Chapter 394: "The end is here" 1
GABRIEL
My eyes dragged open like they didn’t belong to , slow and stubborn, as if waking up was sothing my body hadn’t agreed to yet. The ceiling above
was the first thing I saw, pale stone stretched wide and spotless, too clean in a way that made my chest tighten. I lay there for a mont, trying to anchor myself, trying to understand why everything felt so distant, like I’d been dropped into soone else’s life without warning.
It ca back in pieces.
The infirmary.
That was where I was.
My hand moved before I could think it through, fingers pressing against my throat, searching, expecting sothing. A tear. A ridge. Pain. Anything that would match what I rembered. But there was nothing. I only felt smooth skin under my touch.
I froze there, fingertips lingering like they didn’t trust what they were feeling.
Because I rembered it too clearly. The way that bastard had hurt
badly without rcy. I rembered the sharp, ripping pain that had stolen the air from my lungs before I could even react. I rembered the blood, hot and thick, spilling faster than I could stop it, the way my body had jerked helplessly as I tried to breathe through sothing that wouldn’t let . I rembered the panic, raw and choking, as everything narrowed and dimd.
I was at death’s door.
The thought didn’t co with panic. It settled in quietly, like a fact I couldn’t argue with.
I pushed myself upright, slower than I intended, my body lagging behind the command as if it needed ti to catch up. Everything felt off. Heavy in a way that didn’t quite make sense, like I’d been stitched back together wrong or placed into sothing that was supposed to be my vessel but wasn’t entirely mine.
Movent pulled my attention across the room.
Two figures were already closing the distance, their footsteps quick and purposeful. I knew them before they even reached .
Maren and Thorne.
Relief flickered across Maren’s face the mont our eyes t, though she tried to keep it contained, like she didn’t want to show too much. "You are awake," she said, her voice careful, steady in a way that felt practiced.
Thorne stopped beside the bed, folding his arms across his chest, his gaze fixed on . There was sothing in his expression I couldn’t quite place. Not relief. Not entirely. Sothing sharper. Sothing that lingered too long.
"How do you feel?" Maren asked.
I opened my mouth, ready to answer, but nothing ca out. The words got stuck sowhere between my chest and my throat, caught on sothing I couldn’t na.
Because it all ca rushing back instead.
Hands holding
down.
The restraints biting into my wrists and ankles, unforgiving, keeping
in place while my body fought against them, muscles straining until they burned. I could feel it again, the violent shaking I hadn’t been able to control, the way my back had arched off the surface beneath
as if my body was trying to tear itself free.
And then—
Her.
The girl.
Fia.
The mory sharpened, cutting through everything else. Her hands on my throat, steady despite the chaos around us. I rembered the mont the light burst from her palms, bright enough to swallow everything, blinding in a way that had made
shut my eyes even as I felt it sink into .
Sothing in my chest tightened, and I sucked in a breath as if I’d been underwater.
"I was healed by that girl," I said, my voice coming out rough, uneven against the silence that had settled in the room. "Fia."
Maren didn’t hesitate. She nodded once, like there was no room for doubt. "She saved your life."
Saved.
The word sat strangely with .
"How?" It slipped out before I could stop it, quieter this ti, edged with sothing I couldn’t quite hide.
Thorne gave a small shrug, like the question didn’t matter, like it wasn’t sothing worth digging into. "Who knows," he said, his tone almost dismissive. "That is just how she is. Thank the goddess that is how she is."
I looked at him, really looked this ti, trying to find sothing in his face that matched the weight of what had happened. But there was nothing there that made sense of it. No explanation. No hesitation.
Just acceptance.
And that unsettled
more than anything else.
Did they not comprehend the word healed?
I was not just patched together. I was not barely surviving. I was completely healed.
All of that damage was gone as it had never existed.
It didn’t make sense.
I should have felt relief. Gratitude, even. I should have clung to the fact that I was still here, still breathing, that whatever had taken
to the edge hadn’t been enough to push
over.
But none of that ca.
Instead, there was this quiet, gnawing sense that sothing wasn’t right, that I had missed sothing important in the space between dying and waking up.
