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somehow soothe her, and so he continued to whisper reassurances in her ear.
    Her eyelids quivered, but the blood and gore had glued them closed. “Don’t try to see right now, all right? Not yet.”
    Her hand and eye needed to be bandaged. There was a huge bump on her head, and he wanted to examine the damage to her legs. But first he had to get her outside. He couldn’t bear for either of them to be in this shack of terror and death for another minute.

Chapter Five
     
    Jasper woke with tears running unchecked down his face, but that was nothing new. While he usually managed to keep it together in the daylight hours, there was no controlling himself in sleep.
    However, the warm body curled into him was new—at least in this reality, the one where revenge and guilt were his constant companions and he was forced to live without Callie.
    Callie .
    Had he lost her? It seemed a lifetime since he’d left her in the doctor’s care and went in search of the men who’d hurt her. Even now that he’d returned to bring her home, Jasper still wasn’t sure.
    She stirred at his side. He tightened his arm around her shoulder, but she shot upright suddenly and without warning. “Callie. Are you all right?”
    She slipped from the bed without a word. The fire had died down to softly glowing embers while they slept and provided no light, but the sure-footed clunk of her solid steps on the wooden plank flooring suggested she had no difficulty seeing in the dark.
    He scrambled to his feet to go after her, but realized she wasn’t actually leaving the room when the door remained closed. After a long moment he found his way to the dark hearth and put a few logs on the fire, stoking it back up until it provided a weak light to see by. Turning, he found that she’d curled up in the window seat once again.
    “Callie, please come back to bed.” He was so tired. Tired down to his bones.
    “Why did you finally decide to come?”
    He barely heard her soft whisper. He took a few steps closer, but stopped when she looked at him with a raised brow that dared him to try touching her again.
    At least she was talking, and seemed calmer than she’d been since his arrival.
    “Callie, love. Do you recognize me? They said you might not…remember.”
    “They’re right, I think there’s probably some of it that still hovers in the mist. Lucky me though, more and more has been coming back every day.” Her voice had changed. His Callie had the voice of an angel, her light soprano flitting across his senses to tease him when he was grumpy and soothe him when he was frustrated.
    This Callie’s mocking voice was hoarse and rough…painful. He thought of the dark bruises painting her throat when he’d found her that night. Later, the doctor had told him that—in addition to her other injuries—she’d been strangled near to death, her trachea all but crushed, and every word she spoke for the rest of her life would be both a miracle and a torture to her.
    “Ah, but how could I forget you, Colonel?” Her tone was heavy with a strangled outrage. She sighed and swallowed. “Wouldn’t it be nice if I didn’t know where all these scars came from, or why my body was then mutilated with iron?”
    Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. The bounds of his self-hatred kept expanding, and as selfish as it was for him to admit, he thought it would have been better if she had forgotten. Better for both of them.
    He cleared his throat. “Callie, I’m so—”
    “You should have stayed away, Jasper.” She turned away.
    “No. And I would have come sooner, but your recovery depended—”
    She laughed, a broken sound that tore at his heart. “Recovery. Don’t you mean my resurrection?”
    “You didn’t die.” He tried to see her reflection in the window, but only one pale cheek was visible.
    “Part of me did,” she muttered. “The rest should have followed, and would have if not for…” She trailed off with a shake of her head.
    He wanted to pull her