Page 129 of A House of Gold
His head snaps up so fast I hear his neck crack. Those gold eyes situate in my face, and for a moment, he just stares. Like he's afraid if he blinks, I'll disappear.
Then he's moving, out of the chair and onto the bed beside me in one fluid motion, his hands framing my face, his forehead pressing against mine.
"You're awake." His voice is hoarse, broken. "Thank the Gods. Thank all the gods. You're awake."
Through the binding, I feel everything he's been holding back, the terror, the helplessness, the desperate prayer that I would open my eyes again. The fear that he'd lost me before he had the chance to...
To what? The emotion is too tangled to parse clearly. But it feels like love.
"How long?" I ask.
"Three days." His hands are shaking. I can feel them trembling against my skin. "Three days since the attack. Since you," His voice breaks. "Since I almost lost you."
Days. I've been unconscious for three days while he sat here and waited?
"The meeting?"
"Postponed. Rescheduled. I don't care." His eyes close. "You almost died, Raven. You tried to absorb a collectorand it nearly erased you from existence. Do you understand that? Not killed you. Erased you. Made it so you never were."
"But you stopped it."
"Barely." His jaw clenches.
I remember that part. The overwhelming hunger, the desperate need to have and hold and possess everything. The way it felt like I was being remade into something that could never be satisfied.
"But it didn't," I say quietly. "I'm still me."
"Are you?" His eyes open, searching my face. "Or are you changed? Marked by my power in ways we don't understand yet?"
I take inventory. My body feels wrong, yes, but in the way that everything feels wrong after trauma. Not fundamentally different. Not corrupted or transformed.
Through the binding, I can feel Croesus more clearly than before, like the channel between us has widened, deepened. But I can also feel where I end and he begins. We're still separate. Still ourselves.
"I'm still me," I repeat. "Just...tired."
Something in his expression cracks. Relief and grief and fear all tangled together. "You scared me," he whispers. "II've seen empires rise and fall. I've watched everything I've ever known turn to dust. And I've never been scared like this. Not once." His forehead presses harder against mine. "Until I felt you dying through the binding and realized I couldn't stop it."
My breath catches. This is as close to an admission as he's ever come. As vulnerable as I've ever seen him.
"I'm okay," I say. "I'm here. I'm alive."
"For now." He pulls back enough to look at me properly. "But they're coming for you, Raven. Whoever sent those collectors, they know where you are. They know what you are. And they will try again."
"So we stop them. We call the meeting like you planned."
"No." The word is sharp, immediate. "The meeting is off. I'm keeping you here. Protected. Hidden. They can't take you if they can't find you."
I stare at him. "You can't keep me locked up forever."
"Watch me." His voice is cold, determined. "I've spent a long long time collecting things, Raven. Keeping them safe. Preserving them. I'm very good at it." His hands slide from my face to my shoulders. "And you're mine. My sin eater. My responsibility. I will not lose you."
Through the binding, I feel his desperation. The way he's clinging to control because the alternative, admitting he can't protect me, that I might die despite everything he does, is unbearable.
"Croesus." I cover his hands with mine. "I'm not a thing you can lock in a vault."
"I know that."
"Do you?" I meet his eyes. "Because right now, it sounds like you want to put me in a box and never let me out."
