🌙𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡
I woke with a gasp.
Sound burst in my head like a thousand bells clanging at once, sharp and rciless, rattling against my skull until I thought it would split open. Pain seared across my temples, crawling down my neck, every pulse like a hamr blow.
I couldn’t breathe. My lungs seized, a jagged panic tearing through as though Veronique’s hand was still clamped over my throat. My chest locked, ribs refusing to expand, and for a terrible instant I thought I had woken only to die again.
My hands shot up on instinct, clutching my neck. The skin was slick, torn where her nails had bitten deep. But it wasn’t the pain that froze —it was the phantom weight. The mory of her grip, iron and unrelenting, still burned into my flesh.
I curled forward, coughing, dragging in shallow, broken breaths that scraped raw all the way down. Each inhale felt wrong—too thin, too fragile—as though the air itself might abandon if I dared let go.
The horror didn’t lift with consciousness. It clung like a shadow, pressing against , whispering she was still there, that if I dared close my eyes again, she’d finish what she started.
I squeezed my throat tighter, as if I could anchor myself against that phantom, as if I could keep her hands away by holding the place she had owned only monts before.
And still, inside , Kaia’s voice echoed—not thunder this ti, but a tremor, urgent, desperate.
Breathe, Lili. Just breathe. She’s gone. You’re still here.
But it didn’t feel true.
The dark wrapped around , swallowing everything whole. For a fleeting second, I thought it was sleep, but then I realized—I felt nothing.
No pain. No fire tearing through my ribs. No glass cutting through my skin. No phantom claws at my throat.
Only silence.
The absence of agony was worse than the agony itself. My body rembered—oh, it rembered well. The crushing weight of the car as it bent and warped around , steel shrieking, bones splintering like kindling with no chance against the force. The way the fra caved into , ribs snapping, lungs collapsing. Flesh giving way to ruin.
And yet now... nothing.
The thought carved through , sharp and cold.
"Am I dead?" My voice trembled into the void, hoarse and small, barely a whisper.
No.
Kaia’s answer was soft, not thunder, not fury—just steady. A whisper threading through the dark.
You are not dead, Lili. You are safe.
Her words rippled against , pulling tighter into the black, into the silence that refused to let go. Safe. Alive. Yet I couldn’t reconcile it—not when the mory of my body breaking still burned so vividly in my bones.
But she did not waver.
> You’re here. With . Still here.
Then I stopped dead.
The silence wasn’t empty anymore. It pulsed—slow, ragged, heavy. Labored breathing filled the dark, uneven and raw, as though each inhale had to be dragged up from sowhere deep.
My chest tightened. Soone was here.
I shrunk back instinctively, every muscle locking as though Veronique’s hand had returned to my throat. My body scread to vanish, to disappear into the shadows before they reached again.
Then it hit .
The scent.
Steel and snow—sharp and cold, like the air at the peak of a mountain. But threaded through it was copper. Thick, striking copper. Blood. Too much. Too fresh. The sll was so strong it prickled the inside of my nose, seared into my lungs.
Footsteps shifted against the floor, slow, dragging, like the weight behind them was too much to bear.
My voice scraped out, weak, hoarse. "Who’s there?"
The answer ca after a pause, low and frayed at the edges, raw as if torn straight out of him.
"It’s ."
Vladimir.
The sound of his na in his own voice almost broke . It was soft, but the softness was carved jagged, roughened by strain. It almost sounded guttural, the edges cracked like stone giving way under pressure.
He sounded like he was in pain.
I tried to focus.
But the darkness clung too thick, too heavy, as though my eyes were still closed. His voice lingered in the air, frayed and trembling at the edges, each word a low drag of stone across steel.
And then—light.
Not sudden, not bright, but like a crack forming in the black. The faintest glimr, and through it, his gaze.
Icy blue. Piercing. Almost blinding against the shadow. They held first—those eyes—before anything else existed. They burned through the haze, steady and unyielding, yet I swore I saw them flicker, haunted, like a storm too vast to be caged.
Step by step, he moved toward . The sound was soft, yet each drag of his boot echoed like a weight across my chest. With every shift forward, more of him erged from the dark.
