Page 109 of Claimed In Darkness

I want to believe that I can still pull her back, still fix this, still keep her as mine.

But the horrible truth is she is not mine anymore.

She is something else.

And I am so afraid that I will never get her back.

37

NAIRA

Ishould be tired.

I should feel the ache in my limbs, the sting of battle still fresh in my muscles, the exhaustion dragging me under like it always has.

But I don’t.

I feel nothing.

That is the most terrifying part.

I know it the moment I step away from Zephiran touch.

The moment his fingers leave my wrist, and I feel no cold, no warmth, no fucking difference.

Like my body doesn’t need those things anymore.

It has evolved past them.

I should be afraid. Probably care about what’s happening to me.

But I don’t.

Not in the way I should.

The fear is distant, a dull echo in my brain, a whisper my mind that I can easily ignore.

The relic inside me is stronger.

It does not want me to be afraid.

It wants me to hunger.

There’s a deep, gnawing emptiness inside me.

Not pain.

Not need.

Something worse.

Like I have lost something vital.

There is a missing piece of me that I will never get back.

And yet—I do not want it back.

Whatever I lost—it made me weak.

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