Page 45 of Claimed In Darkness

45

ZEPHIRAN

I find her in the ruins of what used to be a temple. I chased her here.

The stone is cracked, the pillars jagged where time and war have torn them apart.

She stands in the center of it all, bathed in moonlight, as if she belongs to the wreckage.

As if she was always supposed to be something untouchable.

And still, I step toward her.

I never could stay away from her.

She does not run.

She watches me.

Silent.

Still.

Not the way she used to, with fire in her veins and a blade hidden behind her back.

Not like a woman waiting for a fight.

But like a queen waiting for her executioner.

She already knows what happens next.

It’s as if she’s letting this happen .

I despise myself for chasing her here. I can’t give her up.

I also hate her for making me come here, for making me see what she has become.

For making me do this.

We both know?—

I should kill her.

Right now.

While I still can.

Before she becomes something I cannot stop.

But instead, I touch her.

She feels like a ghost.

My hand finds her waist first, fingers pressing against the fabric of her tunic, sliding lower, desperate for something real.

For something human.

But her skin is too cool.

Her breath too shallow.

Her pulse is even more slower than last time.

Fainter.

Like she is already standing on the precipice of something I cannot reach.

Her lips part slightly, letting out a breath.

A whisper of something close to recognition.

As if some small, broken piece of her still knows me.

Still remembers me.

Still wants me.

And I crave it.

I fucking use it.

I lean in, pressing my forehead against hers, closing my eyes, pretending?—

Just for a second?—

That she is still mine.

That she never left.

That she never made her choice.

And then?—

I kiss her.

The kiss isn’t mean to save. It is a kiss meant to destroy us both.

A clash of teeth and breath and too many things we never said.

A last, violent claim on something already lost.

A reminder?—

That I was hers first.

And she was mine.

Before the High Council.

Before the relic.

Before the hunger inside her grew too deep to fight.

She was mine.

If this is truly the final moment before she becomes my enemy?—

Then I will make sure she fucking remembers.

Her body presses into mine, her fingers curling in my shirt, pulling me closer, anchoring herself in this moment, in me.

She does not kiss me like a woman who has already made her choice.

She kisses me like she is still fighting it.

Like she is still trying to convince herself that this is the right path.

Like she does not want to lose me any more than I want to lose her.

And I almost believe it.

Her hands become warm against my chest.

She still gasps when I press her against the crumbling stone, when I nip at her bottom lip, when I drag my teeth along her throat.

This time, she feels like mine.

I want her to be.

Even now.

Even when I know better.

But when she pulls away, I’m back to reality.

Her breath is uneven, her pupils blown wide, her body still pressed against mine?—

But the Naira I know has disappeared.

She is not looking at me.

Not really.

She is looking past me.

To the ruins.

To the world she has already chosen.

To the thing that has already stolen her away from me.

She does not apologize. Never a word of sorry.

Not for making me love her more than I should have.

Not for making me come here just to watch her walk away again.

I feel it in the space between us.

The truth she will not say, what we both know.

That I will not see her again.

Not as my Naira.

Not as someone who still looks at me like I am something to hold on to.

Not someone who still remembers what I meant to her.

I swallow, voice rough, raw, hollow when I finally speak.

"Is this the last time?"

She does not answer.

Words aren’t even enough to explain.

She doesn’t lie, not with some cruel, cutting remark that would make this easier to fucking hate her for.

She just looks at me.

Her silence is the best answer, and I cannot breathe past it.

She leaves again, not because I believe this is right.

But because I cannot make her choose me.

She has already decided to accept what she’s becoming.

I am not part of it.

She does not look back.

Not even when she reaches the edge of the ruins, when the shadows seem to close around her, when I feel the last string between us snap.

There’s no Naira. Never an us.