Once Holden had finished his soup, Griselda rinsed the pot, dish, and two spoons, placing them in the drying rack, and helped Holden to his feet so he could use the bathroom. After pissing, he paused in front of the mirror to check out his face and winced at what he saw.

Both eyes were discolored and badly swollen, and his cheek was a blackish color and very tender when he grazed it with his fingertips. His nose had a white bandage over the bridge, with tape between his eyebrows and on either side of his nostrils. He pulled the tape off gingerly, cursing softly from the pain and swallowing at the deep purple color. His lips had somehow managed not to get split, but there were several other ugly contusions on his face, mostly scabbing over now, but not pretty.

You look like a fucking animal. It’s a wonder she doesn’t run away.

His eyes drifted to the bandage under his heart and then to the larger bandage on his hip that covered three stab wounds. Peeling that one away, he took a peek. Neat black stitches had closed the three incisions. He counted four on one, five on another, and seven on the longest. Covering them back up, he flinched as he smoothed the tape over his skin and shifted his eyes to his chest. How Eli had managed to stab him in the chest wasn’t entirely clear, but Holden had been so distracted by seeing Gris, Eli must have reached around from behind and Holden never saw it coming. The doctor said it was just a few millimeters from his heart. He’d been lucky.

Lucky didn’t even scratch the surface.

He was alive. And Griselda was alive. He knew better than that doctor. He knew that there was no luck left in the entire world tonight, because all of it—every last fucking drop—belonged to him.

Opening the bathroom door, he stepped out slowly, looking left into his bedroom. Some stupid, horny part of him half hoped that Gris would be lying on the bed, waiting for him with a playful grin, but his room was neat, quiet, and empty.

He leaned his head against the doorway, trying to get a fix on reality before rejoining her in the living room.

As a rule, Holden didn’t connect with women emotionally. Physically? No problem. But he hadn’t met a woman since Gris who could get through to him emotionally. No matter how many women he’d bedded, the end result was always the same: the face that always flashed through his mind as his body climaxed was Griselda’s. It didn’t matter whom he was with. It didn’t matter that Griselda was dead, or that her face was still teenaged in his fantasies, which, he knew, was a big leap beyond creepy. An argument could be made that he’d searched for years for someone to replace Griselda in his mind, but his memories of her were too potent to displace. For a decade, she’d been his deepest, most impulsive, most unavoidably instinctive sexual trigger. For as long as he could remember, she was the beating heart of his sexual life. Whether he liked it or not, it had always been that way.

Why? Because as an adolescent with raging hormones trapped in a terrifying life, Griselda had not only been Holden’s only source of solace and tenderness, but she’d been his first taste of feverish, passionate desire. He’d watched her body blossom into curves day by day, and felt those growing curves press into his body at night when he held her. She’d been the first girl to touch his heart and his body with tenderness. She’d been his family, his best friend, his confidante, and companion. He’d loved her fiercely and unconditionally, and her brutal loss had only served to idealize her in his mind and his heart. She was everything he wanted, everything he’d lost, something he could never have.

Now suddenly, after ten years, the girl of his dreams had been delivered to him, and it didn’t matter that they’d been reunited for only a handful of hours. His body had roared to life in ways he’d never experienced as an adult man: his heartbeat erratic, his blood pumping wildly, his skin primed for her touch, his lips starving for a taste of her. In every possible physical way, he wanted her. Badly. Urgently. He wanted the tactile satisfaction of touching her, the warmth of her body beside his, the sound as she drew breath, and the feel of it when she exhaled against his throat. He wanted to reassure himself that she was actually alive and not just a beautiful and cruel delusion. And no matter who she had become, he never, ever wanted to let her go.

Besides his very real and visceral physical desire for her, he also wanted to know her again. He wanted to be as intimately familiar with her heart and mind as he’d been ten years ago, when he could read every nuance of her tone, every expression that crossed her face. They’d been so close, so in tune with each other, words had been almost unnecessary. For a decade, he’d grieved the loss of that kind of closeness. He desperately missed it. And now that she was here with him, he wanted it back.

Taking a deep breath, Holden turned back down the short hallway, toward the living room, and tried to calm his body down. Despite his longing to instantly reconnect with her in every possible way, emotionally and physically, he needed to slow down and try to relax. He didn’t want to scare her, for God’s sake, and, he reminded himself, this wasn’t just any girl to be taken or had.

This was Griselda, risen from the dead.

Taking a few slow, halting steps, he walked back into the living room, where he found her sitting on the edge of the couch, head bent forward, talking on his cell phone. Though his instinct was to sit beside her, he purposely stood across from her, giving her space, trying to read her face.

“. . . I am so sorry, Mrs. McClellan, but I don’t have much family, and I need to stay here for a little while and take care of him. Yes, ma’am. Mm-hm. My foster brother.” She paused, looking up at Holden. “Yes. It’s been a long time.”

Holden raised his eyebrows to ask her if everything was okay. She shrugged, before looking back down at her lap, but her body was tense.

“I know that. I’d never leave you in the lurch, and I would have given you more notice, but his injuries—it was a bad, uh, accident.”

