Page 153 of Visions of Darkness

And she inhaled the frigid water into her lungs.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Pax

I jolted awake, pulled from sleep—by what, I wasn’t sure, though my soul hammered in unrest.

Something wasn’t right.

I’d waited in Tearsith for her, my hands continually curling into fists as my spirit had roiled with this sticky, unsettled feeling that had taken me hostage. It had swelled and grown, and by the time our family had completely descended into Faydor, it’d become a frenzy that beat through my veins.

Whatever it was, it’d shocked me upright from where I was on the floor of the shitty motel.

The room was dark, save for the wedge of light coming from the bathroom where I’d left the door open an inch and the bare flashes that lit up behind the drapes in the window.

The floor was hard beneath me.

Aria was on the bed.

Asleep.

Which wasn’t fucking right, since she hadn’t been in Tearsith.

Only she wasn’t still. She was flailing. Her arms and feet frantic as her body jerked and twitched. The mattress squeaked with her freneticmovements, and her breaths were nothing but these gurgled, strangled sounds.

Panic jumped straight into my bloodstream, and I was on my knees on the bed just as her name ripped from my tongue. “Aria.”

She thrashed, and my hands shot out to grab her by the shoulders. Confusion bound me the second I touched her.

She was soaking wet.

What the fuck?

Teeth gritted, I shook her. “Aria. Wake up.”

She writhed, arms swinging, and her inhale was filled with the rattle of pain.

Horror kicked in, fear a thunder that raced through my manic heart, and I rushed to climb over her. I straddled her at the waist, my weight on my knees as I shook her harder. “Aria, you have to wake up! Listen to me. Follow my voice. Open your eyes.”

Desperation poured out with the words.

Only the gurgling in her throat increased, and her body tremored in these spasms that made me terrified she was losing her life. Dread clutched me in a fist, and I shook her even harder, lifting her up and slamming her down onto the mattress when she still didn’t open her eyes.

“Please, please open your eyes. I won’t let you leave me. I fucking won’t.”

They couldn’t have her.

I wouldn’t let them.

The thought of it cut through me, flaying me open wide, deeper and more brutal than any wound a Kruen had ever inflicted.

This world needed her. I needed her. Fuck, I needed her.

“Aria, please, baby, please.”

Frantic and shaking, I splayed my palm over her chest, fingers stretching wide, the single word haggard. “Please.”

Then I pressed down.

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