“Stop it,” she demanded in a whisper. He knew she was speaking to herself. “Stop it, stop it. I don’t cry. I never cry.”
But her protest dissolved into a long, low moan. She collapsed against him, boneless and limp, all defiance gone. Suddenly she was clinging to him as frantically as she had fought him moments before. She hugged his waist, fingers convulsing helplessly against his lower back.
As she wept, sucking air in long, racking sobs, Kieran felt a shifting between them, like the first subtle turning of winter to spring.
It was too tenuous, too new. He didn’t dare hope. And yet he did; he hoped even as he told himself that nothing mattered but her happiness. He had no right to take comfort in her pain, in knowing that very pain made her turn to him at last.
Alexandra snuffled, smearing tears across his shoulder. When she looked up her gaze was stricken and unguarded. Afraid of his condemnation. He barely stopped himself from kissing her trembling eyelids, licking the tears away. He could almost taste her on his tongue.
He curled his finger and brushed his knuckle across her cheek, catching moisture. She closed her eyes. “Please…”
“You believed what Peter and your father told you,” he said, willing her to listen. “But they were wrong.” Gently he turned her in his arms, half carried her to the mirror she had so awkwardly covered. Now he knew why she had done it.
He knocked the jacket aside. “Look, Alexandra.”
“No—”
“Look.”
And she obeyed, shaking, terrified. He held her from behind, cradling her jaw.
“See what you are, Alexandra.”
She looked. He knew the very moment when she finally let herself see. Slowly, so slowly her expression changed from frozen expectation to amazement. She lifted one hand and touched her cheek.
“How long has it been since you looked in a mirror?” he asked.
“I… don’t remember.”
“Now you see. You aren’t what you thought.”
She ran her fingers over the slightly rough, slightly blotched skin of the scar. He saw it now through her eyes, saw how she had magnified it all out of proportion and punished herself with her belief in her own ugliness.
Her belief that no one could love her.
And he felt the release in her, felt the weight of years slip from her shoulders. She leaned back against him with complete trust, knowing he wouldn’t let her fall.
“And… I’m the one you came to for help.” She gave a rusty gurgle. “Me. Falling apart. So weak—”
“Strong,” he corrected her, running his hands up and down her arms. “Stronger than you know.” He looked over her head, at his own human face. “You’ve given me so much, Alexandra. If I’d been able to be with…”
She turned and looked up. And smiled, tremulously with a warmth that made his heart stutter.
“In a way you were. My memories of Shadow kept me going. And even when I… put the dreams away, I still had my research. It gave me a purpose, something to care about. To love.” She tugged gently at his shirt. “I owe that to you.”
He closed his eyes. “You owe me nothing.”
“I made a promise.”
Her promise. Her damnable promise. The ache in his heart expanded to encompass his entire body.
She needed him. She turned to him at last, trusting. Yet still he wanted more, as if he didn’t already have the world in his arms.
“Is that all that keeps you here?” he asked. “Your promise?”
She wedged her hands between them, her palms flat on his chest. Her gaze fled his. “I…”
He let her go and stepped back, but she caught his hand, digging her small, blunt nails into his skin. “Why did you leave that night at the cabin?” she whispered.
Now he was the one bereft of answers, but she wouldn’t release him. “Why did you run when I let you have what you seemed to want?”
Was that how she saw it, a battle to be won or lost? And she’d thought him the victor.
He met her gaze. “Because I wanted you too much.”
“You… wanted me?”