Holden lowered himself into the easy chair across from her, wincing when his ribs ached from the movement.

She exhaled, and her shoulders finally unbunched. “Oh. Okay. Thank you. That’s really . . . nice of you.” She used the back of her hand to swipe at her eyes, even though her voice remained level and even. “I appreciate that. Mm-hm. He’s going to be okay. Yeah. Please give her a kiss for me. Tell her I promise more stories when I come back. Okay. Yes, I will. Bye.”

She pressed the End button, looking up at Holden. His first guess was that she looked bewildered, but he wasn’t sure, and he hated it that he couldn’t read her better.

“I used your phone,” she said. “I hope that’s okay.”

“What’s mine is yours, Gris,” he said again.

She gave him an uncertain grin, but it faded quickly, and she glanced down at the phone again, furrowing her eyebrows. “My, uh—Jonah called a few times while it was off. And it looks like he left some messages. I don’t want them. Just delete them, okay? I would’ve deleted them for you, but I didn’t have your voice mail pass code.”

“Sure,” he said, taking the phone from her extended hand. It was warm from being pressed against her ear, and he curled his fingers around it. “Was that your boss?”

“Yeah. She didn’t fire me,” said Gris, laughing in surprise. “She said she’d find a replacement for one month and hold my job.”

“A month.” It hurt to smile, but Holden couldn’t hold it back, because having thirty days with her felt like a miracle. Still, he didn’t want to push her. “You staying here for a month, Griselda?”

“I—I don’t . . . I mean, I can, but I don’t . . .” She looked down, her cheeks turning pink.

“Stay,” he said simply, the words falling from his lips, as they had a hundred times before in Caleb Foster’s cellar. He caught her eyes as they blinked at him uncertainly.

Stay, he thought, wishing he was sitting beside her so he could tuck a stray lock of reddish-blonde hair behind her warm ear. Stay forever. Don’t ever leave me again.

“I’ll stay for a while,” she said, standing up and taking two folded towels off the arm of the couch. She spread them out across the cushions, smoothing them with her hands and treating him to an awesome view of her backside, which served to distract him from what she was doing for an extra moment.

“What’s with the towels?” he finally asked.

She turned slightly to look at him, “Making up a bed for myself.”

“No, Gris,” he said, leaning forward a little and groaning softly when pain radiated from the trio of cuts on his hip. “I’ll sleep here. You sleep in my bed.”

There was an irony to his words, not lost on him, since she’d been in his bed many, many times, but had never once been able to sleep in it. She shook her head, glancing up at him before taking the thin blanket he’d been using before and laying it over the towels.

“You’re injured,” she said. “You need your bed.”

“It’s big,” he said softly, the words tumbling from his mouth before he had a chance to approve them. “Sh-share it with me.”

Her head whipped up, and she pulled her lip between her teeth—damn it—her blue eyes searching and cautious. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t be the first time.”

She tilted her head to the side, pursing her lips and crossing her arms over her chest defensively. “That’s an awful lot of tallies on your arm.”

“I’m not looking to add another tonight.”

“I just don’t—”

“G-Gris,” he said, in pain and beyond exhausted. He didn’t want to fight with her. He wanted the sweetness of her body next to his. He wanted the luxury of falling asleep beside her without the sound of boots coming down the basement stairs. He wanted to talk about everything that had happened to both of them, but not tonight. Tonight he just wanted to know that she was breathing beside him as he fell asleep. “Sleep. Just sleep. Beside me. Next to me. Please.”

He hated the uncertain look on her face, the way she looked at him like she was trying to find him. It made him feel lost.

“I’m too weak to do anything else,” he said lightly, offering her a small grin.

Her lips tilted up a touch in answer. “Promise?”

He stood slowly, holding his hand out to her. His heart thundered as she reached for it, pressing her palm against his and letting him curl his fingers around her hand. “Promise.”

***

Following Holden into his bedroom, Griselda tried to ignore whatever misgivings she had about how quickly things were moving between them. After a decade, they’d seen each other last night, found each other this afternoon, and here she was, planning to sleep beside him in his bed tonight.

And yet where else would she sleep? The pull to be with him, to touch him, to reassure herself that he was safe and strong, was powerful. She had crossed the finish line of an exhausting journey, and all she wanted was a safe and warm place to close her weary eyes and rest her bewildered heart. Could there be any better place than beside Holden, whom she’d loved so fiercely, lost so brutally, and missed so terribly these long ten years?

He had changed a lot, yes, but he was still Holden, who’d loved her and fought for her. He was still the gray-eyed, sweet-smelling boy who’d made life bearable when it should have killed her. He was still the keeper of her memories, the only sanctioned guardian of her heart. The need to share his space, to feel the heat of his body resting beside hers, was as visceral for her as it appeared to be for him. She didn’t want to let him out of her sight. Now that she’d found him, even altered, she didn’t want to spend a moment away from him. Whatever uncertainty lay ahead of them, tonight she wanted the solace of his heart beating next to hers.

“Will you crack the window?” he asked, lowering himself to the bed and exhaling like everything hurt.

