Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [796]
Claire could just make out the bulk of a large male form, lying on the ground in front of the roaring wall of fire. He was naked, as well, sprawled brokenly on his side as he had been on the forest floor after Renata had blasted him into unconsciousness.
Claire walked closer, realizing only now that the length of black stone beneath her feet was merely a narrow strip of solid surface, a treacherous promenade that allowed no more than a couple of feet on either side of her. The black stone path floated over a sea of darkness, an abyss, which, at its core burned like the deepest pits of hell.
And Andreas lay at the very end of the long stretch of cold stone.
“Oh, God,” she whispered as she drew nearer, realizing just how precarious his position truly was. One careless movement—one unconscious slip—and he would tumble off the edge and plummet into the inferno raging below.
Claire approached him carefully and inched down next to him on the sheer precipice of stone. Tenderly, terrified of waking him suddenly she stroked her fingers over his cheek. He didn’t stir. His skin was too cold, his breathing unrushed, slumberous.
He slept on, didn’t even know she was there.
“That’s okay, Andre,” she told him softly as she moved down onto the cold black surface of the ledge. She curled herself behind him, wrapping her arm around him to keep him from falling and molding her body against his to give him her warmth. “We’ll sleep here together for a while. I’ll wait with you until you’re ready to come back to me.”
CHAPTER
Thirty-five
It’s been five days, Lucan. We have some decisions that will need to be made, and made quickly.”
Lucan nodded solemnly and glanced over to the worried gaze of Dante’s mate, Tess. She had been the one to discover Claire unconscious at Reichen’s side the day after the explosion at Dragos’s bunker. In the time since, Tess had been keeping a close watch on both Reichen and Claire, ensuring that they were kept warm and comfortable in the bed the couple shared, and looking for some way to help bring one or both of them around. So far, nothing had worked.
“Andreas’s Breed metabolism is stronger than Claire’s human one,” she said. “He can probably survive another few weeks or more without sustenance, but Claire is dehydrating quickly. Unless we get some fluids into her, vital organs are going to start failing soon.”
Lucan stared down at the woman sleeping in the bed. Her petite frame was nestled tightly against Reichen’s body, her arms wrapped lovingly around him, holding him in what looked to be a fiercely protective embrace. Her sleep seemed vastly different from Reichen’s. Where he lay motionless, unresponsive, Claire’s eyes flickered rapidly behind her closed lids. Her fine muscles twitched now and again, as though she were caught in a brief doze, not dead to the world for the past several days.
“You’ve tried everything to attempt to wake her?” he asked Tess.
“Everything, Lucan. It’s as if her body—as well as her heart and mind—simply refuses to come back to consciousness. She’s willing herself to remain asleep, I’m certain of it.”
He scowled, watching Claire’s eyelids twitch with the movement of her eyes beneath them. “She’s been dreaming this whole time?”
“Yes, since the moment I found her like this. I have to believe she’s using her talent to be with Andreas.”
Lucan huffed out a heavy sigh. “Even if it kills her in the process?”
“You saw them together, didn’t you?” Tess’s voice was gentle with sympathy and not a little awe. “I suppose I can understand the depth of devotion—of pure, unshakable love—that would inspire this kind of sacrifice. If it were Dante on that bed and I thought I could reach him in some way—in any way—I’d be right in there, too. For however long it might take. I know if it were Gabrielle, you would do the same for her.”
He was hardly going to stand there and deny it. But neither could he stand by and knowingly allow Claire, or Reichen, to waste away while he watched.
He glanced back to Tess and gave the Breedmate a tight nod. “Gather whatever