Page 73 of Claimed By the Mothman

She looked up at this impossible, watchful, too-gentle creature, and her chest cracked.

Her mouth opened. “I can’t—this is—”

The words fractured mid-air. She couldn’t breathe around them. He was looking at her like she was made of stars. Like she mattered. Likethismattered.

And all she could see was the diamond on Elinore’s hand. The gentle swell of her stomach. The future Nell had once imagined for herself, now belonging to someone else.

She stumbled back a step, her heart thudding in her throat. The hallway spun. One hand flew to her temple as if she could squeeze out the pressure building behind her eyes.

“I can’t do this,” she gasped.

The building shuddered. Nell reeled as something inside her snapped.

Sig staggered. A glow flared at his chest—brilliant, shivering,wrong. It flickered like a candle caught in a wind. And his face—

She could hardly bear to look at it, as something akin to despair crept across his features.

“I understand,” he said softly.

She gasped, realization knifing through her. “No—”

“I hear your choice. And I accept it.”

“No, wait—”

But he had already closed his eyes. His expression was too calm. Too still. Like someone standing at the edge of a storm with their arms flung open wide to welcome the devastation.

“I surrender the spark between,” he whispered. “I revoke the name etched in me.”

A tremor rippled through the hallway. The walls groaned softly.

“I unbind the vow that never reached bloom.”

Shimmering wisps began to unspool from his skin, hair-thin and luminous, rising like smoke into the still air.

Nell’s vision blurred. “Sig,stop—please—”

“I dissolve the bond before it bears weight,” he said, and now his voice was wrong, thin as paper and fracturing. His antennae twitched, curling inward in distress.

“I free her. I unname what never was.”

“No,” she sobbed, stumbling forward. “No—no—youdon’t get to do that—”

He looked sorrow pooling in his ruby eyes. “I let go.”

“SIG!” The scream tore out of her like it had claws and had waited years to find its way free. She launched forward, catching him by the forearms. His skin burned beneath her palms, and wisps continued to drift up from his body, trailing upward like the ash form a dying fire.

“I’m not saying no,” she gasped. “I’m not—Sig,I’m not sayingno!”

The opal ring on her finger flared white-hot, then red. Pain seared her knuckle, but she didn’t let go. Her fingers clawed tighter around his arms. “I just need—gods,I just need a second—I need—it’s not rejection!”

He blinked at her. Once. Slow.

“No,” she whispered. Then louder: “No.” Her voice cracked with fury. “Don’t you dare do this.”

She slammed her body against his like she could anchor him there with bone and breath and rage alone. Her arms wrapped around him, fierce and unrelenting.

“I didn’t say no,” she chanted against his chest. “I didn’t say no. Ididn’t say no.”