Felicity's Beas Chapter 75: Shaking

Chapter 75: Shaking

Because in that half-second, his attention fractured Victor saw it.

He did not shout.

He did not warn.

He moved.

The strike was not wild.

Victor stepped inside the Supre’s open flank and drove his fist upward into the precise point beneath the ribcage that the Supre had exposed when he turned.

Not brute force.

Angle.

Compression.

The impact landed deep The Supre’s breath left him in a sharp, involuntary expulsion.

Victor followed imdiately, driving a second strike into the side of his jaw with everything Felicity’s wild surge had amplified.

Bone cracked like a frozen branch beneath a winter boot.

The sound wet, sharp, final echoed in the sudden silence.

The Supre staggered sideways, his expression flickering between disbelief and fury. This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening. Not to him.

His knees betrayed him, folding inward like paper sculptures in rain.

Blood thick, dark, royal cascaded from his mouth in a crimson waterfall, spattering the pristine floor with evidence of his new mortality.

Ivan entered from the opposite side, slamming into the Supre’s injured ribs with his shoulder and driving him backward into the fractured pillar Voss had cracked earlier.

Stone gave way.

The Supre hit it hard enough that dust exploded outward For a split second, the chamber stilled.

The guards at the doorway did not breathe. The generals who had arrived monts earlier did not move.

They had never seen him take a clean hit like that.

The Supre pushed off the broken pillar. Blood streaked down his chin His breathing was heavier now His eyes flicked once toward Voss on the floor.

Then toward Felicity.

She was shaking.

Not looking at him.

Not reaching toward him. She had dropped to her knees beside Voss and pressed her hands to his chest, pouring everything she had into him.

Her scent hit him like shattered glass panic and fear and sothing worse. But not for the Supre. For the crumpled form on the ground.

No. Impossible. She couldn’t care for.

"Look what you’ve done to her," he growled, voice like gravel. "She’s shaking."

Victor’s massive fra eclipsed her completely, shoulders hunched, hands curled into weapons. "You put him down like garbage."

"And you drained her dry for your advantage."

The Supre’s muscles bunched, his stance sloppy with rage. When he sprang forward, spittle flew from his lips.

Victor didn’t flinch.

The exchange was faster now, less technical and more brutal. Blood slicked the Supre’s palm where Ivan’s earlier cut had reopened. Victor’s lip was split wide. Ivan circled, searching for openings.

The Supre struck Ivan across the temple with enough force to drop him to one knee.

Victor drove forward again, slamming his forearm into the Supre’s throat.

The Supre caught it, twisted, and drove a knee into Victor’s side. Victor grunted but did not retreat.

Behind them, Voss inhaled sharply Felicity’s hands were still pressed to his chest.

Her ability surged again, uncontrolled but focused entirely on bringing him back.

"Coback," she whispered.

The Supre heard it And still, he twisted it in his mind She is overwheld She is being forced to choose betweenthem.

She would not have chosen this He drove forward one more ti, aiming to break Victor’s stance entirely.

Victor absorbed the blow and, with a final violent shift of weight, drove his elbow into the already fractured section of the Supre’s jaw.

There was a sickening crack The Supre’s vision blurred for half a second.

Just enough.

Ivan rose and slamd into his midsection again.

Victor followed with a final, brutal strike to the temple.

The Supre collapsed.

Not dead.

But unconscious.

Silence swallowed the chamber. Only ragged breathing remained.

For several heartbeats, everyone stood frozen like statues in a forgotten temple.

The doorway guards’ eyes widened, disbelief etched across their faces.

On cracked stone lay their commander the unbreakable one broken.

A weak cough escaped Voss’s lips.

Relief flooded through Felicity as she collapsed over him, a sob tearing from her throat.

Victor’s massive fra turned with deliberate slowness, his chest rising and falling like a bellows.

With the back of his hand, Ivan sared crimson from his mouth.

Victory songs remained unsung.

No champion erged from the dust.

Because the base had just watched sothing irreversible happen.

The man who regulated access the man who enforced containnt.

Had been beaten in front of them.

And the scent of fox still lingered thick in the air.

The sound of the Supre hitting the floor did not echo the way it should have.

Sam’s shattered field still warped the air just enough to swallow the sharpest edges of impact, so when his body struck cracked stone it landed heavy and final, but muted. For a long second no one moved. The guards at the doorway stood frozen in the half-step between instinct and training. The generals did not rush forward. The base itself seed to hold its breath.

Voss lay several feet away, equally still That was what broke her.

