Chapter 106
Chapter 106
A7%
Axel
The world is quiet, but it’s not peace. It’s pressure. It’s a silence that stretches too long, like the held breath before a scream, or after one that left nothing
behind.
Elvira is still beneath me. Trembling. Red–eyed. Blood–slicked. Too still. My hands are shaking even though I’m trying to be steady. My throat is raw, stripped from yelling her name like it might summon her soul back into her body.
The mist curls backward, slow as regret. It slips away like water recoiling from a blade, and yet the burn it carved into her skin lingers.
She isn’t screaming anymore. That’s the worst part.
“Elvira,” I whisper, afraid that the sound of her name might be the last string keeping me tethered to the moment.
She doesn’t answer.
Her eyes are closed now. Lashes wet and sticky with clumpy blood. Her chest rises in shallow, uneven breaths. I don’t know if she hears me. I don’t know if she is still in there. I have no idea how the mist works. What it does to a person.
What I do know, however, is that I need to get her the hell away from here.
I scoop her up, pressing her against my chest. Her skin is too cold. Her heartbeat is barely a tremor. I wrap her in my coat that I plucked out of one of the backpacks earlier, holding her like the last lit match in a blizzard, and start moving.
“I got you,” I tell her, but there’s no response.
She is in shock.
Of course she is.
The forest feels haunted. Dead.
Even the air won’t speak. No birds. No beasts. No wind through the branches. Just the crunch of dying leaves beneath my feet and the throb of her silence against my ribcage.
Each step rattles through my spine. Her weight isn’t much, but she feels heavy in a way that has nothing to do with mass, more like I’m carrying everything I didn’t say sooner.
I find the cave I was looking for. A training landmark tucked halfway between Dream Court’s border and the abandoned outposts. It’s barely more than a shadow in the rocks, but it’s hidden. Safe. Quiet.
I lower her onto the softest patch of moss and kneel beside her, breathing hard. Her lips are pale. Her fingers twitch, then still.
And I break.
I drop to my knees beside her and rake a hand through my hair. “I didn’t think it would be this bad,” I whisper. “I thought… I thought you would be scared. Maybe pissed. But not…”
Not this ghost version of you. Not this shell.
My fingers tremble as I grab the water pouch. I soak a cloth and press it to her face. Blood smears across her temple. She still doesn’t flinch.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, throat tight. “I was trying to save you. I didn’t know the mist would…”
Her mouth moves. Barely.
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Chapter 106
“Cold,” she breathes.
My heart jerks. I lift her hand and press it between mine. “You’re awake.”
“Sort of.” Her voice is brittle, like wind through frostbitten branches. “Where are we?”
“Safe. Hidden. It’s just us now.”
She shifts, trying to sit. I gently press against her shoulder. “Don’t move.”
“I… I can’t see.”
My stomach turns. “It’s temporary.”
She tilts her head slightly. “You’re lying.”
“No. I’m hoping.”
Silence.
Then, a whisper so soft it barely survives the space between us; “Why didn’t you leave me?”
I smile. It’s fragile. Honest. “Because I can’t.”
Her lip trembles. “I didn’t think anyone would stay.”
“I’m not anyone.”
She blinks sightless eyes at me. “Axel…”
I take her hands and wrap them in mine. “I’ve got you.”
The air shifts. The hush outside deepens. The trees feel like they are listening
now.
I pull her carefully into my lap. Her ear rests over my heart, and she lets out a shaky breath when she hears it. A living metronome. A promise.
“I think I’m going to cry,” she mumbles.
“Go ahead.”
“I hate crying.”
“Then don’t call it that. Call it leaking.”
She huffs a sound that almost resembles a laugh. “You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah,” I murmur into her hair. “But I’m your idiot.”
“My idiot?”
“I’m your mate, aren’t I?”
There’s a sob ripping from her lips, as if she needef to hear that. Then she curls tighter against me like she is trying to make herself smaller. I keep my arms around her, a shield she didn’t ask for but isn’t pushing away either.
She is so small.
Delicate.
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Chapter 106
My fingers stroke over her clammy skin. “Schhh, take it easy. I’m here.”
That does it. Her breathing calms and then she presses her face into my chest like she is trying to become one with me. I would tease her about it if the weren’t in such bad shape. Call her a pervert for using my pectoral as her pillow.
But I don’t.
I just continue to soothe her and eventually she falls asleep. Draped hands stop shaking.
I think we are closer now.
My mate is safe. Not dead. My fingers keep touching her, but
my
heart
my lap. Her breathing shallow but steady. And for the first time in hours, my
feels heavy. Whatever the mist did to her, it changed something, In her. In me.
I don’t know what comes next. But I know one thing: I’m not letting go.
We stay like that for hours. Elvira sleeps in my lap…until a dream wakes her.
She jerks upright in my lap, gasping. Eyes wide. Red. Empty.
“Elvira?”
She turns toward my voice. “Something is wrong.”
My heart stumbles.
Her eyes glow faintly. Mist white. Like she brought something back with her.
She trembles and grips my muscular shoulders like she is trying to hold herself in place. Then her bottom lip trembles while the tears pour.
“Axel… I… I can’t see. I think… Fuck… I’m blind!”
AD
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