” he snapped.
“No, a logical one. When you left here almost two months ago, you wanted Carissa dead. What has changed?”
He looked down at Carissa in a fitful toss, her cheeks burning red. “Everything.”
Bethane nodded. “You should get some rest. You have barely slept since you arrived.”
“She may not recall us leaving the cottage and will look for me when she wakes.”
“She will feel safe once she realizes where she is,” Bethane assured him.
He was going to continue arguing but thought better of it. He already sounded foolish to his own ears. What must Bethane think of him? But then she had asked him what had changed.
Everything.
His answer reverberated in his head, and he stood.
“There’s a bed in my cottage. Go rest.”
He hesitated.
“If she asks for you, I will come get you.”
He gave a sharp nod and left the cottage, walking the few steps from the door to Bethane’s place, and dropped on the bed, exhausted. Only a short time ago he’d wanted to strangle Carissa with his bare hands and now…he wasn’t even sure who she was.
He sighed with exasperation and slammed his eyes shut as if he could force sleep to claim him. He didn’t want to think, but he had no choice. Thoughts rushed at him, and no amount of dodging prevented them from hitting.
Could he have been the one Carissa had saved from her father?
Had she risked her life for him?
He fell asleep with no answer forthcoming.
Carissa was hot, and something weighted her down. She struggled to get free, pushing past the darkness to a spot where she saw a shred of light.
“Hope.”
Was that Ronan calling out to her? She tried to answer, but she couldn’t find her voice. She continued to struggle. She had to get this weight off her, had to get out of this heat and out of the darkness.
“Hope.”
She stopped suddenly and listened.
“Hope.”
She didn’t move. It wasn’t Ronan calling out to her. It was her father, and he wasn’t calling out her name.
He laughed then, that evil laugh that always shivered her to her soul.
“There is no hope.”
He was wrong. There was hope. She was Hope. He couldn’t take that from her.
“There has never been hope.”
“No!” The scream ripped past her dry throat and shot out of her mouth.
“Hope doesn’t exist.”
She fought the darkness, the weight, and her father’s cruel words.
He was wrong. Hope existed and love would prove it.
“Ronan,” she screamed.
Ronan battled the darkness. He had to find his way out, but first he had to find her. He had to save her. He tore through the dark with his hands, calling out to her. He thought he heard her and stilled, but there was no sound, nothing. He continued clawing the dark.
“Ronan.”
He heard his name clearly.
“I’m here.”
“You promised.”
“I’m here. I’m here.” He clawed viciously at the dark, but seemed to get nowhere.
“Too late.”
“Hope.”
He sprang up in bed.
“Ronan!”
He was off the bed and out the door before she called out again. He burst into the cottage and saw Bethane struggling to hold Carissa down.
“I’m here,” he shouted, and she quieted instantly.
Bethane stepped away when he reached the bed. He sat beside Carissa and took hold of her one hand and brought it to his lips. Her skin was warm, and he kissed her palm, then placed it against his cool cheek.
“I’m here,” he repeated.
She sighed, her sleep finally peaceful. “Don’t leave me.”
“Never,” he said.
When after a few minutes she said no more, he looked to Bethane. She was closing the door he had left open when he rushed in.
“She’ll be all right?” he asked anxiously.
“If the fever continues to go down, she’ll be fine.”
“What if it climbs again?”
Bethane did not hide her concern. “She’s weak from fighting the fever. If the fever jumps again, I don’t know if she’ll survive.”
“She’s a fighter.”
“It would seem so,” Bethane agreed.
“Is there anything else we can do?”
“I would say that you are already doing it,” she said with a smile and a nod.
He realized how odd it must seem, him sitting there holding his enemy’s hand to his cheek. He barely understood it himself. He had gone from having a deep-rooted hatred for Carissa to possibly loving her.