Thay’s words jumped from my mouth, and he froze. I sounded just like him.
“Now open your mouth and tell her.”
A stream of nurses came running through the door, one of them holding a syringe of God knows what, and took a step closer.
“This is going to help you relax, Mrs. Gavros. We can’t overwork your heart, okay? I know this is hard, but we need you to calm down.”
The nurse came forward but paused when Nathem flung his body over mine in a careful shield. He didn’t speak, but the look he gave the doctor told her to back the fuck off.
“I want him back!” I pounded weakly on Nathem’s chest. “You hear me? He is not dead. He is not. Get him! Go get him and Wolfe!”
Nathem reached over and turned the heart monitor volume all the way up until the static drowned out my voice.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
Flutter.
Beat.
How many times had he watched Thay crawl onto my body and hold himself there until he could breathe again?
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
Flutter.
Beat.
Oh, God. It was his. The flutters. The rhythm. The subtle way it drummed, all hard and perfect. It was his heart. His fucking heart was in my chest.
I fell into Nathem’s arms with a scream, holding onto him for dear life.
“No!” I cried out, the sound of Thay’s heart flooding my ears. “I want him back.”
Nathem’s hands fell into my hair while he held me against him, doing whatever he could to keep me from unraveling.
“Please?” I begged while everything slumped inside me, deadening into a hollow nothing that wrapped around my throat like a noose.
Nathem reached for something on the chair, but I didn’t bother to look. The only thing that made sense was to close my eyes and let them stay there. To cry until my body simply drifted away.
“Give us a minute,” an Irish, AI-sounding voice spilled into the room, and had I not been dying inside, I would have laughed at how similar it was to the real one trapped inside his throat.
“Okay, but if her pulse rises any higher, we will administer the medicine.” The doctor rose to her feet, ushering her team out the door.
“How could you let them do this to me?” I asked into his chest, needing someone to blame, someone to hate.
“It was done before I was conscious,” he typed the words. “But I wouldn’t have stopped them.”
Nathem’s hands continued to move through my hair and down my back, in steady, grounding circles that made me gag. BecauseI didn’t want him. I wanted Thay. I wanted Wolfe. I wanted… all of them.
“Why would he do this to me?”