Refuge (47 page)

“It’s been two damn days. Why hasn’t she
woken up?”

“Physically, there is nothing wrong with
her,” a woman said. “All I can guess is that her mind needs to heal
from the trauma she suffered and she will wake when she is
ready.”

“You guess?”

“Nikolas, calm down. There is nothing to be
gained from yelling at the healers. None of us has seen anything
like this before.”

“Dude, I wouldn’t want to wake up either with
you shouting like that.”

Was that Roland?

“I think I just saw her eyes move!”

And Peter?

A hand touched my shoulder. “Sara, it’s
Roland. Can you hear me?”

I tried to move my hand, but it was made of
lead. I wanted to grind my teeth in frustration, but I couldn’t do
that either.

“There! Her lips moved. See, Pete, I told you
the music was a good idea.”

I heard people moving around and then warmth
encased my hand. “Sara? It’s time to wake up,
moy malen’kiy voin.”

“I’m trying, damn it!” I wanted to say, but
no words would come forth.

“Ah, is our beauty still sleeping?” asked a
new voice. “Perhaps a kiss from her prince is all she needs.”

“This is no time for your humor, Desmund.”
Nikolas’s voice was low and harsh, but his hold on my hand was
gentle. Beneath his hard demeanor, I sensed worry and fear.
Nikolas, afraid? Impossible.

“On the contrary, laughter is just what she
needs. It is far too gloomy in here . . . and what is that awful
noise?”

“Hey, she likes this music,” Roland retorted
defensively.

“If you gentlemen don’t keep it down, you are
all going to have to leave,” the healer interjected with calm
authority.

Voices rose in argument, and the room got
even noisier. The sounds grated on my ears.

“Stop it,” I yelled, but it came out as a
hoarse whisper. It was enough to make the room go silent. Forcing
my eyes open, I saw an unshaven face and a pair of shadowed gray
eyes. “Hi.”

Nikolas’s hand squeezed mine, and his lips
curved into a smile that plucked at an invisible string attached to
my heart. “Hi, yourself.”

“What’s going on? Why is everyone in my
room?” I coughed the last word and wondered why my mouth and throat
were so parched.

“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.”

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 –
”

“No. I’ve been asleep long enough.” I tried
to sit up again, and Roland hit a lever to raise the head of the
bed to a sitting position. Once I was comfortable with an extra
pillow behind me, I tugged on Nate’s hand until he sat beside me. I
didn’t think I would ever be able to let him out of my sight
again.

When I looked away from him, I saw that
Tristan, Roland, and Peter had pulled up chairs for themselves and
Nikolas stood near the head of the bed. The healer left, and I
noticed the lone figure standing quietly by the window.

“Desmund? I thought you hated coming
downstairs.”

Pushing away from the wall, he sauntered
over, one corner of his mouth lifted in a haughty smirk. “Well,
they would not accommodate me by moving you upstairs, so I was
forced to spend time in this depressing ward.” He picked up my hand
and put it to his lips. “Welcome back, little one. And if you worry
us like that again, I will lock you up myself for the next fifty
years.”

“Get in line,” Nikolas muttered.

Great, all I needed was another male in my
life who thought he knew what was best for me. I didn’t know
whether to scowl at the pair of them or be amazed that they were in
agreement on something. Unfortunately, with my penchant for
attracting trouble, I’d probably see how serious their threats were
sooner rather than later.

Desmund smiled kindly and released my hand.
“I will go and let you catch up with your family and friends. Come
see me when you are feeling better.” I started to say that he
didn’t have to leave, but he was gone before I could get the words
out.

I looked at Nate who was talking quietly to
Tristan.
He’s really
here.
Two days ago, I thought my heart would never be whole
again, and yet here it was, bursting with happiness.

“Sara, do you feel up to telling us what
happened?” Tristan asked. “What you did has never been done before,
at least it’s never been recorded in our history. I don’t know
where to begin to try to understand it.”

“I didn’t know I could do that. I knew I
could kill demons, but I never dreamed it was possible to make a
vampire human again.

I toyed nervously with the edge of the
blanket and met Nate’s gaze. “I was so upset and angry about what
happened to you. I went down there to kill you, not to save
you.”

