Page 92 of The Steel Rogue

“More?”

He nodded.

Heaven. The tiniest bit of water and he felt like he could function again. Focus on Torrie above him.

She pulled the glass away from his lips and set it on the table, her eyes never veering from him. Leaning over his face again, her look centered desperately on him. “Tell me you’re here. Tell me you see me.”

His hand lifted from the bed through no small effort and he set it along her neck, resting the weight of it on her shoulder. “I’ve always seen you, Tor. Always.”

She heaved a choked sob, falling forward onto him, her face buried into his bare chest. Her shoulders shook, sob after sob racking her body. Her tears soaking his skin.

His hand that had been on her shoulder slid onto her back, his palm flattening across her spine, making sure she was moving and well. Not injured. Not burned.

It took minutes before she lifted her head to him, and with it, anger like he’d never seen in her green eyes skewered him.

“Logan said you stopped breathing.” Her hand slammed into the pillow next to his head with the shriek. “How could you do that to me—stop breathing? How could you leave me like that? You were dead. Dead.”

For the slightest second he was afraid of her, truly afraid, but then he realized she was in a rage over him. Because he had thought to leave this earth for a moment.

He smiled, or what he hoped was a smile—he wasn’t sure his body was listening to the directions in his mind just yet. “A minor inconvenience.”

“Inconvenience?” Her voice went shrill, her fist pounding into the pillow again. “Dying is an inconvenience? Do you ken how long you’ve been delirious? Teetering on the line of death?”

He shook his head.

“Five weeks. Five bloody weeks, Roe, you’ve put me through this torture.”

He tried the smile again. “What—what happened?”

“Logan and Reiner fished you out of the harbor. You went deep—so very deep.”

“How did I sink?”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “You don’t remember the fire?”

His eyes closed, the word fire conjuring up the image of Torrie looking at him, petrified and not moving, flames behind her, licking at her, hungry to consume her. It had been all around them.

Not a dream. Reality.

He exhaled a sigh. “The fire. Bockton. The window.” His eyes opened to her. “But I’m alive? This isn’t heaven?”

“This would be hell.”

His hand that had fallen to rest on her lap twitched and he grabbed the top of her thigh. “Heaven for me. You’re here.”

Her lips drew into a tight line, but her green eyes softened ever so subtly. “You’re just lucky you drew that breath on the dock. You died, but then you kept breathing. Logan and Reiner got the water out of your lungs.”

His eyebrows drew together. “Were you injured? Tell me the fire did not get you.”

She shook her head, her right hand going to his bare arm. Her touch cool, as always, against the fire of his skin. “A few minor burns from embers, that is all. You wrapped me so completely, I wasn’t injured by the fire or the glass or hitting the water.”

He nodded to himself, his mouth in a grim line. Of everything he’d done wrong in his life, he’d done one thing right.

But wait—she wasn’t supposed to even be there. She was supposed to be safely ensconced in Culland Hall.

“What in the hell were you doing there, Tor?” He started to push himself upright. “Dammit, I need to kill my brother—what was he thinking?”

She shoved him back down onto the bed. “You’re not going to kill anyone. He took every care possible to keep me safe—I was the one that ran from the safety of the ship when I saw you being dragged into the warehouse.”