Chapter 61
Elariya
“The Bonded and The Whole”
Sleep had abandoned me hours ago, leaving me to wander the hollow corridors of this strange house like a restless spirit. Everyone else had long since retired, but no matter how hard I’d tried, rest refused to come.
The floorboards didn’t creak beneath my bare feet. Nothing in this place behaved as it should. Even the shadows seemed wrong—too thick, too permanent, clinging to the walls as though painted there.
I drew my shawl tighter around my shoulders. Not for warmth; the air was temperate. The soft wool was comfort enough, carrying the faintest trace of Wolfe’s scent. The only piece of him I had left.
I descended the stairs slowly, my hand trailing the banister. Endless twilight greeted me at the bottom, spilling through the window like a muted veil.
At least it was night now. The house looked as it should. But night meant another day was gone. I had only a few hours left of this one, then three more days before the reset.
Gods, I tried not to think about time, but it was impossible.
My journals suggested I had always been like this in the final days, month after month, year after year.
But this time was different. Worse. I had never been in love before and never carried the weight of my own guilt pressing like stone against my chest.
Nothing brought me comfort. Even thinking hurt, each thought was another shard twisting in my skull. My mind drifted from one thing to the next like a summer butterfly too restless to land.
And more often than not, it circled back to Zyrra.
Arielle’s words lingered in my mind, gnawing at me. Zyrra hadn’t been a ghost.
At least that explained how she’d managed to fool me. But if she wasn’t a ghost, then what in the six hells was she? And why did the thought of the answer chill me more than the question?
I drifted into the living room, where the walls stretched high and pale beneath the spill of perpetual moonlight through the tall windows. I had hoped the space might offer some measure of peace, but the silence only deepened the ache lodged inside my chest.
Every heartbeat ricocheted off the stone walls, and the air pressed down with such suffocating stillness it felt as though I were the only living thing left in this forsaken place.
I couldn’t stand it. I was going insane.
Breathing past the overpowering sensation, I moved toward the kitchen but froze midstride.
A figure stood silhouetted in the archway, tall and broad-shouldered, his dark hair catching the pale light.
My heart stuttered, then it exploded into a frantic rhythm that sent blood surging through my veins.
It was him.
“Wolfe.” His name tore from my soul in a breath.
I didn’t think. I couldn’t think. I ran, feet barely touching the ground, hope and relief and desperate love propelling me forward. He'd come back to me.
“Wolfe, you—”
Strong hands caught me as I collided with him. I clutched at his shoulders, lifting my gaze to eyes I thought I knew better than my own. Bright blue. Piercing. But not the depths I ached for.
Alaric stared down at me, his expression softened by something I’d rarely seen in him—warmth and concern. And Gods, he looked so much like Wolfe, especially with his hair down.
I stumbled back, heat flooding my cheeks, embarrassment tangling with the fresh ache in my chest.
“Elariya.” His voice was gentle, careful, as if I were something fragile that might shatter at the lightest touch.
“Hi. I’m so sorry.” The disappointment cracked through my voice despite my effort to mask it. “I—I thought you were… him.”
“I get that a lot.” His mouth curved into a sad smile. “People used to think we were twins when we were younger. Some still do. They forget we’re a couple of years apart.” His gaze lingered, reading every line of devastation etched across my face. “I’m sorry. I know you were hoping…”
“It’s okay.” I tried to sound casual, but the words fractured.
“Come. Let me make you some tea.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” He gave me a gentle smile.
“Okay… thank you.”
Alaric ushered me into the kitchen, guiding me toward a chair at the table before moving to the hearth. He set a copper pot over the flames.
While he waited for the water to heat, he measured out dried chamomile from a small jar.
Steam began to rise from the pot moments later and he poured the boiling water over the herbs.
The delicate, apple-sweet scent unfurled as it steeped.
After a few minutes, he strained the tea and set a warm mug in front of me.
The simple ritual filled the air with warmth.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He gave me a curt nod.
I wrapped my hands around the mug and took a sip. The heat slid down my throat, the soothing warmth spreading through me.
Alaric watched me across the table, his concern so raw it seemed he was bracing for me to break apart right there before him.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” he asked, his voice low.
I shook my head. “No. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Wolfe.”
“Yeah. Same here.” He leaned against the counter, his gaze fixed on me as though I might vanish if he blinked.
I wondered how much the truth about Zyrra had torn at him. I wanted to ask, to share the weight, but this was the longest I had ever spoken to Alaric. I couldn’t risk ruining it with the reminder of my mistakes.
“Wolfe gets like this sometimes,” he murmured. “He just needs time to cool off. He’ll come back eventually.”
“Eventually. But… that may be longer than three days’ time.”
“Yeah, that’s true. But we still have time. So, try not to worry.”
“I’m trying. I really am.” My voice cracked on the words.
“I know. I’m just encouraging you to keep going.”
“Thank you. I can’t bear the thought of forgetting him. And not finding him again.” The confession splintered something inside me, and I blinked hard against the sting in my eyes. I took another sip of tea, but the warmth did nothing to ease the rawness in my soul.
“I’m sorry.”
“I wish I could see him one last time. Just to remember.”
