Page 173 of Claimed In Darkness

He knows exactly what I’m about to say.

I shove him back, gasping, coughing, fighting to sit up, to breathe, to fucking understand what he has done to me.

And when his eyes meet mine?—

I see what he gave up and I wish I had stayed dead.

His eyes?—

They aren’t his anymore.

Not completely.

There’s something wrong in them.

Something missing. Taken.

And when I touch him, he flinches.

Not because I hurt him.

But because he isn’t the same man anymore. Whatever he did to bring me back, it took something from him.

Something he will never get back and it breaks my heart open all over again.

"What did you do?"I whisper, my voice shaking.

Zephiran doesn’t answer.

He just watches me as if he is memorizing this moment.

What the fuck did he do?

"You were dead,"he says.

His voice, it’s not the same.

It’s lower. Rougher.

Like he is speaking from somewhere else entirely.

Somewhere I cannot follow.

I swallow hard.

"And now I’m not."

His jaw locks.

"Because of me,” he replies, a smile gracing his lips.

I shudder. The smile isn’t entirely his.

"Tell me what you did,"I breathe.

"Tell me the fucking truth."

And when he speaks, it destroys me even more.

---