Page 189 of Star Claimed Omega
In moments, she was a mess, curled up in a ball as sobs tore loose from her, muffled into the pillow, dampening the fabric beneath her cheek.
Tremors racked her frame, shaking free the pain locked away in the deepest corners of herself.
Years of decay. Of compliant submission. Regret. Shame. Loneliness so thick it’d even hardened into armor.
Now it poured out of her in waves she couldn’t stop.
And for once, she didn’t try to stem it.
All of a sudden, she sensed a presence.
Nothim.
His spirit, his ethereal wolf.
It appeared first as a flickering light across her wall, a violet-gold shimmer bending the edges of her room. Immense and majestic, its fur glowing with ethereal radiance.
She twisted in bed with a jagged gasp.
Her body recoiled with instinctive fear.
However, when she recognizedhislycan spirit, looming over her, its spectral form incandescent, her terror faded.
She rolled to her side, turning away from it, ashamed, defensive.
Until her barriers cracked and shattered.
She turned again, this time not to flee but to reach out to it, desperate for connection, for freakin’ comfort.
Her hand was struck by an electric arc of sensation that traveled down her arm, sending shards of feeling through her.
She sat up, sobbing harder now, body trembling asherdam broke.
The wolf moved closer and leaned in, its form firming up enough for her to brace against.
She threw her arms around its neck as its limbs encircled her.
She cried into the shimmer of its chest until her breath hitched and her voice cracked, her hands fisted into its silken fur.
The room swirled with pulses of gold and violet energy.
It shifted and encircled her, letting her tuck herself beneath its chest, her head on its heart.
Its heat soaked through her bones, releasing her tight muscles and easing her tautness in places long numbed.
She fell asleep in time, surrounded by the heartbeat and the warmth of its spectral presence.
The next morning, she rose early, eyes puffy, body aching, yet her soul was somehow lighter.
Santi’s wolf had disappeared, but its imprint was in the sheets.
She reached for the space it had lain in and stroked the rough cotton, missing it, him, already.
Later, dressed and ready for work, she walked out of her small home.
As always, heading past Santi, who stood in silence, head bowed, arms crossed over his massive chest, eyes to the ground.
She slowed her roll as she got to him, needing to acknowledge what had happened between dusk and dawn.