The hard cut of his jaw, drawn tight. The ridges of his face, carved sharp by strain. The pale stretch of skin marred with streaks of crimson. Blood.
The scent thickened as he drew closer, acrid and copper-rich, curling hot in my lungs until it stung. My throat locked again, panic searing, as the realization struck—he was bleeding.
Was it his?
The tension suffocated. Every breath tasted of iron and silence. My fingers twitched weakly at my sides, aching to reach for him but too afraid of what I would find.
And still, his gaze never left .
His gaze held mine, unblinking, until his voice broke the silence.
"Are you... alright?" The words scraped low, careful, as though dragged from sowhere deep. "Do you feel pain? The Deltas... they worked on your injuries. Did they do their job?"
It took a mont to process, to realize what he was asking. I forced my throat to work, the word clawing its way past the rawness there. "Yes," I whispered, hoarse but steady. "No pain. Not anymore."
His eyes flickered, relief shadowed by sothing else—guilt, maybe. Weariness. It settled across his face like ash.
"Thank you," I breathed, the words trembling out before I could think better of them.
He shifted then, lowering himself with a quiet grace to the foot of the bed. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, but he kept his distance, posture taut, as though proximity itself was a danger.
Still, I moved. Slowly, carefully, I lifted my hand toward him, reaching—not for reassurance, but to prove he was real. That he was here.
Before I could touch him, his hands caught mine. His grip was cool, steady, but firm enough to stop .
"You need rest," he said, voice gentler now, though frayed at the edges. "Not . Not this. Just sleep." His gaze searched mine, sharp as ice and yet softened by sothing that twisted my chest. "I’ll stay. I’ll watch. No one will touch you again."
His words lingered in the stillness, a vow as solid as the man himself.
And though exhaustion pressed down heavy, I held his eyes for a breath longer.
But I refused.
"No," I rasped, the sound raw, but steady enough to hold. My gaze didn’t waver. "I know you’re hurt. You’re bleeding."
His eyes flickered, the barest crack in the iron mask, and for a mont silence pressed between us.
"If the sll of my blood disturbs you," he said, voice low and rough, "I’ll wait at the door."
He rose, the weight of him shifting from the bed, moving like stone dragged by will alone. The scent of copper thickened as he stepped away, but before he could take more than a pace, my hand shot out, weak but unyielding.
"You’re not going anywhere," I said, sharper this ti.
He froze.
"Why can the Deltas treat my wounds and not yours?" I pressed, each word threading tighter with the realization blooming in . The hardness of his expression, the way his shoulders stiffened... it wasn’t neglect. It was choice. "You didn’t let them touch you. You refused."
My chest tightened as it settled over , as clear as the pain still etched into his fra. He bore it on purpose. Even if it broke him.
"Why?" My voice cracked, the question slicing into the thick air between us.
He did not speak.
I straightened my spine. "Well then, I will fix you up myself."
He turned, and in the dim light I caught the edge of his face—hard, unyielding, carved from sothing too stubborn to bend. "Why would I allow you?" His tone was harsh, almost cruel in its bluntness, but beneath it was sothing else, a fray at the edge that I couldn’t unhear.
He started to move away again, but I didn’t let him.
I pushed up, weak legs trembling as I forced myself upright. Pain whispered through , but I ignored it, stepping into his path. My body scread for rest, but I blocked him anyway.
"Because I will be your wife."
The words fell between us like a strike of iron, sharp enough to slice the air in two.
He froze.
For a mont, he didn’t even breathe. His gaze snapped to mine, those icy eyes flaring brighter, as though he hadn’t expected to wield those words—not now, not like this. The silence that followed was taut, vibrating, a cord stretched so thin it threatened to snap.
His jaw clenched, a muscle feathering there. "You don’t understand what you’re saying." His voice was rough, low, laced with sothing dangerous, sothing that scraped against like broken glass.
But I didn’t flinch. "I do." My chest heaved, each word pulled raw from my bruised throat. "If you’ll carry my mark, if you’ll claim as yours, then you don’t get to hide your pain from . Not like this. Not when I can help."
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