“Three years ago I was in a plane crash.”
Nicolai nodded, telling her without words he knew of the incident that had forever altered her life.
“I was flying to California for a mini-summer vacation and the plane encountered turbulent weather over the Sierra Nevada. It was to be a sky-diving trip. My first.” She shook her head, smiled but wasn’t the least bit amused. “Ironic, really, since the thought of flying now scares the shit out of me. Anyway, the plane was small, chartered. I was the only survivor out of fourteen people…including the pilots. When I woke up it was pitch black and my entire left side was pinned to my seat by a sheet of steel. I thought I was in hell. It was dark, hot and I could smell my flesh burning…” She swallowed convulsively several times as the memory threatened to drag her under.
A warm touch on her knee anchored her to the present.
She glanced down and the sight of his long-fingered capable hand lent her the strength to continue. Bit by bit, she lowered her legs, crossed them. And held onto him.
“Somehow I slid from under the sheet, and learned later I had left the entire upper dermis of my skin with it. But I got out of the plane, climbing over the bodies of the other passengers.” A tremor quaked through her as she recalled the horror of her fingers and feet digging into charred and mutilated flesh as she scrambled over the corpses, sometimes using their dead weight as purchase to escape the burning wreckage.
“I don’t remember much after that,” she whispered. “I only knew darkness for so long—first at the crash site and then in the hospital where they kept me in a medicated coma. Sometimes I would surface, but I still couldn’t focus, couldn’t see anything…couldn’t move. I was trapped, a prisoner in my own body. That’s when I started dreaming about you.”
Nicolai started next to her, surprised.
“Three years?” he asked, his voice a rough rasp. “You dreamed about me for three years?”
She nodded. Opened her mouth then snapped it closed. You already got one foot in. Might as well jump in deep shit with both of them.
“I would see you fighting. Sometimes you had a sword, other times you fought with your hands and legs like some kind of martial arts. But never as a hippogryph,” she said, shaking her head. “Always bare-chested, with wings.”Tamar lowered her lashes as longing rose in her throat, clogged her air passage. “As a matter of fact, I called you my winged warrior.”
“Sweetheart,” he murmured.
“You saved me,” she blurted. “You were the reason I didn’t lose my sanity while in the hospital. I didn’t mind going into the dark because I knew you would be there. Yes, you were a figment of my imagination, but as foolish as it sounds, you helped me get through the worst period of my life. Even after I started to heal enough for them to bring me out of the coma for good and my days were filled with pain and depression, I could endure it.” She paused and dipped her head when she made the final, soul-baring admission. “All because I knew when I closed my eyes at night you would be there. Waiting for me.”
“I didn’t know,” he said, lifting a hand to her face and cupping it.
The hardened, calloused palm was a delicious abrasion over her skin. It reminded her of the great power he wielded. She closed her eyes and rubbed against him like a cat. She needed his touch to bare the next ugly chapter of her story.
“Even with…” She squeezed her eyelids tighter and forced the name past her lips. “Kyle…I didn’t break. I envied your strength, wanted your strength. It just took me a while to believe I could have it.”
“Kyle?” he asked. Though his touch remained gentle, tension invaded his voice. Beside her, his body stilled as if preparing to pounce on an unseen threat. “Is he the one who hurt you?”
Tamar nodded. “He was my fiancé,” she explained. “Before the crash he was kind, attentive, made me laugh. He worked as an investment banker and had a great future in front of him—we had a great future. But after the accident…”
The memories crowded in and terrible, hurtful images flashed in front of her eyes. But then the fingers that had covered her face clasped her hand. She opened her eyes and stared down. Nicolai laced their fingers together in an unbreakable bond. She concentrated on the show of support and shoved past the dark thoughts.
“After the accident, he changed. He went from the fun-loving guy I planned on spending my life with to this…this monster. It wasn’t sudden, but gradual. A sharp word or back-handed insult became an angry tirade or a thrown glass. He separated me from my friends, cut me off from the world. Eventually his behavior escalated to full-out abuse. Punches, slaps and kicks to my upper body and lower back so he wouldn’t leave marks my physical therapist might notice and report. He’d shove me to the floor and leave me there for hours. Once—” The sob rose out of nowhere, a cry of humiliation, anger and shame. But as if she’d lanced a wound, the bad blood flowed out of her and she couldn’t hold it back any longer. “Once he knocked me down, took my walker from the room so I couldn’t get up and left me. I-I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom. I-I—”