Slowly, he straightens his spine and turns to face his body toward me. I hold my breath, waiting for an answer, unsure if I am going to like what he has to say.
“He lives, Sybilla,” he rasps. “I know not how her dark magic touched him. If she was able to strip his love for you, or if she wiped his memories from him. I just do not know what exactly she’s done to him,” he rasps.
I hear both Jasmine and Katrina gasp at his words. We may not have much magic in my world, but I understand the concept of dark magic, and just thinking about it sends a shiver throughout my entire body.
“I want everyone to leave,” I whisper.
I feel Jasmine and Katrina close in on my back, but my focus is nowhere but on my husband. If he doesn’t remember me, if he’s lost his love for me, then I don’t want any witnesses to it when he wakes up.
There has been enough fear, embarrassment, and unnerving information hurled at me the past few months. This humiliation I would rather have all to myself, instead of an entire room of people watching as bystanders.
“Sybilla,” Merek begins.
Shaking my head, I square my shoulders as I lift my chin. I refuse to entertain anything other than them leaving me alone. Merek clears his throat, then slowly his feet close the distance between us.
“I will give you this request without argument. However, if there is even an inkling of change in his condition, promise you will send for me?”
Sinking my teeth into my bottom lip, I dip my chin in a short nod. “Yes, I will,” I whisper.
He dips his chin, then without word, walks past me. I hear him and the girls clear out, the door closing behind them. Only then do I let my shoulders drop as I let out a heavy sigh.
My feet finally become unstuck from the stone floor and I run toward my husband’s side. Sinking down next to him, I fit my hips against his side and take his large warm hand in mine. I watch him, waiting for any sign of life other than the very slow rise and fall of his chest.
Elias looks so at peace, he looks relaxed as he lies in the bed. Holding his hand in mine, I refuse to let him go, afraid that if I do, I will lose a part of him, the part that I cherish most in this world and in mine—his love.
Love. It’s something that you can’t see but only feel. It may have taken me some time to admit not only to Elias, but also to myself that I truly do love him. I’ve never felt this way about another person in my life.
I suppose that it could be witchcraft, especially with the way Godiva bound my true heart’s love and I to one another, but I don’t think that what I feel is false. It’s not a smokescreen or anything else. It is pure. It is bigger than anything I’ve ever felt before. No other man has ever made me feel the way that Elias does.
Squeezing his hand, I silently will him to open his eyes and look at me. I want him to smirk, to act cocky and sexy. I want him to pull me into his arms and fulfill the need that I constantly carry for him, and only him.
The need that fills me with an aching pain that I keep trying to ignore, but as the minutes tick by, that pain grows more and more.
“Please, Elias. Please wake up,” I whisper. “We need you, me and this baby. Don’t make me raise our baby alone in a strange land without modern medicine and my family. Don’t do that to me.”
Tears fill my eyes, they fall instantly, sliding down my cheeks before they land against his hand that I have clutched in mine. I stay there, at his side, holding his hand, and crying for hours.
The sun sets in the sky, darkness consumes the room, but I refuse to move. I also ignore anyone’s attempt at gaining access and demand that they leave me alone.
When the sun rises, the room bathed in early gray morning light, I hear something behind me. The door didn’t open, I would have heard that, but when I turn around, I see two figures standing in the bedroom, their eyes focused nowhere but Elias.
“He is here because of you. Why are you here?” I