Chapter Thirty-Three

Safiya

A warm hand coasted over my forehead before fingers slipped through my hair.

My heart swooped, and my body swayed.

"Wake up, Safiya."

His voice filled my head, and my lungs filled with air.

Grayson.

"Open your eyes," he quietly commanded.

I blinked.

Stern, almost colorless, his blue-eyed gaze stared down at me, and all at once, it came rushing back.

The plane.

The alarms.

The crash.

Panic rushed in, and I tried to sit up.

His large hand immediately landed on my chest, his palm barely above my breasts as he gently, but with firm intent, pressed me back down. "You're okay."

My heart pounded, an engine sounded, my mind raced, and there was a trickle of blood running down the side of his face. "You are bleeding."

"I'm okay." Still holding me down, his other hand brushed over my hair. "Take a deep breath."

I needed to know where we were, where those men were, what was going on, how we had gotten off the plane and into this, this…. I turned my head. "Where are—"

My gasp cut off my question when I saw Helios's bloodied form lying prone across from us as Grayson grasped the side of my face and brought my focus back to him.

Our bodies swayed, his thigh muscles shifted, and I realized I was lying partially on his lap as the engine noise grew deeper but slowed down.

Boat.

We were on a boat, and the plane had crashed, and all at once, every bone in my body ached with a crushing sensation that was bigger than crashing and deeper than loss.

We did not die together.

We had not lived together.

I was alive.

He was alive.

But he did not show emotion.

His eyes had not changed.

He had not changed.

We were not together.