I don’t catch the end of his sentence. My ears have started to ring, and the swirling in my stomach is rising. But I nod anyway, pressing my face to his chest and listening to the heavy thump of his heart.
He stiffens for a moment, unsure of my embrace. But I don’t let go. Suddenly, I feel like I can breathe again. And when Elliot’s arms eventually come around me, albeit hesitantly, I’m unsure how I’m meant to let go.
I can’t remember the last time someone held me.
Maybe the day Isaac found him? Or maybe a few days later, when I found her.
Whenever it was, it’s been a while. So long, I almost forgot how good it feels.
As I stand here in his warm embrace, a strange thought crosses my mind.
Maybe he could hold me like this forever.
“Princess.” Elliot’s voice reverberates through his chest, and I look up to find him frowning at me.
“Are you all right?” he asks, his hand stroking down my back.
“Yeah, I’m fine. But I think I?—”
“Elliot!”
Dame’s gruff shouting cuts through my words like a whip, and all eyes turn toward the man in question as the sound of arguing trickles in from the upper den.
“Ugh.” Elliot groans, dropping his head onto my shoulder. “Every fuckin’ time. I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”
My chest tightens as he releases me, but I don’t get the chance to say anything before he turns to join the crowd now filtering out of the room, all of them excited about the prospect of a fight.
As I watch him disappear, my stomach churns, and bile rises in my throat.
Oh, gods!
I rush toward the back door, pushing past the crush of bodies, and stumbling out into the midnight air.
I don’t make it down the back steps before the contents of my stomach surge up and out of my mouth in a staggering hurl. But I do manage to aim for the bushes as I cling to the porch railing, heaving.
“Oh, fuck.” I groan, wiping my mouth with my sleeve and stumbling down the steps.
There is no boundary around Crescent House. The wolves need too much space to run. So the forest begins where the porch ends, and I barely make it past the treeline before I double over and retch again.
Holding on to an old stump, I wait for the second wave to pass, then spit into the earth to clear the sour taste from my tongue. But my throat still burns, and my heart still pounds in my head as I look up to see the moonlight blotted out by the canopy.
I weave clumsily through the woods, searching for the sky. When I find it, stretched over an empty clearing, all I can do is collapse onto a fallen log and wait for the wave of sickness to pass.
“Fates,” I moan, clutching my stomach as I speak to the stars. “What did I do to deserve that?”
The silence is deafening as I sit, waiting for an answer that will never come. They never answer.
“Iris?”
A voice calls through the dark, and I turn, knowing better than to answer aloud.
“What are you doing out here?” it asks.
Among the trees, there is a set of soft blue eyes looking back at me from a familiar, pale, wide-set face.
“Grey?”
Leaves crunch under his weight as he creeps into the moonlight, but my eyes are still adjusting to the dark, so I have to squint to focus on him.
