Page 121 of Claimed In Darkness

Something they have seen before.

Something they still fear.

And I need to know why.

40

ZEPHIRAN

Iam losing her and there’s no way to stop it.

She stands at the boundary of the firelight, her back turned to me, her shoulders too still, too stiff, too fucking unreadable.

I want her to say something.

To turn around.

To look at me.

To prove to me that she is still in there.

But she doesn’t.

She just watches the flames, silent, waiting, unraveling in my sight.

And I don’t have any idea on how to pull her back.

Perhaps she does not want to come back at all.

The moment the High Council's men disappeared into the trees, something shifted.

Not in the surroundings.

Not in the world.

In her.

I saw it.

The way her fingers flexed at her sides.

The way her pulse barely flickered beneath her skin when I touched her wrist.

The way she stood there, listening to that old bastard’s warning—and did not deny it.

She didn’t argue.

She didn’t spit in his face.

She didn’t tell him he was wrong.

She knows what she is becoming.

She just hasn’t told me.

That is the part that makes my stomach turn.

For all the things we have done to each other—all the lies, all the violence, all the fucking destruction?—

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