Page 59 of Claimed In Darkness

59

NAIRA

I shouldn’t be breathing.

I shouldn’t be.

But I am and the first thing I feel is him.

Zephiran weight, his body caging mine, his arms wrapped around me like he is trying to keep me here by force.

As if he thinks I will slip away again if he lets go.

His breath is ragged against my skin, his fingers still curled too tightly around me.

And his heartbeat.

Too slow.

Too strange.

He did something.

Something wrong and irrevocable.

I try to move.

I can’t.

My body is not my own.

My pulse isn’t right. The air in my lungs feels foreign.

It’s as if it doesn’t belong to me anymore.

Like it was forced back into me by something unnatural.

Something that shouldn’t have worked.

My throat tightens, and I push against him.

"Zephiran,” I call out.

He doesn’t react at first.

Like he doesn’t want to move and look at me.

He knows exactly what I’m about to say.

I shove him back, gasping, coughing, fighting to sit up, to breathe, to fucking understand what he has done to me.

And when his eyes meet mine?—

I see what he gave up and I wish I had stayed dead.

His eyes?—

They aren’t his anymore.

Not completely.

There’s something wrong in them.

Something missing. Taken.

And when I touch him, he flinches.

Not because I hurt him.

But because he isn’t the same man anymore. Whatever he did to bring me back, it took something from him.

Something he will never get back and it breaks my heart open all over again.

"What did you do?" I whisper, my voice shaking.

Zephiran doesn’t answer.

He just watches me as if he is memorizing this moment.

What the fuck did he do?

"You were dead," he says.

His voice, it’s not the same.

It’s lower. Rougher.

Like he is speaking from somewhere else entirely.

Somewhere I cannot follow.

I swallow hard.

"And now I’m not."

His jaw locks.

"Because of me,” he replies, a smile gracing his lips.

I shudder. The smile isn’t entirely his.

"Tell me what you did," I breathe.

"Tell me the fucking truth."

And when he speaks, it destroys me even more.

"I gave it my soul, Naira."

My stomach drops.

"I traded it for yours."

And I stop breathing all over again.

He gave up his soul to bring me back.

Not his life. Not his magic. Not his strength.

His soul.

The one thing you can never take back.

The air is colder around him and his presence feels different, sharper, darker.

The way his heart is still beating but something else is missing.

I want to kill him for it.

"You fucking bastard."

His mouth curves slightly.

Not a smirk.

Not satisfaction.

Something closer to defeat.

"You’re welcome."

I shove him away. This is not what I wanted.

This is not what I asked for.

This is not something I can forgive.

He didn’t just save me.

He damned himself to do it.

I was ready to die.

Should I hate him? Love him?

Maybe both.

Maybe always.

For all eternity.