Page 108 of Claimed In Darkness

I don’t know if I was too blind to notice before, or if she was just better at hiding it.

But the power in her—it is not hers.

It pulses beneath her skin, moves in the way she stands too still, breathes too quietly, does not blink enough.

The relic is in her bones.

Feeding.

Changing.

Taking.

And she does not fucking care.

I reach for her wrist instinctively.

She lets me but that makes it worse.

She lets me touch her, lets my fingers slide over the thin skin of her pulse, lets me search for something, anything, that proves she is still the same.

But she is too cold.

Too composed.

Her pulse beats, but it is slow.

Like a thing that no longer belongs to this world.

I exhale, rough, dragging my thumb over the thin line of her wrist, letting it sink in, the reality, the truth.

"You can’t ignore this,"I murmur.

A whisper.

A demand.

A fucking plea.

Her lashes lower just slightly, a slow blink, the only sign that she even feels this.

And then she does something I do not expect.

Something that shouldn’t fucking shake me, but does.

She smiles.

Small. Soft.

A mockery of what it once was.

"I’m not the one ignoring it, Zephiran."

That fucking truth—hits harder than a blade.

She is right.

I do not want to admit and face what I have done.

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