She lashed out against the hand holding her by the neck firmly, her nails clawing at whatever they could find, trying to escape from everything, deep, deep into herself.
Her attacking wrists were swiftly gathered in one hand behind her back, the one on her neck giving her head a shake.
“Look at me.”
Three words penetrated her haze.
That commanding timbre.
That razor tone.
Whiskey.
Sin.
Morana knew that voice. She knew the baritone of it, reacted to the ice of it. She latched on to that voice, gulping down the smoky whiskey of it, letting it trickle down her throat and into her body, warming her from the inside as tremors shook her frame.
The blackness around her vision receded a bit, the ugly emotion holding her captive releasing its reins.
“Breathe.”
She blinked, trying to clear the black away.
Once.
Twice.
The blackness withdrew, leaving behind…
Blue.
Clear blue.
Magnificent blue.
She tethered herself to it - to the brilliant blue that looked like burning sapphire, to the dark pupils enlarged in those pools of blue, to the intensity of them focused on her.
She tethered herself to them, not daring to blink lest she drowned again, not daring to look elsewhere lest that anchor was gone.
God, she was cold.
She felt so cold. Down to her fingertips, down to her toes. She felt chills race over her spine yet, try as she mig
ht, the ice refused to leave.
The pressure on her chest intensified.
“Breathe.”
She felt something strong, something hard, something warm pressed against her chest, moving in a rhythm that was dislodging the rock weighing her own chest down. Morana latched on to it, let herself focus on the rhythm as she felt it right against her chest, and tried to copy it.
The thing pressed against her chest contracted.
Morana contracted hers in sync.
In.
That first rush of air into her lungs nearly knocked her out.