Page 30 of Claimed In Darkness

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ZEPHIRAN

S omething is wrong with her.

She thinks I don’t notice.

She thinks I’m blind to the way she moves differently now, the way her hands tremble when she thinks I’m not looking, the way her pulse jumps just beneath her throat.

But I notice everything.

And I don’t like it. Not one bit.

She’s hiding something big.

And worse—I don’t know if it has anything to do with the High Council, or the heist, or the fact that she just let me have her the way she swore she never would.

Or if it has to do with me.

With the curse.

With whatever the fuck she did when she bled for me.

The thought of not knowing is driving me insane.

We’ve been riding for hours, leaving the ruined vault and the High Council’s wrath far behind.

The wind is cold, cutting through the damp heat of the undercity’s outskirts, but she doesn’t shiver.

She just stares ahead, her fingers tight around the reins of her horse, her body too stiff, too tense.

Like she’s preparing for something. As if she knows something I don’t.

That alone is enough to fucking set my teeth on edge.

I steer my mount closer to hers, keeping my voice low, controlled.

"You going to tell me what’s wrong with you?"

She doesn’t even glance at me.

"Nothing’s wrong."

A lie.

She says it too quickly, too smoothly.

She doesn’t even try to sell it.

That’s what pisses me off the most.

That she thinks she can just bury it, whatever the hell it is, and I’ll let her.

Like I don’t have the right to know.

Like I don’t own every inch of her already.

I exhale slowly, clenching my jaw, trying to keep the rage buried.

"Try again," I murmur, voice low, rough.

She glances at me, her expression blank, her mouth pressing into something like amusement.

"You worried about me, Zephiran?"

It’s a taunt.

A weak one.

She knows how to deflect, how to poke at me until I let the conversation die.

And normally, I would.

Normally, I’d let her keep her little damning secrets, let her stew in her own silence, let her dig herself deeper into whatever pit she’s pretending not to be sinking into.

Unfortunately, I can’t.

Not after what she gave me.

Not after last night, with the way she came undone under me. With the way she let me take everything, and how she moaned my name like it was a prayer and a curse in the same breath.

I pull my horse to a stop.

So does she.

The wind howls between us, rattling the dying leaves from the trees.

She looks at me.

I stare at her.

The world goes still.

That’s when I feel it.

A presence of something wrong, something familiar.

An aroma carried on the wind—rose oil and temple incense.

My breath locks in my throat.

How can I forget that aroma?

I know it better than I know my own fucking curse.

The space shifts.

The shadows move.

She steps into view.

And everything inside me stops.

My body locks, ice and fire colliding under my skin.

I can’t breath, and my muscles seem to spasm.

She is in front of me. Whole and alive.

Aereth.

My Aereth.

The woman I watched die.

The woman my father killed.

She should be rotting in the void. Below the cliffs.

Someone like her should be a ghost, a nightmare, a fucking memory.

But she is here.

Her dark eyes glow with something unnatural, her long hair whipping in the wind, her lips curved into something soft, something cruel.

"Hello, Zephiran," she murmurs.

She makes it sound as if she never left. Like she never fucking died.

It’s as if she didn’t tear my heart out the day she slipped through my fingers and fell into the abyss.

My chest tightens, something cold curling around my heart, something ancient and horrible and hungry.

This is not fucking real.

I swallow hard, forcing my voice out.

"Aereth?"

Her lips curve higher.

"As if you don’t recognize me."

I can’t speak.

Can’t fucking think.

She is in front of me, standing on solid ground, breathing, speaking.

And I feel?—

Nothing.

No relief.

No joy.

Just cold.

Just the nagging, quiet whisper of something wrong.

Something in the back of my skull screaming that this isn’t real, that this is a trick, that this is a trap.

But I don’t care. Deep down, all that matters is she’s here.

I feel Naira before I see her.

Feel the way her body stiffens beside me, feel the way her breath catches, feel the implications of her silence pressing against my nape.

She is not stupid.

She sees what’s happening.

She’s witnessing the way Aereth looks at me.

She notices the way I haven’t moved.

And I know exactly what she’s thinking.

She’s not the first.

I’ve done this before with another woman.

With someone who isn’t her.

Naira says nothing.

And I feel the slow, creeping distance already settling in.

The way she is shutting me out before I can even decide what the fuck this means.

I feel the slow, sickening pull of something I don’t recognize.

Guilt.

I refused to look at her, Becausef I do, I won’t be able to stop her from seeing the truth.

That I don’t know what this means.

That I don’t understand who I am supposed to want anymore.

Because Aereth is here.

And Naira is watching.

And something deep inside me is crumbling like sand, drifting into the wind.