In many ways I was. If not a child, then born anew in a different way. Given a second go at the life I’d chosen to give up.
I might not deserve a second chance, but here I was all the same.
Calliope wasn’t thrilled I was leaving her care so soon. She’d scolded me repeatedly, and asked, “Do you think it’s every day that people come back from the dead?” To which I had to chuckle, since I was pretty sure we’d all had our fill of people coming back to life.
When I’d woken up two days after my death, I thought God had a funny idea of the afterlife. Holden was sitting next to my bed, looking as disheveled and undone as I’d ever seen him. I had a feeling he’d been waiting for me to open my eyes for a very long time.
Then the pain hit me, and I knew there was no way this was Heaven. But if I was in Hell, I doubted I’d wake up looking at a man quite so beautiful.
He didn’t need to breathe, but he let out a sigh of relief anyway. His hands were trembling when he reached out and took mine, and I was struck by how cold his skin felt. Normally vampires didn’t feel cold to me, since my own body temperature often dipped well below normal. But his fingers were like ice.
None of it made sense. My final moments in the museum had left no room for error. Even though I didn’t go into any white tunnel of light or have my life flash before my eyes, I did die. This very man had stabbed me in the heart, and I was gone. I didn’t doubt that for a second.
So how was this happening?
I was seized by a sudden terror and grasped at him, trying to catch my breath so I could ask, “Not you too?”
Holden looked confused, unable to process what my first words to him meant. After a beat his brows lifted and he shook his head, a patient smile crossing his lips. “I’m not any deader than I was the last time you saw me.”
Relief swept over me, but with it more questions. “But…how?”
“I might not be the best person to explain.” He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles gently, then rose from his chair and went to the door. He whispered to someone outside, and no matter how hard I strained to hear, I couldn’t make out what he said. He returned to his chair, and a few moments later Calliope came in.
Like Holden, she looked tired and worn down. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and she wore a simple black dress with no jewelry or embellishments. She might as well have been on her way to a funeral.
Perhaps she thought she was.
“You’re awake.” She moved to the side of the bed opposite Holden and sat on the mattress, pressing her warm hand to my forehead. “How do you feel?”
“Like I died,” I said tersely.
“Probably because you did.”
My hand went to my chest, and in spite of the company around me I yanked at the fabric of my loose-fitting cotton shirt. Between my breasts was a thin line, still flushed an angry red, marking the place the sword had entered right over my heart.
It hadn’t healed, which brought up more questions, but for now I was most concerned with knowing why the hell I hadn’t died.
“I had to die.” I shook my head, trying to get them to understand. Calliope of all people should have known how important it was for me to keep my word to Aubrey. “I promised him. I promised him.”
I must have been panicking because Cal placed her hands gently on my shoulders and pushed me back into the mattress, then smoothed my hair out of my face, shushing me with soft, soothing noises. “Be still.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I do understand. And you met your end of the bargain. You died.”
I somehow didn’t think Aubrey would be willing to accept the asterisks at the end of her statement. You died*
*Temporarily.
For a man who was truly immortal and had lived to see hundreds of generations come and go, I doubted my one-day death would impress him.
“No.” I tried to get up again, though my goal was unclear. I’d already sacrificed myself once. Was I planning to do it all over again? I didn’t have it in me to fall on the sword a second time.
As it turned out, I didn’t even have it in me to get out of bed. My whole body protested the struggle, and Calliope and Holden were easily able to get me back under the covers. I didn’t fight them.
“You need to relax,” Calliope scolded. “It’s over. I’ve dealt with Aubrey.”
“Dealt with?” It sounded ominous.