He kept her gaze as he continued to shimmy backward, pulling her with him. He saw the fear in the breathtaking pale depths but also something else, something that surprised him. He saw love. For him.
His heart throbbed, and his chest tightened even more. He could hardly breathe. He had to save her. He’d fallen in love with her, and now she was going to be taken from him.
“We’re almost there, Koori. I won’t let you fall.”
He glanced over his shoulder to see how far he was. Just another few inches, and he’d be stable enough to use his other hand without the threat of falling in face-first.
“Darien?”
When he looked back at her, she slipped a bit from his hold. Tears streaked her pale cheeks, but gone was the fear in her eyes. Resignation had replaced it. She was barely gripping his gloved hand.
Fear made him readjust his grip. But when he turned his arm, there was a sickening, aching popping sound as his shoulder joint popped out of its socket.
Pain tore through him like wildfire. Tears welled in his eyes and he had to swallow down the bile that rose in his throat. Blinking back the tears, he bit down on his lip to push back the pain. He’d been through worse. He tried to remember the time he’d broken his arm skiing. The pain had been worse. He managed to get through that.
“Don’t forget me,” she whispered.
“You’re not going anywhere.” Just one more inch. Just one more. Hang on.
“It’s okay. You can let go.”
He shook his head. He was almost there. “I won’t.”
She smiled up at him. “I’ve fallen in love with you. You thawed this ice maiden out. My heart belongs to you forever.”
“Koori!” he cried. “No!”
But it was too late. His glove gave, and she fell.
Unable to breathe, Darien reached for her. Letting himself slide down the ice, he tried to grab her. His fingers brushed hers, but that was it. He couldn’t get a grip on her hand.
He released his hold on the ice pick and dove in after her.
Chapter 16
H e was falling.
Darkness swallowed him. He couldn’t see anything or feel anything around him. It was as if he were floating in the air. Although he felt no wind on his face or in his hair. And the air always had a certain smell.
He couldn’t smell anything now.
His stomach flipped over and over. Doing somersaults in his gut. He had dove into the crevice to save Koori. So he had to be falling.
Wasn’t he?
Reaching out with his arms, Darien grasped for something, anything to stop his fall. But his hands came up empty. There was nothing there to grasp. The crater hadn’t been that deep, had it?
The pain was even gone. He couldn’t feel the ripping agony searing him from his dislocated shoulder. He still should be in pain. It should be tearing through him like an angry grizzly bear with his next meal.
A sense of extreme loss surged through him. Something was deathly wrong.
“Koori!” he shouted.
No response. Even his voice didn’t echo back to him.
It felt like he was in a vacuum. No air, no sound, no smell, no sight. When he thought about it, he couldn’t really feel himself, either.
He thought he was moving his hand, wanted it to touch his shoulder. But he had no sensation of actually moving and no feeling of touch. What was happening?
“Koori!” he shouted again. But did his mouth actually move? Or was he just thinking of her name?
Tears welled in his eyes, but he didn’t feel them on his face. He couldn’t feel anything, not physically anyway.
But mentally, he was in agony.
Was he dead? Was this what death felt like? An empty sensation-free vacuum? Where was the bright light? Where were the singing angels welcoming him to the heavenly gates?
There was no heaven, he thought. There couldn’t be without Koori.
Sinking into himself, Darien tried to shut it all down. Tried to turn off the emotions raging through him. He wanted to wrap his arms around himself, but knew he’d never feel it, anyway. So he tried to do that inside his mind.
But that was when he saw the light.
At first it was only a white pinprick, hardly anything to discern. Regardless, he felt his mind rushing toward it in desperation. If this was the way to end his torment, then he’d do it. He’d run to the light.
The light grew in scope and in hue. Sound hummed in his ears. A strong stringent odor erupted in his nostrils. Physical sensations began to prickle across his arms and hands. Like pins and needles they tingled across his body.
It was too much. It was sensory overload and it felt like his brain was going to explode. Pain pounded at his temples, and he cried out.
“Mr. Calder?”
The voice nearly burst his eardrums. He shook his head from side to side to dislodge the painful ringing in his ears.
There was pressure against his temples and his forehead.
“Mr. Calder? Can you hear me?”
The light was too bright. It was going to blind him. He tried to close his eyelids, but something pried them open. Panicked, he tried to lift his hands to cover his face. But he found he couldn’t move them.
