Page 131 of Cursed Evermore
These people had taken me captive, so I shouldn’t feel anything for them. But I knew when I was wrong.
This nightmare didn’t start with any of us. It began with my father and the night he decided to murder their king. Wolfe’s father.
Summoning courage and strength, I tried to speak to Wolfe, to wake him, but my words came out in a breathy rasp that sounded more like I was trying to clear my throat.
I shifted, then I spotted our hands joined together on the bed, and the air dissolved in my lungs.
My heart stuttered in my aching body, trapped in a daze. When it started beating again, it was slow and careful, like a person taking hesitant steps on thin ice.
Wolfe’s large, calloused hand covered mine, but I realized in the next breath that it was me holding onto his finger.
I thought to pull away, but my strength failed me, along with my desire to break the connection.
He was holding my hand, comforting me, reassuring me.
Surely, if he were furious, he wouldn’t even be touching me. Let alone in such a tenderway.
The memory of him diving into those depths to save me flashed through my mind.
Death's skeleton mask had overtaken his features, changing him into a living nightmare. I felt the dark power ripple through the sea, and I swore the witch cowered from it in terror.
I’d tasted the darkness when his lips pressed against mine. It hummed beneath my skin with wraithlike voices, shadows finding their home in my soul.
I was more convinced than ever that his power was different from the magic that ran through the Fray or natural Fae magic.
Perhaps I’d know soon. Though it didn’t matter. None of that mattered. Because he saved me.
He might be mad as all the hells when he woke and choose to make my life harder—despite the hand holding—but he saved me. I’d be dead now if he’d either let the witch take me or hadn’t drawn out those leeches from my body.
The weight of his finger in my palm was an anchor. Just like those three words he’d spoken:stay with me. I never thought his abrasive nature would allow such sentiment toward me.
“You should be resting, Ziyka.” His deep, soulful voice pierced the silence, stealing my breath.
Wolfe lifted his head and his eyes found mine in the soft candlelight. For a moment, something flickered there, deep in his gaze. Vulnerability? Regret? I couldn’t be certain. Before I could try to interpret the fleeting emotion, it was gone.
The familiar steel I was used to returned to his eyes, but the coldness was softened by the remnants of the same desperate concern I'd glimpsed when he'd begged me to stay with him.
“You should be resting, too,” I said, my voice a child-soft whisper.
He straightened against the chair, giving me a full view of the extent of his injuries, and I gasped.
His entire midsection had a bandage wrapped around it, and the areas that weren’t bandaged had dark bruises blooming across the skin. Then he cocked his head. His hair moved away from his face and guilt ripped me apart when I saw the damage done to the entire left side.
It had a deep gash that looked like it had torn through his skin to the bone.
“Wolfe…” His name scraped out of my throat, raw with emotion.
My grip on his finger slackened, and when I tried to pull my hand away, he seized it, his fingers locking around mine like the shackle that still bound me to him.
The moonlight cut a harsh shadow across his jaw, but he grinned at me, true to his nature. “Concerned about me again, mage? This time, it’s definitely more touching.”
How could he joke when half his face had been carved open?
I wanted to summon a good comeback like I had yesterday on the deck, but the words withered on my tongue. All I could see when I looked at him was how injured he was.
A single tear breached the dam of my composure, trailing a hot path down my cheek. I pressed my lips together, willing the rest back, but something fundamental had fractured inside me.
Gods, I was crying for my captor.The bitter irony should have been laughable, yet it felt like drowning.
