“What?” I whispered when the last of what he said sunk in. “F-forty minutes?”
That couldn’t be right. It felt like five minutes.
Hluti grunted in answer, walking around us to the other side where Slátra still stood with his arms crossed. Hluti’s heavy footsteps echoed in my head, throwing me off with how it seemed like a dream from the way it sounded. Rune moved his hand, pulling my torn and bloody shirt back down so I wasn’t showing any skin. Especially with the others around.
Rune went back to cradling me, bending his neck so he buried his face into the side of my head. The simple gesture and him needing to brush his lips against my head for a kiss and inhale me into his lungs, no matter how dirty I was, made my stomach do a funny flip. I wound an arm around his neck, holding him against me as I closed my eyes for a brief moment before he leaned back with dark eyes.
“How are you alive,elskan mín?” His voice shook, and his desperation seeped through our link. And through it, I knew he was holding himself back from grabbing my shoulders and shaking me for the answer. But he didn’t want to hurt or scare me because he was scared and needed answers.
My soul hurt for him. It reached out, brushing his like fingers over a pond that rippled out. His responded automatically by brushing me back with the same gentleness. I didn’t know how it was possible. I didn’t know how it was possible for our souls to touch each other. How any of it was possible, but a lot had happened since he came into my life.
He was my soulmate. Of course, our souls could touch.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat, my heart thundering with Rune’s. Breaking the eye contact, I glanced around the room, only spotting Hluti and Slátra but not Hlíf.
Where was my mountain-man friend?
“Isa,”Rune snapped through the link, snapping my attention back to him with a spike of pins and needles through my body.
“I healed myself,” I said in a rush.
“You... healed yourself,” he murmured.
Hope flooded through our bond, and Rune blocked his thoughts.
Why didn’t he want me to hear his thoughts? More secrets?
I lowered my eyes and unwound my arm from him. He caught it before it dropped and brought my arm back around him, holding me in place with gentle pressure.
“I don’t want you to fracture your mind, elskan mín,”Rune whispered through the link, running his hand down my arm and to the back of my head.
With no warning, he pulled me closer to him as he got to his feet. Carrying me, he crossed the room and sat on the couch with me straddling him. He wouldn’t let me get off his lap as he kept his hands on my lower back to keep me still.
I jumped from a loud screech that ended with a deep boom from outside. Rune pulled me close to him, holding me to him while petting the back of my head as I calmed down. I didn’t realize my sawing breaths and thundering heart until he helped me calm them.
“Fireworks,” Rune murmured into my hair, brushing a kiss to my head.
I nodded and took a breath to calm my racing heart. Closing my eyes, I soaked him up, thankful for him being calm. Being my rock to lean on as I tried to ground myself. I was jumpy before, especially when everything started happening. Right after someone broke into my apartment. But now I was off and didn’t feel right.
I tangled my fingers in the soft hair that he had left down with a few braids mixed in. He had the whole Viking look to him now, and I loved that. I loved him. And I had missed him so much while I was on the other side. I didn’t care that I was dead for forty minutes. I never wanted to go through that again, which was stupid because with life there was death. It was inevitable. But I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted Rune right there, as selfish as that was to think.
“You need to know something, and I don’t know the best way to tell you,” Rune whispered, his fingers hooked under my chin to lean me back so our eyes locked. His lips brushed mine. His other hand came up and cupped the back of my head. Even though I couldn’t hear his thoughts, his hesitancy and fear slipped through the link. “It’s about your friend.”
ChapterThree
Istiffened as my stomach dropped while pins and needles swept through me until it became uncomfortable enough that it made me want to puke again.
I’d always hated the effects of anxiety-induced adrenaline and how god-awful it felt. And how the worst-case scenarios popped into my head with it. It also frustrated me when someone saidwe need to talk, knowing how it felt being on the receiving end of those words.
Because of Rune’s four little words, everything in me was prepared for the worst since it involved my friend.
Rune ran his knuckles over my cheek, lending me his strength as he went through the beginnings of my anxiety attack with me. With our link opened, he kept things at bay for me. Or took the brunt of it. I wasn’t sure which.
I swallowed hard, sweeping my eyes over his calm face.
“Where’s Hlíf?” I whispered with my heart in my throat.
Please. I didn’t want my mountain-man friend to lose his life, too.
