Her Last Protector

* * *

SUFFOCATING DARKNESS, THE KIND with the blackest shadows, was where fear liked to hide.

The soft voice that sang such sweet songs, the voice that brought love to life during those scary, drowsy moments before sleep, was suddenly ragged and hysterical, almost unrecognizable through the fear.

Even in Mirie’s worst nightmares, all the terrors Stefan and Petre said hid in the shadowy places under her bed had never hinted at this sort of fear that made her want to bury her head beneath the blankets and never come out. Not ever.

This was fear like she had never imagined.

How could she have? Her life was filled with laughter. The soft voice of her mama tinkled with laughter and scattered worries like the courtyard fountain splashed water on the tiles.

She had never, ever heard anyone scream with such fear.

That fear paralyzed Mirie, made her eyes squeeze shut and her hands shake. Choked her. No, that was Nanny, smothering her with knotted old fingers and a bony chest. Nanny’s hissing voice shushed Mirie in the darkness, demanded silence, but Mirie was sure she would never make a sound again, not with Mama’s hysterical pleas in her ears. Desperate, agonized screams.

“Not my babies. Not my babies.”

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

Then silence.

* * *

MIRIE AWOKE. FOR A stunning moment, all she could see was red. Red so violently bright, swelling and dripping, as if the world had erupted in a geyser of blood.

With the breath locked tight in her chest, reality receded, and no matter how hard she tried to grasp it, there was distance between the scene before her eyes and the awareness in her head. She could only feel the rapid-fire thudding of her heart, ready to erupt in another geyser of blood.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

Her heart throbbed so hard it hurt, trapped with the breath in her chest, a weight crushing everything inside her, pressure so great she would die because she couldn’t breathe.

But there was no death here. No!

One word finally penetrated her awareness, and the vision faded, bleaching the memory to dusty shades of gunmetal and smoke. The way she felt inside.

There was no impending eruption, just the pounding of blood in her ears.

And a long-ago nightmare.

Mirie drew a shuddering breath that dispelled the pressure the tiniest bit. She remembered.

Bunică. Men with guns. The dead priest.

And Drei. She felt his strong body tight around her, his arms holding her securely, the cloying warmth of heat and skin.

The pounding of another heartbeat beneath her cheek. Only his heart beat solid and steady, as if wanting to set the example for her own, reminding her not to panic.

But calm seemed beyond grasp, even though she was so much warmer now. There was no gunfire in the crackling quiet. Nothing to fear in Drei’s arms.

His face rested on the top of her head, so heavy her neck arched beneath the weight. Given the pace of his breathing, she thought he might be dozing.

She would do nothing to disturb him or this moment. Not until she had regained control of herself. The nightmares were no stranger. But she had not had one in a long time. She shouldn’t be surprised to have one now, back in this place of so many memories. A place where she had once had a life.

A life Mirie had once dreamed of, simple, intimate, but filled with so much love.

She should feel something for the loss, shouldn’t she?

She was wrapped nearly naked in a man’s arms. Such an occurrence hadn’t happened since her high-school boyfriend. She remembered the strong warmth of a man’s arms, the intimacy of skin against skin.

Shouldn’t she feel something?

Gratitude. Embarrassment. Awkwardness. Something.

Nothing.

A twig snapped, sending sparks raining over the flames, a swelling of light that made the surrounding darkness darker. Two people in a cave buried beneath a mountain of snow. They could be the only two people alive in the world. They could die here and who would find them before they withered to ash and bone?

Thanks to the media, many would notice her passing, but none would really care. Mirie didn’t even know if Drei would be missed. She had seen no evidence of a life in all these years they’d been together. She was his work, and his life it seemed.

Her heartbeat wouldn’t slow down. Her thoughts raced with what-might-have-beens and what-could-never-bes. Mirie had no patience for self-indulgence. Maybe the adrenaline that had fueled the nightmare had sparked this overwhelming loneliness, or maybe it was simply because Drei held her in his arms.

A man and woman mimicking intimacy.

She willed herself to calm down, but couldn’t grasp the edges of this panic. She was a woman who could lie in a man’s arms, surrounded in the warm cocoon of his hard body, smooth and settled with years of muscle, so unlike the boy in her memory. She remembered.

Drei held her like a man comfortable with a woman in his arms. Not too eager. Not overly impressed. Just easy.

But she only felt alone.

She didn’t want to be this woman, to pass from her life as Bunică had, only with many more years ahead, trudging through day after day, enduring, existing, knowing only duty, and obligation, and emptiness, feeling dead inside.

Until death claimed her for real.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

The fire sputtered, and Mirie stiffened at the sound. Drei exhaled heavily, a man who didn’t want to be disturbed, but who was attuned to her slightest motion, even in sleep.

Definitely asleep.

His breath fluttered against her ear, a slight burst of warmth she may not have noticed except for the way it caressed such sensitive skin. A velvet touch that reached down deep inside and drew the faintest reply.

A tingle low in her belly.

An echo of something she had forgotten.

She leaned into Drei, not wanting to disturb him yet desperate to know if the sensation was real or her imagination.

That one tiny feeling accomplished what she hadn’t been able to do on her own. Her breathing finally slowed, her pulse stilled, as if every fiber of her focused.