Chapter 22

I dabbed at my eyes and reached for the door knob, barely able to control my excitement. I couldn’t wait to see Nate again. Between my revelations, his kidnapping and then me going missing, the last few days had to have been pretty awful for him. I had miraculously been given a second chance and I was going to use that to make things right with him. Starting now.

I tried the door but it was locked of course and my keys were probably at the bottom of the ocean. So much for a grand entrance. Wearing a sheepish smile, I rang the doorbell.

It took a minute for Nate to reach the door. I heard the deadbolt move and my stomach fluttered nervously as the door opened.

“You’re early. I wasn’t expecting you until –”

Nate’s mouth fell open and his hand flew to his chest as he stared up at me like I was an apparition. It occurred to me that dressed as I was, barefoot in this flimsy dress, I probably looked like one.

“Sara?” he whispered hoarsely.

The words I had planned to say could not get past the lump in my throat and I threw myself at him, almost knocking him out of his chair. His body was stiff and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was shocked to see me or because I was actually hugging him. But then his arms went around me and he held me so tightly I thought my ribs would crack.

After the longest hug of my life, he held me away from him so he could look at me and I saw that his face was haggard. Wonder shone in his eyes. “Jesus – it’s really you!”

I nodded and gave him a teary smile.

His hands dropped to his lap. “I-I can’t believe it.”

“Nate, I’m so sorry,” I blurted before he could say anything else. “For the lies and keeping everything from you – and for what happened to you.” I knelt in front of his chair and searched his face for some sign he might be willing to forgive me. “I know I screwed up but I promise no more secrets. And I have so much to tell you.”

“Sara, where the hell have you been?” he demanded and the anguish in his voice spoke of the hell I’d put him through.

God, how did I tell him exactly where I’d been? I tried to start slowly. “I was hurt and someone took me home with them to help me get better. I know you’ve probably been worried sick the last few days and I swear I would have let you know where I was, but I was pretty out of it.”

“The last few days?” Nate echoed incredulously. “You’ve been gone three damn weeks.”

“What?” I said dumbly.

“We thought you were dead. They searched the water for days and they couldn’t find your…” His voice broke and I saw the pain and grief he had suffered. “We–we had a memorial service last week.”

It was a good thing I was already on my knees because my legs wouldn’t have been able to support me at that moment. Three weeks – how was that possible? Was I unconscious that whole time or was it true that time moved differently in Faerie?

And all that time Nate thought I was dead.

“Oh God, Nate, I didn’t know, I swear.” My eyes pleaded with him to believe me. “I’ve made a horrible mess of everything, but I would never hurt you that way.”

He closed his eyes and let out a long shaky breath. “I’m afraid that I’ll open my eyes and find out you’re not really here.”

I took both his hands in mine. “I’m here, Nate.”

His eyes brimmed with tears when he opened them again. “Jesus, I need a drink. And then you are going to tell me everything.”

I got up to shut the door and followed him into the kitchen. It was strange how everything seemed so familiar yet so different at the same time. The kitchen looked exactly as it had the last time I stood in it. I glanced at the phone and remembered pleading with Haism to not hurt Nate. So much had happened since that call but it was not our home that had changed, it was me. I was not the same person who walked out of here that day. That girl had spent her life afraid and haunted by her past, unable to move past it and pushing everyone away, afraid of being hurt again. The girl who had returned in her place was no longer chained to the pain in her past. She was uncertain about her future but she was also braver, stronger and she would never let anything come between her and those she loved again.

Nate reached into a bottom cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Johnnie Walker. He laid the bottle in his lap then grabbed two small glasses from the rack on the counter and rolled to the table. “Sit,” he ordered, pouring scotch into both glasses.

I took the chair across from him and he slid one of the glasses toward me. “You’re giving me a drink?”

He shrugged and took a long drink from his glass then refilled it. I’d never seen him consume more than one drink at a time.

Never one to drink much myself, I picked up my glass and took a cautious sip. I sputtered as the liquor burned my tongue and seared a trail down my throat. It hit my stomach and a warm, pleasant feeling spread through me. I took another sip for courage then laid the glass on the table.

“How much do you know about what happened that day?”

Nate set his own glass down and I saw the bleakness on his face again as he remembered. “I know that man, Haism, took you down to the cliffs to turn you over to the vampires and they killed him. Then your Mohiri friends and the werewolves showed up and there was a fight. They told me you killed a vampire. Then one of the other vampires threw a knife at you and you fell off the cliff. Nikolas went into the water after you but you were nowhere to be found.”