Felicity did not look at the Supre. She did not care that the man who had regulated the entire city lay unconscious and bleeding at her feet. Her world narrowed to the broad shape on the floor that had shielded her a hundred tis without asking for recognition.

She dropped beside Voss so fast her knees scraped against fractured tile. Her hands landed on his chest with more force than control, fingers splayed wide as if she could physically hold his heart in place.

"Voss," she breathed.

No response.

His skin was warm. His pulse was present but irregular, disrupted by the precise blow that had dropped him. She could feel where the strike had landed even without touching the back of his neck. The Supre had not hit wildly. He had targeted the nervous junction cleanly.

"I’m sorry," she whispered automatically.

Her palms heated.

The first layer of her ability moved into him like a steady infusion. Not bloom. Not the riotous surge from monts before. This was deeper. Focused. Structural. She slid into the internal lattice of his body and began realigning what had been disrupted.

Her breath steadied as she worked.

The chamber remained silent except for the ragged breathing of the n who had just fought. Victor stood a few steps away, blood slicking his knuckles, watching her with a focus that bordered on reverence. Ivan leaned back against a cracked pillar, one hand pressed to his ribs, eyes locked on her hands as if sheer will could reinforce her effort. Damien crouched behind her, body angled protectively toward the doorway.

The Supre remained where he had fallen.

Unconscious.

Alive.

No one moved to help him.

Felicity pushed deeper She was not patching a surface wound. She was stabilizing neural misfire, restoring the pathway the strike had disrupted. Her energy threaded through muscle fibers and into the spine, reinforcing signal conduction, smoothing jagged interference. She felt the cost imdiately. Her limbs began to tremble, but she did not pull back.

"I’m sorry," she murmured again, quieter this ti.

Voss’s chest hitched.

A rough breath tore free.

Relief flooded her so sharply she almost sagged forward.

His eyes fluttered open slowly, unfocused at first. When they found her, sothing warm and fierce settled into his expression.

"You’re crying," he said hoarsely.

She hadn’t realized she was.

"I failed," she whispered. "I should have-"

His hand moved, slower than usual but steady, and cupped the back of her head.

"No."

The single word was firm despite his condition Behind her, Victor stepped closer. Ivan straightened from the pillar. Damien’s hand slid to her shoulder.

The generals at the doorway shifted uneasily One of them cleared his throat, perhaps to speak, perhaps to reassert order.

Damien stood.

He did not raise his voice, but sothing in the way he moved cut through the room.

"Leave," he said.

The general stiffened.

"This is a command level-"

Damien’s gaze t his without heat, but without compromise.

"You just watched your commander try to take her by force and lose," he said evenly. "You will either remove yourselves from this room or I will remove you."

The chamber held its breath again guards did not step forward, They were watching the generals now.

The first general hesitated only a fraction of a second before nodding "Clear the chamber," he ordered quietly It was not shouted.

It did not need to be.

Boots shifted. Steel scraped lightly against tile as weapons were lowered. Within monts the doorway was empty The generals left last.

The door slid shut.

Only then did the tension release enough for Felicity to exhale properly.

She stayed on her knees beside Voss, one hand still on his chest as if she did not quite trust the stability she had restored.

"I’m sorry," she said again, softer now.

Victor knelt in front of her.

He did not take her hands away from Voss. He did not interrupt her healing. He simply reached up and wiped a streak of blood from her cheek where she must have brushed against soone mid-fight.

"No more of that," he said.

She shook her head.

"I should have controlled the bloom better. I should have-"

Ivan stepped closer and crouched beside her other side "You did exactly what you needed to do," he said quietly.

"I made it worse."

"You exposed it," Damien corrected from behind her. "There’s a difference."

Voss shifted beneath her hands, pushing himself slowly upright with a low grunt. His strength was not fully restored yet, but it was returning "You think you caused this," he said. "You didn’t."

She looked at him helplessly.

"He knocked youout."

"And I got up," he replied.

Her throat tightened again.

"I’m sorry."

Victor leaned forward and pressed his forehead briefly to hers "You do not apologise for surviving," he said.

Ivan’s hand slid to the back of her neck, not possessive, but grounding.

"You don’t apologise for choosing."

Damien crouched again, wrapping both arms around her from behind and pressing a firm kiss into her hair.

"You don’t apologize for needing protection."

Voss reached up and brushed his thumb across her cheek.

"And you definitely don’t apologize for healing."

The repetition of the word sorry caught in her throat. It had beco reflex. An automatic response to conflict. To instability. To being at the center of sothing too large.

She looked at each of them.