Page 104 of His Eternal Claim

Crystella. Fucking impossible.

Crystella has been dead for months. Her body is buried under six feet of dirt. My mind races, trying to find a physical enemy to crush, but there is nothing but the shadows in her mind.

“Selene, listen to my voice,” I say, keeping my tone perfectly level, fighting like hell to hide the panic clawing at my own gut. “You’re experiencing a waking dream. You are hallucinating. The stress of the past few weeks—”

“I am not insane!” she shrieks, her voice cracking as tears spill over her flushed cheeks. She pushes against my chest.

“Don’t look at me like that! Don’t use that calm, patronizing voice with me! I know what I saw! She was real!”

“Mrs. Vitale.” The doctor steps forward. “Your heart rate is dangerously high. Your pupils are completely unresponsive to light changes. Your body is reacting to something internal, not external.”

Selene ignores him, her wild eyes locking back onto mine, her expression shifting from defensive fury to a desperate, hollow pleading. She looks small again, her lower lip quivering as she curls her knees tightly to her chest.

“I just… I need my medicine,” she whispers. “Please, Zagreus. Just give me the medicine. It makes the noise stop. It makes her go away.”

My eyes narrow.

What the fuck is she talking about? I haven’t prescribed her anything. “What medicine?”

She freezes and looks at me, her pupils flickering, before she averts her eyes, staring down at the bandaged skin of her forearms.

“Nothing,” she mutters, her fingers twisting defensively in the bedsheets. “Just… something for the headaches. Leave me alone.”

“Look at me,” I growl, my hand reaching out to grasp her chin again, tilting her face up until she can’t hide from my gaze. “Everything was fine when I left this house last night. You were soft in my arms. You were safe. What the fuck changed? What medicine did you take, Selene?”

“I said leave it alone!” she cries out. “You left me! You left me alone in this fucking house! Just let me sleep!”

I let out a long sigh through my nose. I look at the doctor, who gives me a subtle, warning shake of his head.

Don’t press her now.

Fucking hell.

“Fine,” I murmur, leaning forward until my forehead rests against hers. “We’ll leave it for now.”

I shift my weight, climbing onto the mattress and pulling her shivering body directly into my chest. I engulf her completely, my arms wrapping around her waist and shoulders, pinning her against my heavy heartbeat. She fights me for a second, her small fists thumping weakly against my chest, before she collapses against me, burying her face in the crook of my neck, weeping silently as her body trembles.

“You know what you have to do, Romanovski,” I say quietly over her head, my eyes locked dead on the door. “Have the IT team pull every second of the digital security footage from the master wing from the moment my car cleared the gates last night. I want to know exactly who walked these fucking halls.”

“And since when did I start working part-time for you, Vitale?” Judas murmurs, looking at the trembling woman in my arms. “I think you should call for a psychiatrist rather than footage.”

I glare at him for even suggesting that my wife is insane. My jaw hardens. “No.”

Judas raises an eyebrow. “No?” he repeats.

“No.”

Selene’s fingers clutch the front of my shirt so tightly the fabric wrinkles beneath her grip. She is shaking.

“She said someone was in my study.”

“She said a dead woman was in your study,” Judas counters evenly.

My eyes drift toward the open window, and the curtains flutter softly in the morning breeze.

The broken lock. The overturned chair. The blood smeared across the floor where Selene had torn her knuckles apart trying to get out. None of it sits right with me. I have seen panic attacks. I’ve seen mental breakdowns. This feels different.

Judas and I exchange a look, and we both know these aren’t ghosts. “Just look at the security, I’ll contact you.”