Page 116 of Bent Out of Shade
The bed was empty.
I ran to the window in time to see the gargoyle leap onto the high back wall. “Giulia!”
“Non preoccuparti, Miriam. He shifted.” She waved a paw and leapt into the night.
I flopped onto the bed, clutching the pillow to my chest. Laurent was going to be all right. I texted everyone with the good news, adding for Tatiana and Juliette that he’d gone for a run so not to bother coming over. I’d have him call tomorrow when he was rested.
Boo joined me from wherever she’d been all this time, crawling onto my chest and purring. Between her comfort and my relief, I relaxed, my lids falling shut.
“Mitzi?” Laurent’s hoarse voice sounded like I’d dreamed it up, like he couldn’t possibly be calling me by that nickname with that amount of tenderness, not after everything he’d been through.
But it was him, and he was real and whole and okay, kneeling on his bed, alive and awake.
He looked like a college kid who’d come home to stay with his family after a long semester and had just woken up after sleeping fourteen hours: dazed, a little disoriented, but refreshed. Brighter than he had been.
Without thinking, I launched myself into his arms, colliding with his chest and the mattress. I didn’t miss his abrupt flinch.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?” I pulled away.
“No,” he said, raking his damp hair with one hand, eyes wary.
Confused, I sat up. “What’s wrong? Is it Vincenzo?”
He turned away, grabbed a T-shirt from a drawer, and tugged it down over his shorts, his back to me. “You should go home and sleep.”
Guess again. You’d fought this much, Huff ’n’ Puff, now it was time for one last battle.
