We’re supposed to leave for the hospital, visit Aunt Carolina. It’s ten AM, the sun is shining bright, and I’m ready to go. Dressed in a red blouse and ruffled black skirt—not all black, mom had said, please not today—I’m sitting on the sofa armrest, waiting for Zane.

I check my watch, and worry starts nibbling at my insides. Call me crazy, but I can’t seem to be able to let him out of my sight for more than a few minutes before I go into panic mode. Stupid maybe. He’s been out of the hospital for almost a week now, and he’s doing fine. No dizzy spells anymore, no black-outs, no memory problems. I’ll get over it soon.

Still…

I hop off the sofa, head to the bedroom, and stick my head inside.

My brows draw together. Zane is sitting on the bed, holding a sheaf of paper in his hands, staring at it.

“Hey.” I pad over, and sit by his side. “What have you got…?”

It’s my drawing of Zane, from when he was lying in a coma at the hospital. Well, one of the many I drew, which are now stacked next to him on the mattress.

My heart pounds as I study the drawing. The slack face, the oxygen mask, his tattooed arms resting on the covers and all the magical creatures surrounding him. Protecting him. Fighting for him, because I couldn’t.

“This is…” His voice is faint. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” I whisper. Holy crap. Embarrassment heats up my face. I didn’t mean for him to see the drawings and feel especially stupid for all the dragons and spiders I covered the empty space with.

I also feel bad for drawing him when he had no sense of his surroundings, without his permission. Then again, he’s looking at my stack without my permission, so I guess we’re even.

“I needed something to do at the hospital while I waited for you to wake up,” I say. “Drawing calmed me down.”

He shakes his head, then snags an arm around me waist and hauls me closer, so that our legs touch. “It’s really good. You have talent.”

I nervously wipe a hand over my nose. “I can’t draw like you. Your drawings are awesome. Mine are like a three-year-old’s.”

“Dakota.” His arm tightens. “I’m serious. This is fucking good, and…” His fingers clench on the paper. “And thank you. Can’t thank you enough.”

I nod and put my arms around his waist. I rest my head on his shoulder, looking down at the drawing.

“Did I really have dragons and spiders floating around me?” He shakes me lightly, and I smile.

“It’s white magic. I called on them for their help.” Yeah, talk about feeling stupid about it now. “You said they bring luck.”

“I did.” He smoothes a finger over a fire-breathing dragon. “Is that why you want a dragon tattoo?”

The answer isn’t simple. I’m silent for a beat, considering my words. “I don’t think I need one anymore.”

He looks at me, his dark eyes curious. “What changed?”

Everything. I try to expand that one word into more. “I don’t need a symbol to tell me what I know. I don’t need others to know, as long as I know it.” I lick my lips. “And I have you.”

He grins at that and plants a kiss on my brow. “I vow to protect you from the monsters.”

“You’d better.”

He snorts and lifts the drawing higher, studying it. “Well, I’m glad you don’t want a dragon anymore.”

“Big surprise,” I grumble and pout. “Can’t count all the times I asked and was denied. Bastard.”

He snorts. “Yeah, well. That doesn’t mean you’ll escape my tattoo gun.”

What? I gape at him. “You’ll ink me?”

His eyes darken, and a positively wicked gleam fills them. “Damn right I will. But I have a different design in mind.”

“What? What design?”

But he drops the drawing and lifts me to my feet. “I’ll show you later. Now we’re late. Let’s go.”

* * *

Somehow my family was notified that I’m bringing a special guest with me, and to Aunt Carolina’s great pleasure, they have all gathered at the hospital to meet him. In the corridor outside her room, there’s lots of laughter and enthusiastic thumping on backs and air-kissing going on as I greet my countless aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces, grand-uncles and grand-aunts.

“So where’s the young man?” Grand-aunt Nebraska demands to know. She’s five-foot-tall, including the hair piled on top of her head like a coiled python. She waves her walking cane to get my attention, and everyone jumps back before they get hit.

Uncle Nelson crashes into a nurse and starts laughing. His booming laughter is notorious in the family, and it sets off several of my younger cousins. I giggle, and turn to look for Zane.

He’s standing farther back, where I left him earlier, his eyes round.

Yeah… Maybe I should have warned him about my family, but I honestly had no idea so many members would be here.

I walk back to him and take his hand. “Everybody, this is Zane. Zane, this is my crazy family.”

“Who you calling crazy?” my cousin Dalton crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue. “Don’t listen to her, Z. She’s nuts.”

“Nuts. He said nuts!” Aunt Virginia giggles.

“Oh Lordy,” Aunt Alaska mutters and rolls her eyes.

Okay, so I have a lot of aunts living in the area. And judging from Zane’s still slack jaw, they are quite a sight.

Or maybe it’s my cousins he’s gaping at? Well, they’re a sight, too. All of them have their hair dyed in crazy colors, some going for the full rainbow spectrum.

Then I look up at his hair, tamer than ever before, but still a bright blue in the center, and smile. He’ll fit right in.

“Come in, Zane,” my seven-year-old cousin Cora says and links her arm with Zane’s, dragging us both into the room. “Time to meet the famous Aunt Carolina.”