He put a hand over mine to stop my fidgeting.
“I know,” he said without a hint of anger or bitterness. “I
remember everything, especially the horrible things I . . . the
vampire said to you. I know you did what you had to do.”

“What exactly did you do?” Roland
prodded.

“Like I said, I planned to kill the vampire.
The first time I hit him with my power it was enough to knock him
out. While I was connected to him I could see the vamhir demon
attached to Nate’s heart.” I heard Nate inhale sharply, but I
couldn’t look at him and see the horror on his face. “I was going
to hit it again, but then I heard its thoughts. Actually, I think
they were its memories.”

Tristan put up a hand to interrupt me. “You
understood what it was saying?”

“Bits and pieces.”

He frowned. “Only our oldest scholars can
understand demon tongue, and they spend centuries learning it.”

“But we can understand our Mori demons.”

“The Mori demon was chosen to create our race
because it is compatible with humans. Our demons are born inside
us, and we learn to communicate with them as we grow.”

I looked from him to Nikolas. “You mean my
Mori talks in a whole other language and I didn’t even know it?”
Nikolas nodded, and I fell silent while I tried to process this new
knowledge. There was so much I had to learn about who and what I
was.

Peter leaned forward. “What happened after
you heard the demon?”

“Then I saw – ” I looked at Nate. I needed
him to understand why I did what I did. “I saw your memories of me.
Then I saw you being changed and the pain you went through. I
couldn’t let you suffer anymore. I held your heart, and I felt it
stop. I thought you died.”

“I think I did die, but then I felt something
pulling at me. It was so bright and warm that I honestly thought I
must be looking at an angel.” He wore an expression of someone who
has seen something so wondrous they cannot put it into words. “Then
heat spread through me and it got so hot I thought I was going to
burn from the inside out. The next thing I knew, I woke up on the
floor of the cell with Tristan standing over me, looking like he
was going to finish the job.”

“I almost did,” Tristan admitted soberly.
“But then I saw his eyes, and I knew something was different,
especially after what I’d witnessed.”

“What did you see?” I asked him.

“We unlocked the door, but before Nikolas and
I could get to you, you sent out enough energy to throw us across
the room. You and Nate were inside some kind of energy sphere that
glowed so brightly it was impossible to look at directly. We
couldn’t get within five feet of it without it pushing us back.
I’ve seen many things in my life, but nothing like that.”

“You didn’t actually see what I did to
Nate?”

“No. You were like that for a minute, and
then the sphere disappeared and you both fell to the floor.
Whatever it was, it melted the irons on Nate’s arms and legs
without leaving a mark on him.”

“A minute?” I leaned back against the
pillows, stunned. “It felt like it was a lot longer than that.”

“Yes, it did,” Nikolas said in a tight voice,
and I saw Nate give him an appraising look. Nate and I had so much
to talk about, and I could only imagine what he would say when he
heard about me and Nikolas. Nate liked Nikolas, but I had a feeling
he wasn’t going to be too pleased about the whole bond thing.

Roland tugged on my hair playfully. “You
learned some new tricks since the last time we saw you.”

“This makes what she did to you look like
nothing,” Peter said with a grin, and Roland nodded vigorously.

“No kidding.”

I let out a small laugh, and Roland said,
“It’s good to hear that again.”

“It feels good.” How could I not be happy?
Nate was back and I was surrounded by people I cared about. The
Master knew I was alive, but I was too happy to worry about that
now. Nate was safe here, and the Master could not hurt him or use
him against me again.

I tugged on Nate’s hand. “You’re staying here
until they get the Master, right?” He had argued so strongly
against coming to live here when Nikolas offered it to him back in
New Hastings that I was afraid he would refuse now.

He smiled. “I guess I can write as well here
as I can anywhere else. Of course, I’ll need to get my computer and
things from home.”

“And don’t forget Daisy and – ” I broke off
when it hit me that I still had no idea if our pets were even
alive. “Nate, where are Daisy and Oscar? You didn’t . . . ?”

He wore a horrified expression. “No! They ran
away as soon as I went home after I was attacked.”

“They’re fine,” Peter said. “Dad and Uncle
Brendan went to check out your place and they saw Oscar outside. He
wouldn’t come near them so Aunt Judith put out some food for
him.”