Everything hurt. Getting out of bed hurt. Every beat of her heart hurt. Living. Breathing. Time. It was all so painful, she wanted to crawl into a hole, deteriorate into the earth, and fade away.
Yet life went on, even for her.
CHAPTER 4
Zev
Zev found his cousin curled up against a tree with tears frosted on her lashes. Her lips were blue, her skin pale as snow. He wrapped a blanket around Dyna and gently picked her up. She was limp in his arms and frozen to the bone. That divine light that used to glow on her skin had dimmed to nearly nothing. It was the bond, he realized. It was deteriorating like she was. Dyna was breaking before his eyes, and he had no way to stop it.
It enraged him.
He blinked back the sting in his eyes and focused on getting her back to the manor. Lucenna and Rawn waited for them by the courtyard doors.
“Is she hurt?” Lord Norrlen asked softly.
Zev didn’t answer. It was an irrelevant question because they all knew that she was. These wounds simply hadn’t appeared on the outside.
Yet.
He carried her upstairs to Lucenna’s room and tucked her in the extra bed. Dyna’s lashes fluttered open. She didn’t say a word, but her hand reached out and clutched the end of his shirt before he could take a step.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Zev murmured. “Sleep. I will watch over you.”
Zev settled in the wingback chair beside the bed and held Dyna’s cold hand. She shivered beneath the blankets, tears rolling down her cheeks. He counted each one until her breath evened out when she fell asleep.
Would the dreams end if he stood guard over her all night? What could he do to keep her from falling apart? It was his turn to be the anchor now.
Exhaling a heavy breath, Zev leaned back. But he stilled, his nostrils flaring with many scents.
Dust, despair, and divinity.
His claws extended, his wolf eyes surfacing as he studied the shadows dancing with the balcony curtains billowing in the night breeze.
A low growl rumbled deep in his chest. “If you come near her again, I willkillyou.”
The shadows fell still, departing behind him with the faint flutter of the wind. Moonlight streamed in through the balcony doors.
And nothing about it was bright.
When Zev wokein the early dawn, Dyna’s bed was empty. He leaped out of the chair. Panic rushed through his half groggy mind until he heard a distant thudding coming from outside.
He went to the balcony and saw her.
Zev rushed out of the room and made it downstairs to the courtyard doors, where Lucenna, Klyde, and Rawn were watching with concern. He pushed past them and went outside.
Dyna was fighting a tree.
Her fists beat into the bark, leaving behind red stains in the grooves. Blood dripped from her torn knuckles and down her arms. Every brutal thud echoed in the courtyard, but there was no change to her blank face.
She was trying to break through to herself, and he could see every fissure left behind. He had done the same damage, ripped at the same wounds, and drowned in the air. Because pain was better than grief.
Zev caught her wrist. “If you want to hit something, then hit me. All that hurt. That anger. Give it to me, Dyna. I can take it.”
And she did.
Dyna fell into perfect formation and sparred with him.
“You’re not living,” Zev said as he deflected her blows. “You’re floating through your days, trying to bury what you feel inside. When you do allow yourself to feel something, it’s anger, but even that is stinted.” Hetook her shoulders and shook her. “Scream. Cry. Rage. Release everything you are holding inside. And live. Because I see you dying, and I know how that feels. Don’t let this break you. Don’t let it knock you down. Get up and fight for it!”