“Famous?” Zane asks.

“She traveled to China and Japan and to Africa!” Cora proclaims. “She stayed with the Masari!”

“The Masai,” I correct absently as we approach the bed.

I swallow past a knot in my throat when Aunt Carolina opens her arms. I let go of Zane and hug her gently.

“Sweet girl,” she says and holds me for a long minute. “Missed you.”

“Missed you, too,” I whisper. “Sorry I couldn’t come earlier.”

“Ah.” She pats my back and lets me go. “I would have waited.”

My eyes fill with tears, and I struggle not to let them fall. Zane takes my hand and then, as if realizing my struggle, pulls me flush against him and puts an arm around me.

“Ah, Zane.” Aunt Carolina grins toothily, and her small eyes crinkle with pleasure. “I’ve heard about you.”

“You have?” Zane looks horrified, and it makes me laugh.

“No, I’m lying through my teeth. But now you can tell me all about yourself. Come here, let me look at you.” She beckons at him regally. “He sure is good-looking, Koty, my girl. Not enough color on him, though. Get him to dye his hair something more striking, will you? Pink, maybe?”

Zane sputters, and I double over with laughter.

“Come sit here, boy.” Aunt Carolina pats the bed by her side. “My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be.”

Zane sits down cautiously and flinches only slightly when my aunt grabs his hand and squeezes it.

“Strong man. I like that. Nice ink, too. Love the piercings.”

Zane just blinks. I guess he must be in shock.

My parents choose that moment to arrive, and I’m distracted from the Aunt Carolina/Zane show to greet them and be pulled into hugs.

When I next glance toward the bed, I find Zane laughing. I stare at him, trying to determine if he’s hysterical or just amused.

Amused, I decide when he bends down to whisper something in my aunt’s ear, and they cackle together like demented teenagers. I’m dying to know what he’s telling her. Dying to pull him out of here, so I can have him to myself again.

Crap, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before.

Until now.

* * *

“So…” Zane unlocks the door and pulls me into the apartment, then slips his arms around me and walks me backward toward the sofa.

“So…?” I’m a bit nervous, wondering what he thought of my family. He seemed to get along fine with my mad relatives, but who knows what’s going on inside his head?

“So, what’s the deal with the water?”

I blink, at a loss. “Water?”

“And falling.” He marches me backward until the back of my legs hits the sofa, and then he’s lowering me on it, bending over me. His arms tighten around me, so that I’m suspended for a moment over the cushions, before he gently settles me on top.

“I…” He’s propped with one arm on the backrest, the other next to my head, gazing down at me. His eyes are soft with curiosity, velvet black. In the late afternoon light seeping through the window, the strong line of his jaw and his dark brows are deep shadows, his mouth a tempting curve.

“See, I’ve met your family, and they’re fucking crazy. Good people. They didn’t mistreat you. You’re not sick and dying. Apart from the small surgical scars on your back and right arm, I don’t see any evidence of violence. So I’m missing something.” He lowers his face until his lips brush my cheek. “Why the hell did you want a dragon tattoo? I’d say you were just teasing me, but there’s more, isn’t there?”

I nod, unable to speak.

“You don’t scare easily. In fact, you’re fearless.” He gazes at me solemnly, not asking. Stating a fact. I like his conviction, even though it’s not true. “You have to be, to be with me.”

“I’m not fearless.”

“You’re afraid of falling…and of water.” He’s still gazing at me, and it’s like a warm caress. “You said someone pushed you. An ex-boyfriend.”

“Collin. My ex-boyfriend.”

His eyes narrow, and his mouth flattens. “But it doesn’t explain why you’re so scared of the water. Something happened to you, babe. What was it?”

Babe. I smile. I’m not fond of pet names, but it sounds so good, coming from him. It grounds me, reminds me it’s time I told him everything. Not just because I owe him for opening up to me as he did, but because I want him to know all about me.

Besides… We’re now marked by one experience in common. We’ve both survived it and are here now, together.

Zane lowers himself by my side, an elbow planted on the sofa, the other coming to rest over my stomach. “You okay?”

“You want to know why I stay away from the lake when we go to the park and from the pools at pool parties,” I whisper. “Why I freaked out when I was almost dropped into the pool. Why I’m so scared if nobody tried to drown me when I was a child.”

Like they did to you.

He winces and buries his face in my neck. “Yeah. I want to know, even if you think it’s stupid and unimportant. It’s important to me.”

My throat closes at his admission. I reach up and stroke the side of his head. He’s shaved it again, and there’s a small white scar there I never noticed before. So much I want to ask him. I want to know everything about him.

“Collin and I dated for a year. He played in a punk rock band, and I auditioned. That’s how we met. I was fourteen. He was seventeen. I loved his tattoos.”

“Mine are better,” Zane says, muffled in my neck.

I laugh. “Yeah, they are.”

I feel him smile on my skin. “Go on.”

“It was a weird relationship. I wasn’t picked for the band, but we still mostly met during their rehearsals, concerts and parties. He never kissed me. We…” I stare up at the ceiling. “We had sex a couple of times. In the bars where they played, in the bathrooms. He had me stand and took me from behind.”