“Someone help me!” he shouted. His voice pinged in his ears.
“I am here to help, Mr. Calder.” More pressure on his head. “You have to calm down.”
There was something in the man’s accented voice that gave Darien pause. He’d heard that kind of tone before. It was the voice of someone used to being in charge, used to being listened to.
Calming his breathing, he tried to relax. He stopped fighting the pressure on his eyes and his head. When he did that, some of the discomfort abated. Blinking several times, his vision cleared, and he could see someone leaning into his line of sight.
It was a Japanese man with glasses. He was holding a thin penlight in one hand; his other hand was on Darien’s forehead.
“Can you see me, Mr. Calder?” the man asked.
Darien nodded.
“I am Dr. Iwasaki.”
Realization flooded Darien like a tsunami. Turning his head, he looked around. He was in a small area with a faded green curtain cutting him off from the rest of the white-walled room. Machines beeped beside him. An IV was stuck in his hand, the pole next to his bed, the water bag hanging from a cord.
He was in a hospital.
Darien licked his lips. They were cracked and sore. “Where—” his throat hurt bad; he tried again “—where am I?”
“You are in Sapporo City Hospital.”
He licked his lips again. The doctor brought a plastic cup with a straw sticking out of it to his mouth.
“Drink.”
Darien took a couple of sips of water. His throat had felt like it’d been torn into by large sharp claws. The cool liquid instantly soothed the ache.
The doctor set the cup on the swinging tray attached to his bed. “Take it slowly.”
“How…”
“You were flown here from Kushiro three days ago.”
Panic started to take root. Reality was closing in on him, and he didn’t want to face it. He struggled to sit up, but the doctor held him still.
“You must rest. You do not suffer from any life-threatening injuries now, but you must stay still and rest. You came in with a dislocated shoulder and severe frostbite in some of your extremities. You were in the early stages of hypothermia. If you’d been found any later, I do not think you would have made it.” He shook his head. “I am surprised because according to Jiro, your scientist friend, you have been missing for over a week. Seven days out in that cold and snow without shelter, food and water, you should technically be dead.”
Darien didn’t want to hear it. The doctor had to be wrong.
Craning his neck, he looked over to his right hand where the IV had been deposited. The tips of two of his fingers were black like he’d dipped them in ink. He tried to wriggle his feet and imagined the same type of effects on his toes.
The doctor patted him on his good shoulder. “You rest. I will be back to see you later. The nurse will be in to take your vitals and give you some food.” He turned to leave, then said, “Oh, and someone from your embassy will also be by to see you.” With that, he disappeared behind the flimsy green curtain, leaving Darien with only his despair for comfort.
He could feel it welling up inside him, drowning his heart in the agony. Clamping his eyes shut, he tried to keep it back, tried to ignore the reality of his situation. He shook his head. He didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t and survive. The pain would be too much.
Behind his eyes, an image of Koori took root. She was smiling, her eyes swimming with love for him. She was real. He could still smell her; still feel her on the tips of his fingers. She’d been real. As real as the bed beneath his body was real or the IV sticking in his veins.
He had not dreamed the past few days. It hadn’t been a hallucination while he’d been in and out of consciousness, nearly frozen on the side of the road to Kushiro.
His heart panged, and he had to gasp to get a breath. Pain ripped through him, clawing at his insides, ripping at his soul. He brought a hand up to his chest and rubbed at his sternum. He’d never felt agony like that before. Not after falls off mountains or a plethora of broken limbs.
This was pain he didn’t think he could ever heal.
Tears slipped from his eyes and rolled down his temples to drip onto the pillow. The agony of what he’d lost couldn’t compare to any of his physical injuries. Those would eventually heal in time. This pain, this suffering, how could it ever be fixed?
The curtain fluttered open, and the nurse came in. She was an older woman, petite and quiet, unassuming in her manner as she set a tray of food on the swivel tray.
Darien ignored her as she took his temperature and blood pressure. She then listened to his heartbeat. He didn’t care whether that organ ever beat again. It was broken, anyway. What good was it now? The doctor might as well cut it out of him. It was frostbitten just like his fingers and toes.
When she was checking him out, she pushed the tray forward. “You eat.”
Darien ignored her, his face turned away from her. He didn’t want her to see his pain. She couldn’t help him with it.