Devastate (Deliver 4)

She’d been so certain. So damn amped up with hope.

The thud of her heart drummed in her ears, growing stronger, louder in the silence.

A silent, unified heartbeat in the midst of devastation.

A tear trickled from her eye. Then more fell, tracing sluggish, crooked lines down her cheeks and clinging to her throat.

Goddammit, Tate. Where are you?

She wiped her face and lowered her chin. Then she saw it.

An arched corridor led to the rear of the monastery and opened to a barren landscape of shrubs and sand.

Standing at this angle, she could peer through the arches and see something in the distance. A small structure. Maybe fifty yards away.

“Cole.” Her whisper echoed like a roar through the cavernous space.

“I see it.” He stepped to her side and gripped her shoulder. “I’m right behind you.”

She took off, sprinting over gravel and fallen rock in the passageway. The sun blinded her as she burst outside and raced across the field of sand and stone. Her legs burned. Her lungs heaved, and her muscles worked overtime to cover the distance.

As she grew closer she could make out a shed. A tiny, single-room shack made of rustic wood, with a steel bar across the door.

He’s in there. He has to be.

But for how long? They were in the middle of nowhere. How did he eat? Who took care of him? What if he was left there to die?

Her pulse went crazy, and by the time she reached the door, her entire body was shaking uncontrollably.

Cole skidded to a stop beside her and helped her lift the steel bar from the supports.

As she moved to push open the door, he clamped his fingers around her arm, halting her. Then he cast her a look that said, Brace yourself. You don’t know what you’ll find in there.

A vicious battle erupted inside her, a tug-of-war that seesawed between terror and exaltation, ramming against her breastbone like an earth-shattering hurricane. This was it, the moment that could salvage her life or utterly destroy it.

She pulled her arm from his grip, drew in a ragged breath, and opened the door.

The next breath came in a gasp as her heart dropped out of her chest and tumbled across the dirt floor.

Tate stood near the back wall, with a dirty, paper-thin blanket tied around his waist. The rest of him was nude, his skin pale, his entire physique emaciated. A full beard covered his face, and his hair hung in clumped strands around his crystal blue eyes.

“Tate.” The violence of her emotions and the overwhelming happiness spiking through her staggered her forward steps.

He jerked back, bumping into the wall. “You’re not real.”

“I am.” She covered her mouth with a hand to stifle her sob. “This is real.”

Behind her, Cole spoke quietly into his phone, probably arranging transportation with Matias.

Trusting him to watch the door, she inched closer to Tate. He went rigid, lifting his chin at an angle and glaring at her with a menacing look in his eyes.

A metal cuff encircled his ankle, the skin beneath it torn and red. A chain connected the cuff to a spike. The hard, moistureless dirt floor had been dug away from it, revealing a block of concrete underneath.

He’d tried to escape at some point, and though he looked stunned and distrusting, he was still in there somewhere. She just needed to be patient.

“You’re an angel,” he rasped, his voice dry as dust. “Not real.”

“Do angels have scars?”

His brows pulled together, and he shook his head.

With a trembling hand, she lifted the hem of her shirt to expose her abdomen.

“I doubt I’ll be chosen for heaven, but if I am…” She traced a finger along the marred flesh from her breastbone to her hip. “I don’t intend to take this with me.”

He stared at her scar. The longer he stared, the faster his breaths came, until his chest heaved with whatever was building inside him.

She held impossibly still, waiting for him to make the first move, to say the word, to give her an indication that this moment was sinking in.

When he finally lifted his eyes and found hers, she saw him. He was right there, clear and bright and alive.

“Lucia.” He swallowed and took a step forward.

The chain clanked against the ground, but he wouldn’t need the length of it, because she was running, reaching. Her fingers tangled in his long hair, and she lifted on tiptoes to press her nose against the pocket of his throat.

He wrapped his arms around her back and held her tight against his chest. He felt different, so much thinner, but the embrace was the same—protective, strong, possessive.

“God, I missed you.” She couldn’t stop the tears from coming, couldn’t hold back the whimpers or the clench of her fingers in his hair.

“The memory of you was the only thing that kept me alive.” His deep voice whispered over her, threading with unimaginable pain. “How long has it been?”

“Three months.” Cole crouched beside them and dug through his backpack. “It’ll take me a second to pick the lock on your shackle. Are you expecting visitors?”

“Two guards bring food at nightfall.” Tate dragged his nose through her hair. “How are you alive?”

“Long story.” She stepped back and glided her hands up his arms. “Let’s get you out of here first.”

Her fingers bumped a patch of strangely rough skin on his bicep, drawing her attention to it.

What the—?

She’d been so focused on the drastic changes in his appearance—his beard, loss of weight, the healing skin on his injured arm—she didn’t notice until now that his tattoo had grown, stretching above his elbow and covering part of his shoulder.

The inked roses he had before blurred into something new. A portrait of a wom

an with straight black hair, holding her finger against the profile of her lips.

Her breath caught. “Is that—?”

“You.” He glanced at it and returned to her eyes with a flicker of light in the brilliant blue of his. “Badell gave me a last request. Since I couldn’t have you, this was the next best thing.”

He asked for a tattoo of my face on his arm?

Tingling warmth seeped through her limbs, sparking a sudden release of all tension. Her chest expanded. Her heart overflowed, and every whirling, erratic, out-of-control piece of her life snapped into place.

“Got it.” Cole stood and tossed the chain away. “I’ll run and get the jeep.”

“I can walk.” Tate twined his fingers with hers and strode to the door.

“It’s rocky—” She was jerked forward by his grip on her hand and stumbled to keep up.

He crossed the hot, rugged terrain on bare feet with his free hand shielding his eyes. He didn’t wince or slow, his gait matching Cole’s in strong, efficient strides. The only thing he wore was a small blanket, and as her slower pace put her behind him, his back moved into her line of sight.

The image was just like she remembered, only cleaner, free of infection, and healed. The raised skin from each cut formed an artistic illustration of pillars along his sides, a double gate hanging between them, and a silhouette of a woman levitating in the opening with the arc of the sun behind her head.

It was terrible and beautiful, summoning extreme reactions from horrific agony to profound wonder.

“You’re staring at it.” He glanced at her over his shoulder.

“Have you seen it?”

“No.” His tone held deep anger, and he tugged her forward.

Cole explained the history of the monastery as they passed the stone structures, including the tragic love story that had compelled her to come here.

She and Tate didn’t speak, but they watched each other, their eyes sharing three months of loss, one night of lasting torture, and a future that didn’t need to be defined. Wherever they went from here, they would go there together.

When they reached the gate, he stopped abruptly and released her hand.