But she was here. Warm, alive against my chest, breath hitching and uneven as she tried to steady herself. Her heartbeat racing against my chest.
I stared ahead at the dark corridor stretching out before us, arm still around her.
Outside, everything had ended, and inside, all I could do was hold on to what was left.
Eleven
Sloane
Iwoke with a start.
For a second, I didn’t recognize my surroundings.
My back throbbed—a deep cramp running from my shoulders all the way down into my hips. My neck seized the moment I tried to move, stiff and burning. My head pounded faintly, the ache that comes from hours spent in the same position.
I blinked. Stared at the dim ceiling above me.
The faint blue glow of the aquarium lights shifted across the walls, slow and rippling.
That’s when it hit me.
Not my bed. Not home.
The aquarium.
The woman.
Theblood.
Peter.
My breath caught.
I shifted suddenly, panic jolting through me—only to land against something solid and warm.
Callan groaned.
The sound low and rough, and I realized where my face had been resting, on his chest.
I froze.
Wrapped in his arms.
During the night, I’d curled into him completely—my body tucked against his, my head on his chest, one arm heavy around my back as if he’d pulled me in without thinking. He sat pressed flat against the heavy door leading to the main aquarium floor, head tilted to one side, chin resting at an angle near the top of my head that surely wasn’t comfortable for over five minutes, let alone the whole night.
He’d fallen asleep too.
My stomach turned over.
“Fuck,” he muttered, voice thick with sleep and pain. “I’m gonna pay for sleeping like that.”
I scrambled off him. Heat flooded my face despite everything; that gurgled embarrassment should have been the last thing I should be able to summon right now.
“Sorry,” I said, voice hoarse from crying and sleep.
The moment I moved, he sucked in a sharp breath.
“Jesus—” he hissed, hand flying to his neck. “Fuck.”