I stride to her and crouch in front of her motionless body. I exhale deeply when I notice the rise and fall of her shoulders.

Her pale hands hold her knees to her chest, fingers twitching involuntarily and limbs spasming. Her black strands block her vision, so I lift them up with two fingers.

Aurora’s eyes are screwed shut so tight, almost as if she’s afraid to open them. Her lips are clamped in a line, her pink lipstick smudged. Mascara and dried tears cover her cheeks.

“Why…” she murmurs. “Why?”

It must be about Maxim. Is she having nightmares about him, or is she perhaps reliving certain memories?

“Aurora.”

She doesn’t even stir, so I shake her shoulder. For some reason, I don’t want her trapped in that place. That place only injected her with suffering and pain.

“Aurora!”

Her eyes flutter open, but she doesn’t see me, not really. It’s almost like she’s looking through me. The deep, dark blue of her irises are caught in a trance she can’t force herself out of.

I run my fingers through her hair. “Come on, wild one. Come back.”

She doesn’t. For a moment, she stares ahead as if enchanted by something on the TV.

My fingers slide to her neck and I squeeze a little, increasing the pressure in small increments until she focuses on me.

She does, but her eyes aren’t quite there. It’s almost like she wants to see me but isn’t able to do so.

“Alicia can’t be gone. Not today.” Her voice is brittle, haunted even. “She can’t, Jonathan.”

I wrap my arm around her back and she bunches my jacket in a lethal grip, her body shaking, breaths trembling.

It comes back to me then.

Aurora received the news of Alicia’s death the day she reported her father’s crimes. No idea why I haven’t thought about that fact before.

All her tragedies happened in one day. One blow after the other. She was only sixteen and didn’t know what life was before it was snatched away from her.

No wonder she needed a rebirth.

Now that a part of her nightmares is back, she’s been shoved back eleven years in the past.

I carry her in my arms and she snuggles into my hold, her body still shaking. Despite being considerably tall, she’s light as a feather.

The way her curves mould into me feels natural and effortless. Like it was always meant to be.

A whimper tears out of her as she nuzzles her nose into my jacket. “Alicia…”

“She’s not here, but I am. I’ll always be here, wild one.”

22

Aurora

“I’ll always be here.”

Those words trickle in and out of my consciousness. Like a shadow you can see, but you can’t touch.

By the time I open my eyes, I don’t know whether what I’m seeing is real or a mere play of my screwed up imagination.

The first thing I notice is that I’m not in my flat lying on the floor, reliving my gruesome memories.

My room in Jonathan’s house comes into view with its huge space and elegant ceiling. When did I get in here?

“You need to eat.”

I startle into a sitting position and that’s when I notice Jonathan seated on a chair opposite my bed.

He’s in a pair of dark blue suit trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. The top buttons of his shirt are undone, revealing the taut lines of his collarbone and hinting at his chest muscles.

That’s the most skin I’ve ever seen from Jonathan, aside from his veiny arms. It’s like he lives in a suit — or was born in one.

Not that he had to get nude before, all he needs is that firm hand to make me fall all over the place.

He’s been focused on his phone, but now, he slides it in his pocket and lifts a bowl of soup from a tray on the bedside table.

“You brought me here?”

“Why ask a question you already know the answer to?”

Did he listen to Alicia’s voice message? Worse, did he see me at my lowest on the floor?

“How…how did you get access to my flat?”

“I have my ways.” He offers me the bowl. “Now, eat. You haven’t had anything since this morning and it’s nine in the evening.”

How the hell does he know that? I don’t bother asking, because he’ll just say he has his ways again or bluntly ignore me.

My nose scrunches at the scent of food. “I’m not hungry.”

If anything, nausea is about to hit me for no apparent reason.

“Is this part of your rebirth? Skipping meals?”

“So what if it is?”

“You cannot escape Maxim by stopping everything you used to do when you were with him. You do realise you’re only fooling yourself, right?”

My nails sink into the duvet as black rage bubbles in my stomach. “You know nothing about me to say that, okay? Nothing! And I told you not to say his name.”

“There, clear evidence that your rebirth never took off. If you’re a mess after a meeting with his solicitor, how do you intend on facing him when he resurfaces? Because he will resurface, Aurora. If it’s not with parole, then it’ll be with something else. People like Maxim don’t like to be pushed to the shadows. He’ll steal the limelight and he’ll come after you. So instead of running away from the ghost of his name, get your shit together. Flight mode never works, so you might want to start trying the fight mode.”

My lips part as the weight of his words strikes a deep, dark corner in my chest. It’s almost like he was with me during the years I looked over my shoulder, expecting the ghost of my past to catch up to me.

In fact, I still do. It’s a curse without a solution.

Some of my nightmares are about vacant eyes, but most of them are about me pedalling down that road and I always, always get pulled back into the forest’s clutches by a dark hand.

“Now, are you going to eat or would you rather I make you?”

I snatch the bowl from between his fingers and don’t bother with a spoon. I drink it all in one go as if I’m chugging down alcohol.

Once I’m finished, I slam the empty bowl on the bedside table and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “There. Done, your majesty. Leave me alone.”

“What did I say about that mouth, Aurora?”

“What are you going to do about it? Fuck me? Oh, wait. You only like to spank and finger me.”

His expression shifts from disapproval to what seems like…amusement? “Does that bother you so much?”

My cheeks heat. “It does not.”

“If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have mentioned it in an angry fit.”

“You flatter yourself.”

“Is that so?”

“I absolutely couldn’t give two fucks about that.”

“Fascinating.” He stands up and I expect him to leave, but he unbuttons his shirt, slowly and with utter confidence.

“W-what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” He shrugs off his shirt and the urge to hide under the covers hits me without a warning.

Since I’ve never seen Jonathan naked, I don’t know what to expect, but the firm chest with lean muscles is certainly not it. Who knew the prim and proper suits covered this view? But then again, Jonathan has always had rugged, brutal characteristics. Why would his nudity be any different?