It’s another four days before the doctors unbandage my eyes. As they flutter open, a shard of light pierces the darkness, and I wince and close them again. I have to know if I can see my woman, so I force my eyelids apart. There’s a blurry shape leaning over me. A doctor, telling me to follow his finger or some other bullshit.
I look around the room until I see her. My heart leaps as I recognize her fuzzy outline. I know her. I’d know her anywhere.
“Sachelle,” I breathe, and hold out my hand to her.
Sachelle gives a cry of happiness and rushes across the room and into my arms. The doctor tries several more times to get my attention, but I don’t want to look at anyone but my bride.
I can see her. Her fingers on my chest. Her dark hair laying across my arms. It’s all blurry, but I can see her.
I can see her.
“Will my sight get better?” I ask the doctor, holding Sachelle tight against my chest. “Everything’s fuzzy.”
“We should continue to see improvements in your vision. If you’ll just look up here and… Never mind. I’ll come back later,” he mutters when I refuse to let go of Sachelle, and leaves the two of us alone.
As I gaze at my beautiful girl, I make out her lips. Her chin. Her eyes with their dark lashes. She hasn’t left my side all this time.
“Little fox, will you always fly into my arms like you did just now?”
Her arms tighten around me and there are tears in her voice. “I thought I never would again. Jakob, I’m so sorry you got hurt. It’s all my fault.”
“I’d crawl through ten burning buildings to come find you. I’d give up all my toes. What matters to me is that you’re safe, and the people who hurt you can never hurt you again.”
Sachelle starts to cry, shaking on my chest.
“Sit up. Let me look at you.”
She does, wiping her face. Her shirt is white. Her leggings are black. I can just make out a silver chain around her neck. Those violet eyes are shining with tears.
“I must look a mess. I’ve had my hair in this ponytail for three days.”
I stroke her face, smiling. “You’re perfect. You always will be, as long as you hold me just like this, and promise to be mine forever.”
21
Sachelle
“I haven’t been able to leave you for longer than an hour since they let me out of my bed,” I say in a shaky voice, gripping his hands as hard as I dare. “I was in here in my hospital gown, sitting by your bedside, staring at your heart monitor.”
Willing it not to stop like it had twice already, both times filling me with despair. Those first eleven days before he woke up were hell. He was clinging to life, and I couldn’t even tell him how badly I needed him to fight.
To come back to me.
“There isn’t anyone I know who fights for what he believes in like you do, and you never ask for a scrap of credit.”
He smiles and lifts my hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to my palm. “No, I only ask for you, the greatest prize of all.”
I laugh, wiping tears from my face. “I thought you were lovely when I first met you, and then things got so complicated. When you were lying here unconscious, I thought I’d never get the chance to see you like that again. Strong. Protective. Principled. That’s the man I love.”
He pulls me down into his arms. “My angel. I love you, too.”
“Don’t put yourself in mortal danger again, will you? Don’t leave me.”
“I’ll never stop fighting to stay by your side, that I can promise. And I promise to be the same unrelenting asshole if I ever think you’re in danger again.”
I laugh against his shoulder and kiss the bristles on his cheek. “You were an unrelenting asshole there for a while.”
“And yet you fell in love with me,” he says with a grin.
“Yeah. I guess I love that asshole, too.”
I rest my cheek on his chest and close my eyes. He’s so warm and comfortable and he’s stroking my hair. It’s been an exhausting few weeks, and I fall asleep within seconds.
When I wake, it’s afternoon and he’s asleep too. As I look upon his face I smile, because he almost looks himself again without the bandages covering his eyes. Beard too scruffy and cheeks too thin, but whole again. Almost. His poor toes.
But it could have been so much worse.
I ask two of the City Guards who have been protecting Jakob in his vulnerable state to take me to his apartment, where I collect his beard trimmer, some clean, comfortable clothes, and a dressing gown. Jakob will want his own things now that he’s getting better.