"I've got you," Dimitri murmured against her hair, low, steady. "I've got you, sweetheart, breathe."
She was crying and laughing at the same time, awful hiccupping sounds that hurt her throat, and she didn't even know which feeling was winning, whether this was grief or relief because it was both, it was so completely both. "He's alive," she managed. "Dimitri, he's alive, he was here, he stood right here!"
"I know." His hand smoothed down her spine, over and over. "I know, baby."
Damien said nothing at all. He simply held her from the other side, his claw-tipped hand curled with impossible gentleness around her shoulder, his forked tongue flicking once, quietly, like he was tasting the grief in the air and deciding what to do with it.
Then he rose, unfolding to his full height, and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head before he went.
