Chapter 54
“How long have you been here?”
“Since the night you left. A month ago.” The pain beneath his words is unmistakable.
“A month? I’ve been gone a month?”
It’s all a blur of mountains and forests, lakes and meadows, blood and more blood.
He purses his lips, but does not answer. His face, his green eyes, fade away as the wilderness sings in my soul, calling me, seducing me with its untamed melody.
He touches my cheek, bringing me back to him.
“You waited here,” I whisper. “All that time. For me.”
“Yes. I could do… nothing else.” Again I hear the pain, accompanied by loneliness, and wonder how he survived.
Because the only way I did was to give myself to the blood and to the wild.
Once more it calls, and I shut my eyes and remember the colors and smells that caressed my senses, and the wind that softly brushed my skin. Life is so simple out there. Hunt and run and swim and sleep. No complicated emotions to manage, no one to argue with, or be disappointed in, or be embraced by, or be loved by.
My eyes grow damp as tears begin to well up beneath their closed lids.
“Sunny.” His voice is calm and soothing. Feather-light fingers again touch my face.
Startled, my eyes fly open. Yes, he is still here. This is not a dream.
But my body needs to move, to stretch, to run. It’s not used to being so still for so long. Slipping out of the bed, I back across the room, watching him. He gets up as well, and part of me starts to panic. I turn to the closet, take out a pair of jeans and a sweater, and slip them on.
“I need to go,” I whisper to the floor on my way out.
“Will you come back?” he asks, his voice strained.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I take a long, slow breath. “Yes. I just need… a little more time.”
The back door is before me. As I open it, I hear him behind me.
“I’ll be here,” he says.
I step outside and breathe in deeply, inhaling the pine and other scents that make up the forest, and take off up the mountain at a dead run.
