And then he recalled that moment in her bedroom when she’d looked into his eyes and he’d felt a strange draining feeling, as if she had been reading his mind. The horror that had come into her face had sure as hell made it seem like she knew all the details of his past, everything from his time in that lab, and all the pain and the fear he’d suffered as he’d been experimented on by those humans, to the death of his mahmen there and his impossible rescue.
“I was at the door unto the Fade,” he heard himself say. “And I didn’t just stand in front of it, I opened it and I stepped through. I was on the other side…”
Hazy memories, of a white landscape and then something so beautiful he didn’t have the words to describe it, flooded his mind, blinding him to the hospital room, even to her. But he came back from the vision of eternal glory.
Just as he had come back from what had been his death.
“I was dead.” He focused on her. “And you did something to me, didn’t you.”
The female he had been thinking about nonstop—ever since he’d seen her at the meteor strike—whose presence he’d sought out and tried to be cool about at Luchas House, whose face he had fantasized being close to his own as they’d shared a first kiss… was suddenly a stranger.
“Who are you.”
As she lowered her head, her white hair fell forward, her features obscured by the waves. When she finally spoke, it was with sadness.
“You shall ne’er worry for death’s cold hand coming to land upon your shoulder. You are free of the mortal burden of the grave. You are… immortal, Nate.”
The impact of the words was delayed, his brain reexamining the syllables like they were an archaeology site, sure that on the first pass he’d misinterpreted a few. Most.
Try all.
“I’m not hearing you right,” he said numbly.
“You are released from death’s leash, ne’er shall it come to claim you.”
“How…” He rubbed his face. “I don’t understand.”
“I could not let you die.” The dewy, salty scent of tears wafted up and she brushed her eyes with hands that trembled. “Your parents were weeping over your body, the Brothers were outside your door… and it was my fault. I was the reason you were hit—”
Nate recoiled. “How was it your fault?”
“I halted by the human and thus so did you. Or mayhap I set it all in motion even before that.” She sniffled. “If I had been able to withstand more of the chaotic interior of the club Dandelion, we would not have departed then. You would not have been shot. You would not… have died.”
“None of that makes it your fault.”
Rahvyn tucked her hair behind her ears and her eyes were luminous as they looked at him. “Nate, I am sorry. I have given you no gift. It is a complication with heartbreaking implications.”
Like someone who was lost in an unfamiliar territory, one that might or might not be threatening, his senses came alive and he glanced around the room on reflex. Oh, they’d had this conversation in front of an audience: His parents and Sahvage were in the room with them. And unsurprisingly, the adults all looked grave and serious. Then again, this was pretty unparalleled.
If what she said was true, no matter how unbelievable it sounded, then he had been reborn in a way that went against the natural order of things.
And she was something altogether different than just a civilian female of unknown origins who was related to a member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
She was powerful in a way that dwarfed even the Great Blind King.
She was powerful like the Scribe Virgin.
“And now I’m here,” he murmured absently.
“I could not let you go.” Her voice cracked. “I could not… bear to lose you, Nate.”
The white noise in his head instantly calmed down, the fire of his spinning, vaguely panicking thoughts doused.
Of all the things she’d said to him, the simple words struck the biggest chord.
Which, considering a female he was in love with had told him she’d turned him into an immortal, was really saying something about the way males work.
The idea Rahvyn might feel something in return for him was… like being immortal. Nothing could touch him.
“But I don’t understand who you are,” he said softly.
“I am what I am.”
“Popeye.”
“Pardon me, I know not pop-eyed?”
“It was a cartoon character. When I was in the lab, sometimes they let me have a TV and I watched both the animated show and the movie. ‘I yam what I yam.’？”