Page 172 of Claimed In Darkness

The ground trembles and the air thickens.

And then she gasps, a sharp, ragged sound escaping from her lips.

Her back arches and her fingers dig into my arms.

Her lungs drag in breath and I collapse on her.

She is alive. I brought her back.

I am never letting her go again.

59

NAIRA

Ishouldn’t be breathing.

I shouldn’t be.

But I am and the first thing I feel is him.

Zephiran weight, his body caging mine, his arms wrapped around me like he is trying to keep me here by force.

As if he thinks I will slip away again if he lets go.

His breath is ragged against my skin, his fingers still curled too tightly around me.

And his heartbeat.

Too slow.

Too strange.

He did something.

Something wrong and irrevocable.

I try to move.

I can’t.

My body is not my own.

My pulse isn’t right. The air in my lungs feels foreign.

It’s as if it doesn’t belong to me anymore.

Like it was forced back into me by something unnatural.

Something that shouldn’t have worked.

My throat tightens, and I push against him.

"Zephiran,” I call out.

He doesn’t react at first.

Like he doesn’t want to move and look at me.

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