Zane stiffens and lifts his head. “Hot damn. If I’d known… Did he hurt you?”

I shake my head. Not really. Nor had it been pleasant. “I thought it was normal. He was a musician. A bad boy. He was older. He was busy and didn’t have much time for me. He was my first boyfriend.”

Zane’s hand inches up from my stomach and rests between my breasts. “What did the fucker do apart from throwing you into a pool?”

I swallow hard. “I found out he cheated on me. Well, as he put it, we never did say we were dating, so technically he wasn’t cheating on me. Just fucking. He fucked every female in the vicinity, including me.”

Zane’s eyes narrow, darkening to charcoal black. His jaw clenches so tight his teeth grit together. “Motherfucker.”

“I was so upset. I thought I loved him.” I frown. “I think I was in love with the idea of being in love. With the idea of him falling for me. Anyway, I was disappointed and confronted him during the party after one of their concerts. We had an argument. He was drunk. He pushed me into the pool and…”

I inhale and force the words out. “The pool was very shallow. I hit my head and back on the bottom. I don’t remember the details. I think I remember floating underwater, unable to move, panicking. But it may be dreams I remember. Doctors said I lost consciousness the moment my head cracked on the tiles of the pool bottom.”

“Christ, Dakota.” Zane’s breathing picks up, and his hand slides up to my throat, to my jaw, cupping it. “Were you okay?”

Tears burn behind my brow. After all this time, just retelling the story makes me want to cry. “No, I wasn’t. I had swelling in my brain, and I hurt two vertebrae in my back. My right arm was broken in three places. They operated and took out the disc shards, drained fluid from my head, repaired my arm. But they couldn’t wake me from the coma.”

“Coma.” Zane’s voice is strangled. The color drains from his face. “You went into a coma?”

I take strength from his hand on my jaw, its warmth and its solid weight. “For five weeks. I had a feeding tube stuck into my stomach. Here.” I reach down, touch the spot over the cloth, where I know a small scar remains.

“Five weeks. Holy shit.” He worries the barbell in his tongue, sucking on it. “And then you woke up, like me.”

“Not like you.” This is the hardest part. “When I finally woke up, I was told I was paralyzed. Two of my vertebrae were damaged. I couldn’t feel much from the waist down, but I felt my toes, and I insisted I’d be able to walk again. They didn’t believe me. But I proved them wrong. I threw myself into physiotherapy and exercise. Worked my body to exhaustion every day, so that I slept fourteen hours every night. It took me a year to walk again properly.” I chew on my lip. “My left side is still weaker. But I can walk, and dance, and run. I’m a survivor. Told you.”

I wait for Zane to say something. But he’s silent, his eyes hooded. Maybe he’s processing what I said. Besides, I’ve gone through the story as fast as humanly possible, not wanting to linger on what was one of the worst times of my life.

His hand on my jaw shifts, sliding down my neck, over my arm, to my side. At the same time, his other hand is slipping under my back, gathering me to his chest. Before I know it, I’m rolled on my side and enfolded in Zane’s embrace, my head tucked under his chin, my chest resting against his heart.

It’s racing a hundred miles an hour, and his arms tighten around me until I can’t breathe.

“Zane…” I choke. “Zane.”

His hold relaxes marginally. His body is so tense it’s trembling. Muscles shift on his chest as he twists until he lies on his back. He pulls me up, so that I’m sprawled half across him.

“Better?” he asks, and I nod. I lie still, listening to his heart thump, noting when it starts to slow.

“I’m okay now,” I say, because I have a hunch he needs to hear it. “It’s been three years since the accident. I’m fine.”

“Did he call the ambulance? Did he take you to the ER?”

“Collin? No. He left the party.”

His hold tightens again briefly. “I’ll kill that motherfucker.”

My chest clenches painfully. “He’s already dead.”

Zane’s heartbeat picks up again, drumming under my ear. “How did that happen?”

“He crashed with his bike while I was lying in a coma. He was…” I close my eyes. “He was thrown off and broke his neck on landing. Died on the spot.”

Silence stretches, marked by the beating of Zane’s heart and my own painful breaths.

“I’m not sorry,” he finally whispers. “He deserved worse.”

Maybe. What it means is that I can’t hate him. Not for being a coward. Not for freaking out and running when I was brought out of the water, unconscious. I don’t hate him, but I can live with his death.

“I won’t let you fall again,” Zane says quietly, his voice rumbling in his chest.

He’ll fight the monsters. He’ll wrap his magical dragons around me to keep me safe. “I know you won’t.”

“I’ll give you wings.” He strokes my back, along the bumps of my spine, and I wonder if he feels the surgical scar under the colors of my tattoo from fixing my broken discs. “I’ll help you fly.”

“And you’ll fly with me,” I whisper, warm and content and comfortable on his chest.

“Maybe.” There’s an odd note in his voice, a catch. Somehow I don’t think he’s talking about flying anymore. I look up into his beautiful eyes, and I see the ghost of a doubt.

“No,” I say and reach up to touch his face. “No maybes. I’m with you. This is for sure.”

And that’s a promise I’ll work on making him believe every day of my life.