Page 52 of Thane's Demon
21
CALL TO MY HERO
The moment my thumb hovered over his name on my phone, my heart nearly punched its way out of my ribs. I knew I shouldn’t rely on him. I knew I shouldn’t pull him into my fear, not when he had his own life. His own world full of shadows and violence, that I kept pretending I didn’t notice clinging to him.
But the trembling in my hands refused to stop, my breath came too thin, too fast. Because that man was still outside the library doors, waiting with the kind of stillness that meant intent rather than coincidence. I told myself I would be brave on my own. I told myself I could handle this without him. But the truth was that the moment danger wrapped around me with the same suffocating weight it had in that alleyway, there was only one name my mind could hold on to, and it was his.
I pressed call.
The line rang once, barely even that, before his voice filled my ear. He didn’t sound like the Thane who had teased me through messages last night. He did not sound like the Thane who had sat across from me at the cafe, guarded and clipped. His voice was low, urgent, and wrapped in a kind of quiet steel thatmade the air around me change. He spoke my name as if he had been holding back a storm all morning.
“Alora.”
“Thane,” I replied, and he must have heard something in my tone that instantly put him in protective mode.
“What’s happened? Are you alright?” The urgency was now there, like a tangible threat to anyone who might have hurt me.
“There is… is someone…” My voice came out too shaky to finish, but it turned out that I didn’t need to.He knew.
“Tell me where you are.”
I swallowed, forcing my voice to work past the tightness in my throat.
“I’m in the library. There’s someone outside. He keeps watching me. I think he followed me here.”
There was silence on the line for barely a heartbeat. I heard his breathing change, deepening with something dark and controlled. I heard the faintest scrape of wind. And then I heard something else, low and cold and filled with possession so intense it made my skin prickle.
“Hide,”he said, the word firm yet gentle. “Right now, Alora. Do you hear me? You need to hide. Don’t let anyone see you.”
“Okay,”I whispered, my breath shaking as I glanced toward the front of the library. The silhouette was still there, unmoving, as if he could sense I was just beyond reach. The library being an unlikely haven for me, one too public for the man to do whatever he had been sent to, which only made me question further… why me?
“Thane, he’s waiting for me to come out.”
“Hide,”he repeated, softer now, yet somehow stronger. “Find a corner. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere no one can walk past without you seeing them first.” I nodded despite him not being able to see me, acting on instinct and feeling better knowing he would be on his way.
I moved through the library quickly but quietly, weaving between shelves, deeper and deeper into the sections few students bothered to use. Ancient history, obscure literature, research journals. The air grew cooler the further in I went, and the hum of conversation faded until all I could hear were my own footsteps and the frantic beat of my pulse. I finally ducked into a small storage alcove where the heavy reference books were kept, the ceiling lower, the shelves taller, forming a narrow pocket of privacy.
“I’m hiding,”I whispered into the phone, pressing my hand to my mouth to steady the tremble in my voice.
“Good,” he murmured, and the sound of that single word seemed to wrap around me like a shield. “Now listen to me. You are safe. I’m coming for you. I want you to stay quiet, stay still, and be my brave girl for just a little longer.” The words settled through me with a warmth so fierce it nearly knocked me to my knees. No one had ever spoken to me like that, not with such certainty. Not with such belief or with such absolute devotion buried beneath the hardness of his tone.
“I’m scared,”I whispered, ashamed of how weak it sounded.
“I know,” he said, and there was a gentleness in his voice that melted something inside me. “But you’re not alone. I’m already on my way.”
I closed my eyes, letting the tone of his voice steady the air in my lungs. For a moment, it was enough. For a moment, the fear loosened its grip. But then a faint scuff of movement reached the quiet space around me. One too close, too slow and too deliberate to be an accident.
Footsteps.
Heavy ones.
My stomach dropped.
“Thane,”I choked out, voice barely a breath. “Someone’s here.”
His tone sharpened instantly.
“Don’t move. Don’t speak unless you have to. I’m almost there, little dreamer. Just hold on for me.” After that, the line abruptly went dead, and I felt my heart seize.
