Page 148 of Bound By Darkness

What's left now is something empty.Something ruined.

The nausea claws up without warning.I double over, retching hard.Eamon catches me instantly, his arms steady and warm, grounding me when I have nothing left to hold onto.

He doesn’t flinch.Doesn’t pull away.Not even when I shake so violently my teeth clatter against each other.

The strength bleeds out of my legs, and I collapse.Eamon comes down with me, slow and careful, lowering us both to the slick tile floor.He pulls me against him, his chest bare and solid beneath my forehead.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against my hair.

“I don’t think I’ve got me,” I press my face against him and just breathe—or try to.

My lungs stutter, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps that won't quite fill me.But Eamon’s arms stay firm, wrapped around me like he’s trying to shield me from the whole collapsing world.

Something inside me gives way.

Everything I’ve held inside, the pain, the exhaustion, the fear, the rage, spills out in a broken sob that I can’t hold back.I curl into him, terrified that if I let go, they’ll be nothing left of me.

He doesn’t tell me it’s okay.Because it’s not.

He rocks me gently, steady against the trembling that I can’t control.His lips brush the crown of my head, soft and reverent, and he murmurs into my hair words low and fierce, meant for me and no one else.

"I’ve got you,mo chroí," he whispers."You’re not alone.Not now.Not ever."

His fingers stroke slowly down my back, over the curve of my bare shoulders, tracing every broken piece as if learning how to hold them together.

"I’ll carry this with you," he breathes."Every scar.Every burden.I’m not letting you face it alone."

I don’t know how long we sit there, the water pouring over us, washing away everything except the ruin left inside me.

When the sobs finally subside, when my chest aches from the force of it all, Eamon's voice breaks through the quiet."Why didn’t you come to me?"he asks, low, rough.

I inhale, the sound sharp in the wet air between us.

"Aoife."He tilts my chin up, gentle but insistent, forcing me to meet his gaze."Why didn’t you let me help you?"His thumb brushes my cheek."You were never meant to carry this alone."

My throat tightens painfully, but it’s not grief now.Not rage.It’s something rawer.Bare.

"I had to prove it," I whisper, my voice nearly drowned by the hiss of the water."To Ruairi.To you.To myself.That I could handle it.That I could be the one to run the Syndicate."

Eamon exhales slowly, brushing a strand of soaked hair from my face."No one survives this life alone," he murmurs, steady and sure."Letting the people who love you carry you isn’t weakness."

My breath stutters.

Love.

I blink up at him, the word slamming through my heart louder than the roar of the water in my ears."You said the people who love me," I whisper, almost afraid to believe it.

His fingers trail the line of my jaw, so tender it breaks something new inside me."I love you," he says like it’s the simplest truth in the world."I’ve loved you from the moment I ran into you on that beach."

A broken sound escapes me—half a breath, half a sob.

I don't deserve this.

I don't deserve him.

The words rise, desperate to spill free, but he presses a finger gently against my lips.

"Don’t," he whispers."Don’t apologize for surviving."

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