She left the hall light on, which makes the path to her bedroom easier to navigate— though I could find it with my eyes closed. We make a pit stop in the bathroom so I can clean the wound on her hand. Once that’s taken care of, I take off her shoes and get her tucked into bed. I set her boots in the closet next to the others so she can find them when she wakes up.
I want to stay and watch her sleep, but she needs rest.
I place three things on her nightstand before I leave: a single sheet of paper from her journal, perfectly folded; a cup of chamomile tea I made in her favorite mug, steeped just the way she likes it; and beneath it, one of my leather gloves, so she knows I was here. That I watched over her.
Maybe now she’ll understand that I was never the monster.
Andrik-
The trees part as I crash through them, ice blooming in my wake like veins branching across the earth.
Her scent was just here, and now it's gone—a clean, brutal severing, like she’s been yanked from this world.
My paws dig into the snow where her footsteps vanish, claws digging carefully to make sure she didn't fall underneath the churned-up snow. There are no signs of a struggle—no scream, no bloodstains. Just emptiness and a single boot print, slightly deeper than the rest, far too large to be Lumi’s.
I wasn’t fast enough.
She wasn’t safe with me.
I failed her.
“Ves’thra...ves’thra svarin ves, Saelûn!”(Please… please answer me, Soulbond.)
The wind shifts, and the whisper of a scent ghosts along it, unnatural and sharp—a sedative. The bastard drugged her.
I lower my snout to the ground and inhale deeply. A thread of her, pulling me forward like a tether through the dark.
I devour the distance in fifteen minutes of dead-sprinting. I shift in and out of form—hooves pounding earth, claws scraping pavement, bones splitting and reforming as I tear through the last of the trees and into the stale, reeking concrete of the city.
Her scent pulls me to a brick building.
The air is foul, stripping the magic from my fur and muffling the true whispers of the world. Every step on this pavement is a denial of what I am.
I am exposed and dangerously far from my domain, but she is here,so my domain can burn.
The door isn’t locked and opens easily under a slight push. The second I cross the threshold, wrongness floods my senses, thick as oil—no movement or sound, just a crushing, unnatural quiet and a chemical scent clinging to the walls.
I move down the hall, and every nerve blazes louder with each step I take. The last door on the left is cracked open, and a small shape lies on the bed. I step closer.
It’s her
She’s tucked in like a child; her stillness is unsettling. She’s still clothed, her hands limp at her sides, head turned toward the window—seeking a rescue that didn’t come fast enough.
“Lumi,” I breathe, but she doesn’t answer.“Veyr’kai thalún, saelûn—etra’kai ves, kael’varin ar’veskaeI.”(Please, keep her heart beating–I will be your pawn forever.)
I sink down beside her bed, my massive shoulders crowding her space. My claws curl into her sheets, anchoring myself to this moment. Her skin is ice-pale, her breathing a wisp of smoke.
“Thrae’vren ves...mail’miron ves aek’kai. Kael’thorin ves’kai—veylûn thar ves’mirae. Thal’kai ves skar... saelûn, ael’morin ves’kae narh-valen.”(Do not take her from me… I beg you with everything I am. Let my life pay the price… Soulbond, I am yours until death and beyond.)
Something inside me fractures, a soundless, final break. Then her lips twitch, a small desperate tremor, and a whisper escapes, quiet as breath on frozen glass: “Andrik...”
“Kael-resha...” The word falls from my lips. (Thank you.) “Veyr’thalin ves saevrin... kael-resha,” I whisper—to the forest that bound me, to the gods who judged me, to whatever ancient thing listens to beasts like me. “Thank you... for letting her stay.” (Sacred blood, find mercy. I honor you.)
I press my hand to her cheek. She leans into it—barely. Like a leaf turning toward the sun.
She is here.
She is alive.
