“Especially if it takes a long time.”
She inhales shakily and doesn’t pull her hand away.Not for several long, heavy seconds.When she does, she curls back into herself, but the panic has eased.Her breathing steadies.Her shoulders relax by a fraction.And for the first time since I found her...
She looks at me without fear.Without flinching.Without bracing for pain.Just ...looking.Present and awake.Alive.And I know something shifted here.Something delicate.Something real.Something I’m terrified to name.
The bond pulses, warm, faint, and hopeful.Not healed but not as broken as before.And I’ll fight the whole goddamned world to protect that spark.To protect her.
Chapter Eight
Aria
The sunlight creeps slowly across the floor, warming the wooden boards one inch at a time.My breathing finally slows after the panic, settling into something almost normal.The trembling in my limbs fades little by little.But the echo of fear is still there, hiding under my skin like a living thing.
Silas doesn’t move.Doesn’t shift.Doesn’t look away.
He’s sitting at the edge of the bed, close enough that I can feel his heat, far enough that I can breathe.I risk a glance at him.
He’s watching me carefully, but not the way the Hunters watched.Not waiting for me to break.Not calculating what to do with the pieces.He watches like he’s terrified ofhurtingme.Of being the reason I fall apart.
My chest aches with a strange, sharp emotion I don’t know how to name.
“I didn’t mean to ...react like that,” I whisper.
His brows pull together slightly.“Aria, you don’t need to apologize for being scared.”
I curl my fingers in the blanket.“It was just a howl.”
“No,” he says gently.“It was a trigger.”
Trigger.The word fits.Perfectly.I wonder what else will trigger me now that I am free.Am I free?I don’t feel like it.Instead of a cage, I now live in a prison of fear.
“It’s stupid,” I mutter, shame burning through me.
He shakes his head.“It’s not.”I look away, but he continues, voice low and careful.“You weren’t scared of a sound.You were scared of everything it reminded you of.”
My throat closes.A tremor slips into my chest.He’s right.And somehow hearing him say it makes the fear feel less like weakness and more like something human.Something understandable.
