Page 40 of The World Undone

And when she crawled into my bed each night, I instantly sought her scent, my muscles relaxing just from the smell of her. She’d whisper a few quiet words, I’d give one-word answers when I could manage them, and then she’d fall asleep, exhausted from all of her work in the medical wards.

My self-control weakened as the night grew darker, the horrors of my thoughts louder. I’d press myself close to her, my body humming from the small whimpers she’d make in her sleep, and press my face into the curve of her neck.

I wanted to suffocate in that space against her soft skin, the silence of the cabin surrounding us.

The nights when I woke up and she was gone—a midnight visit to the lake—I’d wake up gasping, drowning with fear that I was back there. That this place too, with my brother and my team, was just another trick of the drude, longer and more cruel than the others because of the sliver of hope it had given me.

When she was gone, I’d give up completely on sleep, leave the confines of the cabin to find her, the tightness in my chest settling only when I saw her climb back up the rocky beach, her eyes black as night, lost in a trance.

In those moments, when I could take a full breath at the sight of her, at the pure relief of it, I felt more in control of myself, closer to the man I used to be, the man I wanted to be again. For her. For them all.

It wasn’t enough—as much as I desperately tried to lift myself out of the darkness, to talk to her and hold her the way that she deserved, the words wouldn’t form. It was like I was trapped, only offered brief moments here and there of clarity.

I didn’t recognize myself anymore.

It was a bit ironic—that I’d spent so much time thinking that my wolf was the thing that would fracture me, cloud over and consume me.

Now, I missed that part of me—felt unwhole from whatever The Guild had done to quiet him down, to keep him from unfurling in my limbs, my thoughts.

My wolf lingered deep inside my bones. I could feel him, growing erratic and anxious with each passing moment that I didn’t shift—but neither of us seemed able to do it. Reaching him was like trying to reach across an ocean, with nothing but my arm.

My limbs didn’t work like they used to—as if they belonged to someone else. I didn’t even recognize my own thoughts half the time, could hardly keep track of time passing or recognize reality from the dream world I’d spent months occupying.

The soft creak of the door hinge startled me—something that was usually difficult to accomplish with wolf senses.

“Is it possible you linger in the darkness because you think you deserve to?” she whispered to me, her voice rough and cracked in the dark room, as she slid between the sheets.

My skin came alive at her nearness, the desire to reach out and pull her to me almost impossible to resist.

Her gaze focused on the far wall, where Eli’s pinned body had been replaced with hers. Her expression was unreadable, but her focus was precise. Could she see it?

Was I broadcasting these ghosts through the connection she’d blown open tonight?

My heart beat angry and ashamed against my ribcage as I fought to erase the visuals, to ground myself here.

No. This was my punishment, not hers. I wouldn’t let her suffer it.

“Linger where?” I closed my eyes tight, trying like hell to push away the visual of her, now dead beside me, body angled and wrong, the piercing shriek of her scream as her body contorted and cracked still ricocheting in my mind—her joints only coming back together long enough to relive the torment and pain all over again.

That wasn’t her. She was on top of that phantom, existing in this plane, alive and warm and good.

“No,” I pressed my palms to my eyes, “no, no, no.”

She gasped, her fingers gently closing around my wrist, pulling my hand back from where it clawed at my head. Her focus drifted to her lap, where the nightmare-Max’s neck sat at a wrong angle, her other hand passing through the image like a ghost. She couldn’t feel them like I could, they didn’t take corporeal shape for her. Good.

“Is it always this bad, this loud?” she paused, her fingers trembling against me, “this real?”

Air pulled through my lungs in heavy pants as I fought the images and forced myself to look at her—to see the version that was next to me now.

Her hair fell in dark, clumped strands, still wet from her shower, the scent of her freshly-washed skin enough to make my dick strain in my boxers.

Not that the erection had ever completely gone down since she’d entered that bedroom with Declan.

I pulled my arm from her grip and swallowed back my desire as I carved more space between us. “What do you mean?”

The words came out nearly unintelligible, my jaw was clenched so tight.

Atlas?

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