Something shifted in Alaric’s expression. The sadness eased, replaced by something almost like… hope. Slowly, a smile spread across his face. The first genuine one I’d seen from him.
“Every now and then,” he murmured, “we get that one wish.”
He gently took the mug from my hands, set it aside, then pointed over my shoulder.
I turned. And my heart stopped. Wolfe stood in the doorway, his eyes locked on me with an intensity that stole what little breath I had left.
He was here. Really here.
"Wolfe," I gasped.
“Hi, Ziyka,” he breathed.
I shot from the chair, and he met me halfway. He caught me, lifting me clean off the ground. My shawl slipped from my shoulders as his mouth found mine, a collision of relief and need.
For the first time since he’d vanished, I could breathe again.
“Wolfe, I—”
“Shhh.” His mouth brushed against my temple, his grip tightening as if he could anchor me to him by sheer will. His scent, his warmth, his shadows—all of it cocooned me until the rest of the world ceased to matter.
His gaze flicked past me to Alaric. A silent nod passed between them, then the air split open around us.
Shadows curled, the room dissolved, and in the next heartbeat, we were standing in the familiar quiet of his bedroom at Vyrenth Hollow.
Wolfe set me down only long enough for the shadows to fade, but his hands never left me.
His mouth found mine again, hungrier this time, as if our time apart had carved something feral into him.
The kiss became rough and desperate, threaded with grief and longing, as though he was pouring everything he’d never said into me.
I clung to him, eager to close every inch, to prove to myself he was real, that I wasn’t dreaming him into existence. My back hit the door, then the wall, and still his lips didn’t leave mine. Shadow and heat engulfed us in a storm, cleansing my mind of everything that wasn’t Wolfe Nightblade.
“Ziyka…” he whispered against my mouth. “I’m hoping this means you missed me.”
I answered by slipping my arm around his neck to pull him closer and deepen the kiss.
He growled low in his throat, lifting me into his arms again. His chest heaved, his heart beating just as desperately as mine.
By the time he carried me to bed, my pulse was racing so fast I thought it might give out. He laid me down, and I arched into him, pulling him even closer. Gods, I was burning alive yet clinging to life all at once.
For a heartbeat, I thought of the little time we had left. Those few days would slip through my fingers like sand. The sad thought made me hold him harder, and I couldn’t bear to let him go. Not even for air.
“Don’t stop.” I gripped his shirt.
Wolfe pressed his forehead to mine. “I don’t plan to, Ziyka.”
Kneeling above me on the mattress, he snapped his fingers, and my clothes vanished. Then his shadows stripped him bare.
He gave me that menacing grin before lowering his mouth to latch onto one of my nipples then greedily sucked it into his mouth.
His teeth sunk into the tender flesh below my nipple, and I writhed underneath him as waves of pleasure surged through my body. He gave my other breast the same attention, biting it like he wanted to devour me whole.
Thrills raced through me, heavy with desire and everything I wanted from him.
I felt amazing. The way I always did in his arms.
He nibbled on my skin, moving down until he reached my entrance. There, he feasted on me, eating me out as if he needed the taste of me to survive.
Each stroke of his tongue sent me spiraling into delirious pleasure. The sound of my moans reached every wall, then I came, falling into an abyss of never-ending bliss.
“Mine,” Wolfe groaned, whispering over my skin, his face still between my thighs. “Always mine.”
“Always.”
He looked up at me, smiled, and guided his cock to my entrance, then pushed inside me, splitting me open with raw ecstasy.
My breath shortened, my body wound tight with arousal.
We groaned together as he thrust deeper, then Wolfe unleashed with a vengeance pounding into me as if he could brand this memory into my mind forever.
Every thrust of his cock shattered me, and I was lost in him.
For that moment, nothing existed but us. Us floating on a sea of eternal happiness, cresting the waves of unimaginable pleasure, and I savored the sensation of feeling him inside me. Knowing he belonged to me.
His hand slid up my body, roaming over my waist, my chest, my throat, and his pace became more possessive. With his gaze locked on mine, the storm in his eyes mirrored the one tearing through me.
His shadows licked over my skin like wild flame, searing every inch they touched, then his magic twined and hummed with mine in a symphony that made them no longer distinguishable from the other.
I knew then that he wasn’t just inside my body, he was inside my soul, carving his name into every hidden place.
I clutched him, desperate to hold on as the crescendo built between us.
Our breaths tangled, our bodies moved as one, and when release came, it crashed over me like fire.
My cry tore the air, his growl followed, and in that violent, beautiful shatter of pleasure, Wolfe held me as though letting go would kill him.
The inferno between us dimmed to embers, leaving only the warmth of his body wrapped around mine.
He lowered himself and pressed his forehead to mine, his breath ghosting over my lips. “I love you,” he whispered, those words sealing me to him in a way no curse could ever undo.
Those simple yet life-changing words meant everything to me. I’d felt them before, every time he looked at me. Every time he touched me. Every time he was buried deep inside me.
But hearing him say them… I finally believed they were mine to keep.
I gazed up at him and touched his face, drinking in the conviction in his bright blue gaze. “I love you, too.” The words spilled from the deepest parts of my soul.
He cupped my face. “You will remember me,” he vowed.
“I will remember you.”