Page 150 of Sweet Obsession

We ran. Limped. Crawled.

Behind us, I heard Chernov’s scream echo into the night. Vengeful. Promising hell.

We didn’t stop.

Not until we were miles away. Covered in blood. Alive.

But barely.

Chapter 23

MISHA

The first thing that hit me was the scent, sterile, like antiseptic and painkillers. The second thing was the dull ache that stretched across every inch of my body, a reminder of how close I’d come to not waking up at all.

I opened my eyes, blinking at the dim light overhead, the ceiling unfamiliar. It took a few seconds for my brain to catch up with my surroundings.

I was back at the estate.

But how?

The thought left me groggy. I tried to sit up, only to feel the pull of bandages around my throat, my wrists. I groaned, the sound raw and jagged in my chest. The pain was immediate, sharp, and deep, but it wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was the emptiness that flooded my veins when I remembered what had happened—what I’d almost lost.

Luna.

A twinge of panic shot through me. I forced my eyes to focus, and it took another second to see her, sitting by the window, her back to me. She was still. Too still. And she was staring out into the yard like the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

She hadn’t been the same since everything went down. I hadn’t been the same, either. But I hadn’t had the time or the luxury of reckoning with what had happened, what she’d done for me.

What she had become.

I’d known her as a weakness, something to control. Something delicate. But when she’d thrown herself into the chaos to save me, that was the moment I realized I didn’t understand her at all. I thought I had power over her. I thought I had all the answers.

But she had taken control in the most brutal way, and I was still here because of her.

It wasn’t just the rescue. It was the way she fought. The way she didn’t hesitate.

I took a shallow breath and winced. My throat burned like fire, and it was all I could do to force my body to cooperate with the overwhelming desire to move. To get to her.

She hadn’t waited for my permission. She hadn’t even cared what it would cost. She’d seen the path and taken it, without hesitation. And in that, I saw the strength I had ignored for so long.

She was no longer a fragile thing to protect.

She was the storm.

I swallowed hard, managing to push myself up a little more, leaning against the pillows. My body was a mass of aches, bruises, and blood—too many reminders of the battle I’d barely survived.

“Luna,” I rasped, the word barely more than a whisper, but it sliced through the quiet of the room.

She didn’t turn at first. But then, slowly, as though the sound of my voice was a rope pulling her from the edge of her own thoughts, she did.

Her eyes locked on mine. There was no relief in her gaze. No joy, no peace. Only the cold distance that hadn’t been there before. Her lips tightened, but I saw the way she flinched, the way the breath she took was uneven.

She didn’t know how to deal with me anymore.

I could feel the divide between us, thick and suffocating. It had never been there before. She was different now. I wasn’t sure what it was. But I knew it. She was stronger than I’d ever realized, and the change was unsettling. Because it meant she wasn’t the woman I could manipulate anymore. She was something else.

“Luna, I...” The words were harder to say than I thought they would be. A part of me didn’t know if I deserved to speak them at all. But I had to.