Zane (Inked Brotherhood 3)

Tears burn behind my brow. After all this time, just retelling the story makes me want to cry. “No, I wasn’t. I had swelling in my brain, and I hurt two vertebrae in my back. My right arm was broken in three places. They operated and took out the disc shards, drained fluid from my head, repaired my arm. But they couldn’t wake me from the coma.”

“Coma.” Zane’s voice is strangled. The color drains from his face. “You went into a coma?”

I take strength from his hand on my jaw, its warmth and its solid weight. “For five weeks. I had a feeding tube stuck into my stomach. Here.” I reach down, touch the spot over the cloth, where I know a small scar remains.

“Five weeks. Holy shit.” He worries the barbell in his tongue, sucking on it. “And then you woke up, like me.”

“Not like you.” This is the hardest part. “When I finally woke up, I was told I was paralyzed. Two of my vertebrae were damaged. I couldn’t feel much from the waist down, but I felt my toes, and I insisted I’d be able to walk again. They didn’t believe me. But I proved them wrong. I threw myself into physiotherapy and exercise. Worked my body to exhaustion every day, so that I slept fourteen hours every night. It took me a year to walk again properly.” I chew on my lip. “My left side is still weaker. But I can walk, and dance, and run. I’m a survivor. Told you.”

I wait for Zane to say something. But he’s silent, his eyes hooded. Maybe he’s processing what I said. Besides, I’ve gone through the story as fast as humanly possible, not wanting to linger on what was one of the worst times of my life.

His hand on my jaw shifts, sliding down my neck, over my arm, to my side. At the same time, his other hand is slipping under my back, gathering me to his chest. Before I know it, I’m rolled on my side and enfolded in Zane’s embrace, my head tucked under his chin, my chest resting against his heart.

It’s racing a hundred miles an hour, and his arms tighten around me until I can’t breathe.

“Zane…” I choke. “Zane.”

His hold relaxes marginally. His body is so tense it’s trembling. Muscles shift on his chest as he twists until he lies on his back. He pulls me up, so that I’m sprawled half across him.

“Better?” he asks, and I nod. I lie still, listening to his heart thump, noting when it starts to slow.

“I’m okay now,” I say, because I have a hunch he needs to hear it. “It’s been three years since the accident. I’m fine.”

“Did he call the ambulance? Did he take you to the ER?”

“Coll

in? No. He left the party.”

His hold tightens again briefly. “I’ll kill that motherfucker.”

My chest clenches painfully. “He’s already dead.”

Zane’s heartbeat picks up again, drumming under my ear. “How did that happen?”

“He crashed with his bike while I was lying in a coma. He was…” I close my eyes. “He was thrown off and broke his neck on landing. Died on the spot.”

Silence stretches, marked by the beating of Zane’s heart and my own painful breaths.

“I’m not sorry,” he finally whispers. “He deserved worse.”

Maybe. What it means is that I can’t hate him. Not for being a coward. Not for freaking out and running when I was brought out of the water, unconscious. I don’t hate him, but I can live with his death.

“I won’t let you fall again,” Zane says quietly, his voice rumbling in his chest.

He’ll fight the monsters. He’ll wrap his magical dragons around me to keep me safe. “I know you won’t.”

“I’ll give you wings.” He strokes my back, along the bumps of my spine, and I wonder if he feels the surgical scar under the colors of my tattoo from fixing my broken discs. “I’ll help you fly.”

“And you’ll fly with me,” I whisper, warm and content and comfortable on his chest.

“Maybe.” There’s an odd note in his voice, a catch. Somehow I don’t think he’s talking about flying anymore. I look up into his beautiful eyes, and I see the ghost of a doubt.

“No,” I say and reach up to touch his face. “No maybes. I’m with you. This is for sure.”

And that’s a promise I’ll work on making him believe every day of my life.

A month later