She dropped his hand and crossed the small room, unlocking the window and pushing it open halfway. It looked out at the brick exterior of another two-story building and didn’t offer much of a breeze, but the sounds of a small American town—the occasional whoosh of a car, people strolling in the evening, a dog barking in the distance, the voices of people coming and going from the café below—it all served to make the room feel less isolated. And she understood the appeal. She chose the hum of humanity as her preferred lullaby too.

Turning around, she found Holden lying on top of his comforter, his head on one of two pillows, his arms flat by his sides. His eyes were closed, and in the dim light provided by one bedside lamp and whatever glow made its way through the window, he was beautiful.

A little over six feet tall, his long torso rippled with partially inked muscle that tapered down to a V, disappearing into his unbuttoned jeans. He was lean and hard-bodied, but his chest was covered with scars, and Griselda knew that if he turned over there would be even more. She flinched as the sound of the Man unfastening his belt buckle echoed in her head. How many times had Holden’s back been torn open?

Cast out his wickedness and sin, oh Lord, and make him clean again!

More times than she could count on two hands. She shivered, crossing her arms over her chest, and forcing Caleb Foster’s voice from her mind.

Tilting her head to the side, she skimmed her gaze down his denim legs to his bare feet, and a sad smile spread across her face to see that his—like hers—still had silvery white scars across the top where the sharp brown corn husks had sliced through their feet that disastrous day. Identical scars that would always remind them that she had escaped and he was left behind.

How could he forgive her for leaving him? How could his eyes gaze at her with tenderness when she had gotten in the truck first but he had been the one left behind at the river?

Don’t ever hate me again. Promise.

I p-p-promise, Gris.

She clenched her jaw, her eyes brimming with tears.

“You gonna stand there all night staring at me?”

“Maybe,” she murmured.

There was no rule book for how you were supposed to behave when you found the foster brother with whom you were kidnapped thirteen years ago, with whom you lived in filth and terror for three years, whom you’d lost but had loved and longed for every day since. There was so much to learn about each other. So much they knew about each other on one level, but so much they didn’t on another.

“I think I’m in shock,” she whispered. “I can’t believe I’m here with you. I don’t know how to do this. You’re you and I’m me, but we’re so different. What happens next? How do we even—?”

His eyes opened, and he took a deep breath, then sighed. Raising his hand, he held it out to her. “Come lay down.”

She closed the distance between the window and the bed, sitting down on the edge. His fingertips touched her back, and she twisted her neck to look at him.

“I want to know you again,” he said, his gray eyes soft. “I want to know what happened that day on the river, how you got away, where you went, and everything that happened next until you showed up at that fight last night.”

“I want the same,” she said, a tear falling over the rim of her eyes and sliding down her cheek.

His voice was tired, heavy. “I want to know if you’ve had a good life. I want to know why you decided to stay here tonight and not go home. I want you to . . .”

“What?”

“I w-want you to tell me a story.”

Two more tears slipped down her cheeks as she turned away from him, smiling to herself, and reaching forward to pull the chain on the bedside lamp. Then she lay her head down on the pillow beside his, swinging her legs up on the bed and straightening them. Her arm lay flush against his, and in an instant she was back in that hot, smelly station wagon, Holden on one side, Marisol on the other. And then time skipped forward, and she was lying on that disgusting cot in the Man’s cellar, Holden’s scrappy body beaten and tired and frightened beside her. And then time skipped again, catching up with itself, and she was here, now, in his apartment, and they were all grown up, finally reunited, arms touching again.

His skin was hot, partly because it was June but partly because his body was fighting to heal. But feeling him beside her was so familiar, her eyes fluttered closed in relief, and she released a long, low breath through her lips, letting the rest of her body finally relax beside him.

“Gris?” he said after a while, turning his head on the pillow to face her.

She twisted her neck to mirror him, opening her eyes. “Yeah?”

“I’m so tired.”

“Me too.”

“Let’s sleep.”

“Okay.”

“You’re alive.”

“I am.”

“You finally found me.”

“I did.”

“You’re lying next to me right now.”

“Yes.”

“And this isn’t a dream.”

“No.”

“And you’ll be here when I wake up?”

“I promise.”

“Okay,” he said, closing his eyes. “Will you tell me a story while I fall asleep? I always w-wished you could do that when we, uh—when w-we w-were . . .” His voice drifted off, and she felt him breathe deeply, just as she used to tell him to. She realized that he did it to control his stammer, and something about that made her so happy and so sad, she held her own breath, concentrating hard so she didn’t sob. “It was so d-dark at night once you left me.”

“I’ll do it now, Holden,” she said, her voice breaking a little.

The back of his hand was flush against the back of hers, but he twisted it, pressing his palm to hers, entwining his fingers through hers, like he’d done a thousand times before. And her fingers remembered. And her heart remembered. And both felt like they’d finally come home.

“Once upon a time,” she began, “there was a princess named . . .”

“Griselda,” he mumbled, almost asleep, eyes still closed.

A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye, sliding slowly into her hair.

“No,” she said, smiling at him as more tears silently joined the first. “Moonlight. Princess Moonlight.”