Page 154 of Visions of Darkness

Hard.

Her body bowed beneath me as I compressed her chest.

I did it again.

And again.

Desperate. Pleading.

“Please, Aria. Please.”

Her head rocked back, and her chest stretched for the ceiling before she suddenly bolted upright.

Her pale eyes were wide with terror as water gushed from her mouth.

And she was wheezing. Deep, jagged breaths clamored from her lungs as she tried to draw the oxygen she’d been missing into the wells of them, anguished and full of fear as a sob erupted from her throat.

At the sound of it, relief pummeled me so hard I could have sworn that my ribs cracked.

I pulled her shivering frame against me, my arms shaking like a bitch as I wrapped her in them.

And Aria ... Aria cried against my chest. Deep, guttural moans that bled from her spirit.

“Pax,” she sobbed.

I kept one arm looped around her waist as my free hand wound in the dripping tendrils of midnight locks, which were drenched and stuck to her face. I pressed my lips to her crown, my voice the roughest scrape as I murmured, “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

She cried harder at my words, and her fingers curled into the fabric of my tee as she clung to me, like I could be a buoy.

Her safe place.

It was the only fucking thing in this world that I wanted to be.

“Pax.” She wheezed it, my name a riddle in the middle of her horror and shock and disbelief. She rose up on her knees and pressed her freezing body against mine.

“I know. I know.”

Except I didn’t fucking know. I had no clue how any of this was possible.

A ferocity beat chaos into my blood, my devotion and fear so intense that it pounded through my bloodstream.

So loud I could hear it booming in my ears.

So hard I could feel it booming in my spirit.

But it was Aria who had always boomed in my soul.

“Tell me what happened.” Getting the question out was close to impossible.

She gave a harsh shake of her head, and she pushed her face up into my neck, her fingers digging into my shoulders to draw me closer, her breaths panting against my flesh. “I don’t want to talk about it. Right now, I need you. I need you.”

Her plea filled my senses.

Sweet and intoxicating.

“You have me, Aria. You have me, just like I have you. I won’t let you go. I won’t let them have you. I won’t let them hurt you.”

Our connection screamed. A howl that echoed through the room.

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