Page 73 of His Retribution

Her pulse is faint and she's not responding.

So I reach for my phone and blow Henrich’s up until he answers and agrees to rush over.

* * *

An hour later I'm a complete wreck.

Henrich can't find one goddamn thing wrong with my light and even after I told him what happened, he's fucking stumped.

"And she said that she remembered everything? Spoke of your life together?"

I fist my hair as I pace. "Yes! We were in the middle of a fucking story before she passed out. She remembered when I gave her my watch, remembered when it happened, why. All of it was so much like it had been."

Henrich checks her pulse again and nods. "Did she indicate she remembered anything else?"

"Nothing directly. Just little things about what I am, general comments about our relationship."

He shakes his head as he straps on a blood pressure cuff. "What about her other lives?"

I stop pacing, frown, "What about her other lives?"

"Her vitals are stabilizing.” Henrich sighs and wraps his stethoscope around his neck. "Did she indicate that she remembers anything from the lives between the one you shared and now? As good as it is that she finally remembers what you shared, I fear that perhaps she will remember everything from over the last few centuries and with that could come a great many complications. The conflicting timelines, various memories, they may be too much for her fractured mind to process."

"Fractured mind?" I growl. "Are you suggesting my mate is cracked, damaged in some way?"

"I am not saying she's crazy, Havok, but ten lifetimes spanning decades, potentially continents and various periods of war or states of turmoil could be damaging.” He gets to his feet and moves to his medical bag. "Not to mention, if she does in fact remember each one of her deaths as they were, and no longer as dreams, then there is a possibility her brain has gone into a form of self preservation."

"Which would mean what, exactly?"

Another sigh. "I do not know for sure. This is different from anything we've dealt with before, different from Posey's glamoured state. There is nothing in the chronicles pertaining to something like this, not like the Prophecy of the Phoenix Dragon. This is altogether unique and completely uncharted territory for all of us."

My pulse immediately spikes, flirts with cardiac arrest though it is an impossible thing for me.

If I lose my light, my Cora once again, lose her after I finally found her, I’m afraid I will become completely unhinged. I cannot allow that, will not allow her to slip away from me, not when I am here with her and finally able to protect her the way I should have all those years ago.

"You have theories?" I ask, hopefully, but angrily. Fearfully.

Henrich nods. "I do. Best case scenario? After she recalled your life together she began to recall the rest, her mind went into overdrive and shut down momentarily in order to make sense of it."

I swallow hard. "And worst case?"

"Her mind could not handle the flood of memories and short circuited. Fried, so to speak, and she may not wake up. Or if she does, she will no longer remember anything, anyone, from any of her lives."

"You should be so lucky."

We both spin toward the bed where my love is pushing herself into a seated position, wincing with each movement, squinting from the light.

"My angel,” I whisper seconds before I rush her. I jump over the couch, trip over my trunk and face plant onto the mattress, but it doesn't stop me. No, I just use the momentum to crawl toward her, crawl over her and basically sit in her lap like a damn dog.

Cora giggles as I straddle her legs. "Hi, lovey."

“Hi." My voice shakes, as do my hands as I reach out, cup her cheeks, and look into those neon blue pools. "Are you alright?"

"I need to stop giving you reasons to ask me that."

I snort, tilt her head to look for injury. "I will never cease to have concern for you. Never. Not as long as you are mine."

Her eyes fill with warmth, with so much fucking love that my dead heart melts into a goddamn puddle.