Page 46 of Claimed By Stone
I didn’t push. I wanted to. I wanted to grab her by the face, make her look at me, and find out what was wrong. Something was different tonight, and it twisted a knot in my chest I couldn’t seem to loosen.
She slid into bed before me, curling on her side with her back to the door. I joined her a moment later, lying beside her but leaving space. She didn’t immediately reach for me like she had the last few nights. That space felt cavernous.
I couldn't take it any longer. "I can see something is bothering you. Please tell me, you can trust me." She turned, gazing up at me with a deep sadness in her eyes, and it nearly split me in two. "I know I have failed you in the past, but I swear to you. I will never let you down again."
When she spoke, her voice was soft, almost swallowed by the thick silence between us.
“No, Thavros, this had nothing to do with you. You have been perfect … it’s just …" She bit her lip and looked away. As she gazed into the fire, its light fell across her face, casting shadows on her beautiful features and deepening the ones already there. "I think I was put here for a bad reason,” she said, barely above a whisper.
I turned toward her, heart thudding.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s just… a feeling. I don’t remember everything. Just bits. Fragments. But something about it…” She shivered. “I think maybe Khuldruk was right not to trust me. Maybe I was sent here to do something. Maybe I'm bad.”
I reached for her hand under the blanket and squeezed it gently.
“You could never be bad. We’ll figure it out. Please don't be scared,” I pleaded. She was breaking my heart with the look of distress on her face. "Khuldruk said even today I was right to trust you."
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t pull away either. Her fingers curled tighter around mine as if she was holding on for dear life. I was holding on to her just as tightly. I was beginning to believe the little voice in my head was right. The voice that kept saying she was mine, encouraging me to claim her. The way my knot ached and the way I wanted nothing more than to sink my tusks into her told me everything I needed to know.
She was mine. She was my mate, but I couldn't tell her now.
Eventually, she just rolled over and let me hold her. If this is what she needed right now, I would gladly give this to her. I would hold her for as long as she needed.
Whatever storm was building inside her, I knew one thing with certainty.
I wasn’t going to let it swallow her whole.
Chapter 21
Seraphina
Ilay in the quiet dark, wrapped in the warmth of Thavros’s body while the storm raged in my own head. His steady breathing behind me should have calmed me—it usually did. But tonight, sleep wouldn't come. Not with the memories clawing at the edges of my mind like ghosts who’d finally remembered my name.
I could still feel his touch, his warmth, the way he wrapped around me, shielding me. His whispered declarations. The way he'd held me like I was the most precious thing he'd ever touched. Maybe that’s why the shame burned hotter now than ever.
Because what if he found out what I really was?
What if I already knew?
I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling, barely lit by the firelight still burning in the fireplace. “Thavros,” I whispered, not even knowing if I meant to wake him or just hear the shape of his name on my lips. “I need to tell you something.”
Thavros shifted behind me, his hand immediately reaching, warm and steady, to find mine beneath the furs. “I’m here,” he murmured, voice thick with sleep but still entirely focused on me. “Always.”
That word, always, nearly broke me.
“I remember more,” I whispered, swallowing hard. “Not everything. Just... pieces. It’s like trying to grab mist. I can feel it all around me, but when I reach for it—” My voice cracked.
He moved beside me, pulling himself up so we were eye to eye. “Whatever it is, tell me,” he said, voice gentler than I deserved.
I took a breath, and the words came in a rush. “My mother was... she was divine. Aphrodite’s bloodline. But she died when I was little. My father was kind, but he—he gambled. He owed a debt to the Westerly Clan. When they found out what I was, they took me. As payment.”
Thavros' jaw clenched, but he didn’t speak. He simply listened, hand still holding mine like an anchor in the storm.
“I lived amongst the orcs and goblins of the Westerly Clan for years. I was provided for with food and shelter, but I was never cared for, never loved. They call me a gift,” I said bitterly. “But I wasn’t. I was leverage.”
I paused, unsure how to shape the next part into words that made any sense. “Things were… tolerable, at first. Strange, but not cruel. Then everything changed.”
