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The second my vision clears, I know.

This isn’t a dream.

It’s the Evergloom.

Twisted black trees claw at the sky—if you can even call it that. There’s no moon. No stars. No sun. Just void. And cold. Not the biting kind, but something hollower. A chill that feels like absence, like something here has consumed all the warmth and left behind only hunger.

And him.

Steorfan.

His hand clamps around my wrist, too warm compared to the chill in the air. Shadows slither from beneath his cloak like snakes that’ve been waiting to coil around me again.

I don’t think. I don’t breathe. I twist, rip free, and run .

Branches tear at my arms. Roots catch my ankles. But I push harder, faster, deeper into the unknown.

Around me, the Evergloom stirs—like the trees themselves recoil at what I’ve dared. The air hums, not fury, but something quieter. Surprised. And beneath it… hurt. Not just from the realm. From him.

“You would flee from me,” he murmurs, and there’s something in his tone—something almost wounded. Like he cannot fathom it. Like he expected differently.

I almost look back. Almost falter. Because for a blink—he sounds... hurt. Like I’m the one who crossed some sacred line.

“You should not run here,” he continues, and his voice follows like a chill wind, weaving through the trees. “The Evergloom is not kind to mortals. And I would rip through half my realm to keep you whole within it.”

I shiver from the weight of that statement, but I don’t look back.

Until something stops me.

A sound tears through the air—wrong. Wet and sharp and starving . Shadows peel from the trees around me, but they’re not his. They’re wrong. Misshapen. Glitching. Crawling on too many limbs, moving without rhythm.

I back up.

And slam into him.

Steorfan.

His arm wraps around my waist, yanking me back, shielding me behind his body.

“Stay close.”

“Fuck y?—”

But the creatures are already on us. They charge, snarling and screeching. And my monster— my monster —doesn’t hesitate.

He moves like inevitability. Like a force the world itself cannot stop.

Every motion is precise, devastating—less like a fight, more like a reckoning. One creature lunges, and he meets it mid-leap, catching it by the throat and slamming it to the ground hard enough to rattle the trees. Before another can reach me, his cloak flares and a shadow launches, cleaving through the mist and impaling the creature mid-air—stopping it a breath from tearing into me.

Holy fuck.

I should be running again.

But I can’t seem to move. It’s as if I’m frozen, rooted to the spot.

Because I’ve seen him stalk. I’ve seen him haunt. But I’ve never seen him protect .

And the way he moves—brutal and precise, like every creature that dares to touch me is an offense—does something to me.

It terrifies me.

Awes me.

And somewhere, deep in my chest, it stirs something darker. Something I don’t want to name.

Because I don’t know what’s worse—watching him kill for me.

Or how it makes me feel.

I shake myself. No, he killed Donovan and Jenna. And no telling how many others in my life. I can not start feeling some type a way about my fucking monster. I need to move. I refuse to become his next prey.

Something in the fog moves and it’s not like one of the creatures he’s fighting. It’s smaller, smarter, and it slithers toward me through the haze, low to the ground. No snarls. No noise. Just that steady, inevitable crawl.

Then—

A shadow peels away from its body and slides toward me. It moves across the ground like oil on water. And when it touches my ankle— I freeze .

It’s cold and heavy. Suffocating. It steals my breath. But the thing is?

It’s not wholly unfamiliar.

No. I know this.

I know the way it presses against my skin.

This is what Steorfan used to feel like.

Before he found me in Creek Haven. Before the aching intimacy and the twisted comfort. Back when he was just a shadow. A monster.

The creature’s shadow slides higher—across my thigh, my waist. My heart stutters. My chest locks.

This is the feeling that haunted my childhood. That made me afraid to sleep. That whispered to me from the closet, from beneath the bed, from the corners of my mind.

But this isn’t Steorfan.

It only feels like how he used to be.

And somehow, that’s worse.

Because it means…

He doesn’t feel that way anymore.

The realization slams into me.

Steorfan is still a monster. But he’s changed. Or I have.

And I’m not afraid of him anymore.

I’m afraid of this. This reminder of who I used to be. Of what I used to fear.

The panic snaps through me like a live wire. My body crumples to the cold ground and I can’t breathe. Not only because the shadow is choking me. Because the truth is, too.

I claw at my chest. At the ground. At the mist. But it’s everywhere. I’m shaking, curling inward, my heartbeat skipping and stalling like it’s trying to vanish.

“Stop,” I whisper. “Stop, stop, stop?—”

The shadow presses tighter.

And then?—

It disappears.

Torn away in a single motion, yanked backward like a weed ripped from the soil.

Steorfan doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t even look at me. He’s already charging toward the thing that touched me, shadows writhing like blades around his arms.

He crashes into the creature like a hurricane made of shadow and rage.

It screeches, flailing, but it’s over in seconds. Black ichor splatters across the trees and I’m left trembling, gasping, shivering on the ground.

Then—

A single shadow—his—coils around my shoulders like a scarf. Another settles at my back, pushing gently between my shoulder blades. Not tight. Not claiming.

Steady.

Another presses to my chest, right over my heart and pulses, matching my breath. Guiding it. Slowing it.

In. Out. In. Out.

His shadows—Steorfan’s—aren’t restraining me. They’re supporting me. They’re trying to keep me together.

I start to sob, broken and silent, tears carving cold paths down my cheeks. Because I realize—this is the first time his touch has ever felt like care. Not terror. Not possession. Not power.

But compassion.

And that’s what breaks me.

Because it’s real.

And it’s him.

One tendril slips down, brushing along my hand—curling gently into my fingers like it’s asking to be held. I don’t mean to squeeze back.

But I do.

And something inside me shatters.

He’s trying—in his way—to help me breathe.

To calm me.

To protect me.

And I hate it.

Because it’s working.

I sob harder, the panic now tangled with shame. With guilt. With this horrible, crawling confusion in my chest.

My vision blurs. My limbs go weak. And even as I try to fight it, I feel the shadows wrapping tighter—not to hold me down, but to keep me safe—as the panic finally rips me under.

Darkness folds over me.

And I pass out in the arms of my monster.