Page 40 of Claimed In Darkness

40

ZEPHIRAN

I am losing her and there’s no way to stop it.

She stands at the boundary of the firelight, her back turned to me, her shoulders too still, too stiff, too fucking unreadable.

I want her to say something.

To turn around.

To look at me.

To prove to me that she is still in there.

But she doesn’t.

She just watches the flames, silent, waiting, unraveling in my sight.

And I don’t have any idea on how to pull her back.

Perhaps she does not want to come back at all.

The moment the High Council's men disappeared into the trees, something shifted.

Not in the surroundings.

Not in the world.

In her.

I saw it.

The way her fingers flexed at her sides.

The way her pulse barely flickered beneath her skin when I touched her wrist.

The way she stood there, listening to that old bastard’s warning—and did not deny it.

She didn’t argue.

She didn’t spit in his face.

She didn’t tell him he was wrong.

She knows what she is becoming.

She just hasn’t told me.

That is the part that makes my stomach turn.

For all the things we have done to each other—all the lies, all the violence, all the fucking destruction?—

She has never hidden from me.

I move without thinking. Cross the gap between us in two slow steps, every muscle coiled tight, every instinct screaming at me that if I do not reach for her now—I may never reach her again.

"Naira."

She still does not look at me.

Still rooted on the spot as if she has grown roots.

I flex my hands at my sides, forcing myself to stay calm.

Forcing my voice to stay even.

"Tell me what’s happening to you."

She exhales sharply. Not quite a laugh.

Not quite a sigh.

Something in between.

Something too fucking tired.

"You already know."

She says it too easily.

Like it is fact.

Like it is inevitable.

Like she has already accepted it.

I step closer.

She finally turns her head, and I see the sliver of her face, the flicker of firelight casting shadows across her cheekbone, the deep, dark stillness in her eyes.

Not rage.

Not cruelty.

Not even hate.

Nothing.

It breaks my heart to a million shatterede pieces.

"You don’t get to decide this," I say, voice rough, barely controlled.

Her lips curve at the edges.

A mockery of a smirk.

"Don’t I?"

I snap.

Before I can fucking think, I grab her wrist.

Not gentle.

Not careful.

Just desperate. A man who is too afraid to lose everything he never thought he needed.

Her body tenses beneath my grip.

But she does not pull away.

She wants me to see it.

Wants me to feel it.

Wants me to understand.

Her skin is cold.

Not dead.

Not lifeless.

But wrong.

Like the warmth has been drained from her bones, like the blood in her veins is moving too slow, too thick, too fucking unnatural.

Like she is no longer meant to exist in the way she once did.

The pulse beneath my fingers.

Not absent.

Not gone.

But changing.

A slow, shifting rhythm, no longer steady, no longer human.

Something else.

Something worse.

And she is not fighting it.

It dawns to me that she is choosing this.

My grip tightens.

"You don’t have to do this."

She tilts her head slightly, gaze flicking up to mine.

Cool.

Measured.

Distant.

"Do what?"

My throat locks as I do not have an answer.

Fight it? Surrender to it? Give up on me? On us?

She has already done all of those things.

And I am the only one still pretending she hasn’t.

Her lips part, and for a moment—just a fucking moment—I think she might tell me something I want to hear.

Something I can hold onto.

Something I can use to convince myself that there is still time, that I have not already lost her.

But instead—she ends me.

"Would it be so bad?" she murmurs.

The words are soft.

Too soft.

Not a question.

Not a taunt.

A fucking surrender.

Would it be so bad if she wasn’t human anymore?

What if she let it happen?

Would it be a disaster if she gave in?

I feel the breath leave my body, dragged out of me like a fucking death sentence.

She means it.

She has already made up her mind.

Naira is already gone.

And I am too fucking late.

But I can’t let go. I cannot.

I fucking refuse.

If she is going to do this—she is going to look me in the eyes while she does it.

She is going to face me, to tell me to my fucking face that she has given up, that she has stopped fighting, that she is letting the relic take her and that I should just accept it.

She is going to say it.

“Tell me!”

She just watches me.

Cool.

Unbothered.

Like this is not my fucking problem anymore.

Like I should let her go.

I tighten my jaw, forcing my breath steady, forcing my hands not to shake.

"Would it be so bad?" she asks again.

And I already know the answer.

Yes.

Yes, it would be.

Becausef I lose her to this—I lose everything.

But I can’t say it.

I cannot fucking utter the words.

She has already decided for both of us. I have no right. I hurt her first, didn’t I?

This was never my choice.

It was hers.

And she has already made it.