"And what about the traitors?" I asked the question, cutting through the room before I could soften it. My voice ca out harsher than I intended, like it had been dragged over sothing sharp on its way out. "Ronan... Aldric too..."
Maren’s expression shifted imdiately, whatever relief had been there fading into sothing darker and heavier.
"They are dead."
I felt sothing twist in my chest. Sharp and imdiate.
Ronan was dead.
"Thorne will tell Alpha Cian you are awake now," Maren said. She moved toward the cabinets and started organizing supplies.
Thorne turned toward the door.
That was when I raised a hand.
"Wait. Give
a minute to get myself together."
Thorne paused and looked back at .
"Where is the bathroom?" I asked, even though I knew where it was.
He pointed toward a door not too far away.
"Right there."
I nodded and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My feet touched the cold stone floor.
Standing was harder than it should have been.
My legs felt weird. Like I had not gotten full use of them yet. Like they belonged to soone who had been lying down for too long and forgot how to walk properly.
I forced myself upright anyway and took a few unsteady steps toward the bathroom.
Maren watched
carefully.
"Do you need help?"
"No. I am fine."
I was not fine.
But I needed to be alone.
I reached the bathroom door and pushed it open. Then I stepped inside and locked it behind .
The space was small. There was a sink. There was a toilet. There was also a mirror mounted on the wall above the sink.
I leaned over the sink and twisted the faucet, letting the water run for a second before I cupped my hands beneath it. The cold hit my skin hard, sharp enough to pull
fully into the mont, and I splashed it over my face without hesitation. It dripped down my jaw, soaked into the collar of my shirt, but I didn’t care. For a few seconds, it helped. It steadied sothing in
that had been slipping since I woke up.
I stayed there, hands braced against the edge of the sink, breathing slowly, trying to hold onto that feeling.
Then the itch started.
At first, it was faint. Easy to ignore. Just a small irritation sowhere along my upper back, the kind you brush off without thinking. I shifted my shoulders, hoping it would pass.
It didn’t.
It sharpened instead, turning into sothing aner, sothing that dug in deeper with every second. The sensation spread, branching out across my back like it had sowhere to be, like it was following a path I couldn’t see. It wasn’t just an itch anymore. It burned. It crawled. It felt like sothing alive was moving under my skin, slow and deliberate.
I sucked in a breath and reached back, dragging my fingers across the spot, pressing harder than I needed to. It didn’t help. If anything, it made it worse. The mont my nails touched my skin, the sensation flared, hot and angry, like I had disturbed sothing that didn’t want to be touched.
"Shit," I muttered under my breath, twisting awkwardly, trying to reach further, to chase the feeling as it spread beyond where I could comfortably get to.
It was useless.
The itch deepened into sothing unbearable, and a low, frustrated sound built in my chest before I could stop it. I grabbed the hem of my shirt and yanked it over my head, the fabric catching briefly before it ca free. The air against my skin should have cooled
down, but it didn’t. The heat was coming from beneath, from inside, radiating outward like a slow burn I couldn’t escape.
I turned toward the mirror.
For a second, I didn’t understand what I was looking at.
My back—
I shifted, angling myself so I could see better, my breath catching sowhere between my lungs and my throat as the image settled into sothing I could process.
The marks.
They now stretched across my skin in uneven patterns, winding over my shoulders and down my spine.
They weren’t scars. This wasn’t that.
These were... deliberate.
Lines intersected and curved into shapes that didn’t quite make sense, symbols that felt wrong just looking at them. The longer I stared, the harder it beca to focus, like the patterns refused to stay still. There was movent there, subtle but undeniable, as if they were shifting just beneath the surface of my skin, rearranging themselves when I wasn’t looking directly at them.
A slow, creeping unease settled into my chest.
They were burning.
Not figuratively. Not sothing I was imagining because of the itch.
It was actually burning.
I could feel the heat clearly now, pulsing through each mark like sothing had been etched into
with a brand. It spread across my back in waves, each one sharper than the last, until I had to grip the edge of the sink again just to steady myself.
"What the fuck did that bitch do?" I whispered.
The words slipped out, low and rough, before I even registered them.
I went still.
My breath caught.
Wait.
What?
A strange, hollow pause opened up in my head, like sothing had skipped.
I hadn’t ant to say that.
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