Page 52 of Revert
“What is this?” I asked.
“A sign that you’re still alive, with me.”
The meaning behind that single touch undid him, as if he’d finally reached the end of his composure—unraveling in small, splintering cracks. He looked away, as if ashamed of the emotion threatening to betray him…until his restraint shattered.
He pulled me into his arms in one motion—no hesitation or princely restraint, just raw, trembling need. “I’m so glad I made it in time. I thought—” His voice fractured. “I almost lost you. For a horrifying moment, I thought I’d be too late. I would never have forgiven myself—I can’t bear to watch you die. Not again.” He buried his face against my hair.
My heart lurched at the word. “…again?”
The single word fractured something in me. Candlelight wavered, shadows bending in unfamiliar shapes as my vision blurred. The world tilted, shifting around me. Though I remained in his arms, something within me felt as if I was tumbling backward through layers of memory not entirely my own, as if I were falling into a moment long buried… yet achingly familiar.
I saw a twisted vision I was certain had never haunted my dreams, or left even a trace in my waking moments. Yet something about it felt horrifyingly real.
The throne room, dark and cold. The echo of steel. Blood soaking the floor beneath me. The killing blow had already fallen, and I was dying.
Castiel had dropped to his knees, catching me before I collapsed. His arms wrapped around my lifeless body, too late to stop what had been set in motion.
“No,” he had cried, over and over. “No, please—don’t—don’t leave me?—”
He clutched me tightly, as if he could will the life back into my lungs. His tears fell onto my face, lips brushing my temple in frantic desperation.
“Not her, please not her,” he begged the king in a voice wrecked with grief. “Please, I’ll do anything, anything you ask. Just please don’t take her.”
But there had been no bringing me back, at least not…in…
Some truth shimmered at the edge of my mind, just out of reach. I reached for it—but its wispy tendrils slipped through my fingers like mist, like a half-remembered dream fading the harder I tried to hold on. A gasp tore from my lips as the world rushed back in. Castiel’s steady arms still held me, a position he didn’t seem intent to relinquish.
At my soft cry, he stiffened. His concerned gaze searched mine, quiet and steady, as if he sensed something had shifted. I pressed a hand to my pounding heart, as though I could calm the strange ache rising there.
He didn’t demand an explanation. Instead, our fingers brushed, and a quiet warmth spread from the contact. He held my hand, as though he meant to anchor me through whatever storm still lingered in my mind.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” he murmured.
My shoulder throbbed where the blade had cut, but I hardly noticed. “I’m truly fine.”
But he only held me tighter, as if the circle of his arms could protect me—not just from the king or the assassin, but from the darkness permeating the court and the shadow of death that loomed ever closer. His hands lifted, trembling slightly as they cupped my face.
His forehead touched mine, closeness which stole my breath. His eyes found mine and held, as if afraid I might vanish if he blinked. The silence between us heavy with everything unspoken. For a breathless moment, we simply stared at each other. Neither of us spoke; afraid to give voice to these dangerous feelings growing between us.
Slowly, my hands slid up to wrap my arms around his neck, the softest kind of surrender. A thousand emotions coursed through me. Longing. Confusion. Grief for a death I hadn’t yet lived, and the strange ache of wanting to trust the man before me.
I felt something in me give way—a quiet relinquishing of a battle I hadn’t realized I’d been fighting. And now that it was over, I could feel the weight of it in every breath. I was exhausted from resisting.
Part of me wanted to let go completely…even as I knew that no matter my desperation, there were still some battles I couldn’t afford to lose, even though in this fragile moment there was nothing I wanted more.
CHAPTER 15
For the first time in this new timeline, the nightmares that usually plagued my nights stayed away. I awoke to soft morning light, streams of pale gold that filtered through the high, narrow windows, stretching across the stone floor of the hidden room where I must have fallen asleep. Though the sunlight warmed the dusty air, I felt a chill that hadn’t been present when I’d drifted off.
I was alone, the space beside me empty, the indentation where Castiel had sat already beginning to fade from the cushion. For a moment, I wondered if I’d dreamed everything—the fight, the wound, the gentleness in his touch as he tended me, the tender way his hand had cradled my cheek with a longing that still echoed through me.
But then I noticed his cloak draped carefully around my shoulders, the same one he’d worn the night before, its silver clasps cool against my skin. And nestled in the fold over my chest lay a single, freshly picked yellow flower, its petals still dewy.
Not a bloom from any of the palace gardens I frequented, but my favorite daffodil…the same flower from the vase in Castiel’s chambers.
I reached for it gingerly, gasping at the stab of pain that went through my shoulder as my wound stretched. Carefully trying not to move my arm more than I had to, I closed my fingers around the stem, stroking it as I examined this small piece of life in a palace of death.
The petals kissed my skin as I brought it to my nose, its delicate scent wrapping around me like a familiar lullaby. Comfort bloomed through the ache in Castiel’s absence. He must have picked it this morning, perhaps from some forgotten corner of the grounds I had never visited. Which meant somewhere on the grounds of this gilded prison, something I cared for grew.
