Page 111 of When Death Whispers

He doesn’t feel that way anymore.

The realization slams into me.

Steorfan is still a monster. But he’schanged.Or I have.

And I’m not afraid of him anymore.

I’m afraid of this. This reminder of who I used to be. Of what I used to fear.

The panic snaps through me like a live wire. My body crumples to the cold ground and I can’t breathe. Not only because the shadow is choking me. Because the truth is, too.

I claw at my chest. At the ground. At the mist. But it’s everywhere. I’m shaking, curling inward, my heartbeat skipping and stalling like it’s trying to vanish.

“Stop,” I whisper. “Stop, stop, stop?—”

The shadow presses tighter.

And then?—

Itdisappears.

Torn away in a single motion, yanked backward like a weed ripped from the soil.

Steorfan doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t even look at me. He’s already charging toward the thing that touched me, shadows writhing like blades around his arms.

He crashes into the creature like a hurricane made of shadow and rage.

It screeches, flailing, but it’s over in seconds. Black ichor splatters across the trees and I’m left trembling, gasping, shivering on the ground.

Then—

A single shadow—his—coils around my shoulders like a scarf. Another settles at my back, pushing gently between my shoulder blades. Not tight. Not claiming.

Steady.

Another presses to my chest, right over my heart and pulses, matching my breath. Guiding it. Slowing it.

In. Out. In. Out.

His shadows—Steorfan’s—aren’t restraining me. They’re supporting me. They’re trying to keep metogether.

I start to sob, broken and silent, tears carving cold paths down my cheeks. Because I realize—this is the first time his touch has ever felt likecare.Not terror. Not possession. Not power.

Butcompassion.

And that’s what breaks me.

Because it’s real.

And it’shim.

One tendril slips down, brushing along my hand—curling gently into my fingers like it’s asking to be held. I don’t mean to squeeze back.

But I do.

And something inside me shatters.

He’s trying—in his way—to help me breathe.

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