Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THRAX
Soft snores reached Thrax’s ears where he sat by the window, a quiet rhythm threading through the night air, telling him that the little human—who had just been on the phone with her mother—had finally drifted off.
She’d told her mother she was fine. That all was well.
And with the calm, unwavering certainty in her voice, he might’ve believed her too, if he were her mother. But he wasn’t. He was the thing she was still trying to believe wouldn’t hurt her. And the first step to making her believe it…was removing the doubt from her bones.
His eyes remained on the window, past the line of trees that surrounded the edge of the house, beyond the dense forests and towards the hills that cradled the heart of The Crater.
Moonlight spilled across the land like poured silver, soft and endless, blanketing the town in a muted grey glow.
He could see the hills wrapped in fog, the trees bowing to the hush of the night breeze.
It was a quiet kind of beautiful. But distant. Always distant.
Then, it came again.
The soft sound, a small moan pushed from a sleeping throat.
His eyes fluttered closed as he let out a breath, long and quiet. And now, he listened to her breath. The way it hitched. The way it slowed. The subtle changes in rhythm that told him she wasn’t deeply at peace. He mirrored it unconsciously, his own chest rising and falling in sync with hers.
Before he realised what he was doing, he was already on his feet, following the pull of her sleep.
He stepped into the hall and crossed the creaking floorboards until he reached her door. It opened without a sound. Her curtains were drawn, casting the room in soft darkness, and the moonlight slipped through in fractured lines, painting her bed in a silver slash.
She lay curled beneath the blanket, tucked all the way up to her chin like a child seeking shelter. Her breathing was heavier now, a little uneven.
He closed the door behind him and took a step.
Just one step towards her—and his body changed.
It always did. It...filled.
He didn’t know how else to describe it. Being near her made his skin feel too tight, his lungs fuller, his senses sharper.
It was like being plugged into something electric, like being pumped with life after years of hollow silence.
Around her, every part of him that had long gone numb would suddenly remember what it meant to feel.
Soulful.
It was the only word that came close. That was what it was.
Around her, he felt soulful. He hadn’t even remembered what a heartbeat sounded like from the inside, not until he stood beside her.
It echoed faintly now, a dull thud in his chest, as though some part of him was borrowing life. Borrowing her.
It was one of the reasons he’d moved in with her.
He needed to be near the only thing in this world that made him feel even remotely alive.
Standing at her bedside, he stared down at her sleeping face, and as always, he could tell she wasn’t at peace. Not just from the way her hand curled beneath her pillow—clutching the little knife she thought could keep him at bay—but from the ache that simmered beneath the scar on his own chest.
He could feel that because they were tied. From the moment she was born, her soul had been wound into him.
The prophecy had awakened with her first breath. And he knew—Selvanyra had made it that way. She’d wanted him to know what it felt like to almost have a soul so he could crave more of it. To have it dangled before him. Close enough to feel it. Never close enough to own it.
And that was a bigger torture.
To be bound to the one person who made him whole while knowing their closeness would always tear her apart.
The pain she felt in her chest was a scar carried through reincarnation. An emotional magic fused into her soul at the moment she died. So every time he drew near, her soul would remember and try to keep them apart.
Just like the medallion.
But he knew the scar on her soul, the wound that burned when he was near—it soothed when they connected.
He’d put it together when he rushed into her room and pulled her into his arms that her soul needed to soften towards him.
When she’d relaxed into him, the pain had dulled and her soul had recognised him.
Which meant closeness was the key.
So yes.
If he had to get even more close to her in any way—he would.
Even if the path had to pass through pain.