Chapter 53 Chelsea
Chelsea
My knees hit the stone first. I look up. Eryx is on his knees too—he’s bowed over and his fingers dig into the stone. He’s gripping it like it’s the only thing holding him up, the only thing tethering him to this life.
And Nightmare isn’t inside him.
The sentient magic extends from his chest like jagged thread. It’s formless, a cloud of black wisps. But at the same time, fully formed.
It shoots out from Eryx and into Helena. She’s absorbing Nightmare.
She sees me and her lips peel back into a ghoulish smile. “You’re just in time to watch.”
“Let him go!”
She tsks. “I’m not holding him. I’m removing something that should never have been his to begin with.”
Eryx looks up, sees me. His eyes are haunted—with the past, with a future that never was. “Chelsea,” he whispers, his voice raspy, “let me go.”
I grind my teeth. “I will never let you go. Not for a thousand years. And not because you ask. Not again.”
I step forward and grab the strand.
I’m hit with an electric jolt. My vision shatters and I’m sucked into the darkness.
It’s dark in here, a heavy purple. Eryx has vanished. So has Helena.
I hear it before I see it.
“You came back for us.”
I spin around and there stands Nightmare.
Air locks in my lungs.
He looks just like Eryx. Same height. Same face. Same mouth I’ve kissed.
But it’s not him. It’s more.
But shadows move beneath his skin like living constellations, and vast black wings unfurl from his back—wings too large for the space, edged in starlight and smoke.
A sob catches in my throat.
Because this isn’t just Eryx.
It’s everything inside him that was too much.
The fury. The hunger. The protection.
The love so fierce it nearly destroys what it touches.
He is completely primal.
He is a lion, and one wrong move will make me his prey.
“Of course I came back for you,” I tell him. “You can’t die. Not like this. And I'm not losing you."
Nightmare's wings flare. "He was protecting you."
"I know. And I'm choosing this. That's what love is."
His wings flare once, restless.
“She’s already pulled most of me out.” His voice is Eryx’s but doubled, because Nightmare is eons old.
The air around him fractures. This place is brittle, like I’m standing on thin ice about to crack.
“If she finishes, he won’t survive the rupture. I can’t be pulled against my will. I need to go willingly.”
I frown, thinking. “His father—”
“Lost me the same way.”
The truth lands like a blade.
Eryx accepted Nightmare. He chose him.
He cocks his head. “Eryx wanted me. He called, so I went into him.”
He wanted me.
“What can I do?”
His eyes go inky black. Nightmare reaches out, touches my cheek. It feels like pinpricks of fire dancing on my skin. “You know what to do.”
“Then I’ll take you.”
His inky eyes flare. Thunder cracks overhead and the purple sky fractures.
“This first,” he says.
His fingers brush my cheek, and fire dances beneath my skin. Then his mouth claims mine.
Power rips through me—sharp as lightning, intimate as a breath. It is agony and devotion braided together. Hunger and protection. Fury and love.
The darkness doesn’t invade.
It answers.
It is everything and nothing all at once. It doesn’t swallow me. It settles like a second heartbeat finding rhythm beside my own. For one suspended moment, there is no sky, no storm, no tearing—only pulse. Mine. His. Ours. Braided together.
Something roots beneath my ribs, and something remains elsewhere—Eryx, the real Eryx, not Nightmare. He’s steady, alive.
And he’s not severed from me.
We share.
The purple void fractures with a sound like glass splitting under pressure.
“Now,” Nightmare breathes, Eryx and not-Eryx all at once.
The world tilts violently. Gravity slams back into me. Stone cracks against my knees. Air burns in my lungs.
I’m back in the dream room.
Helena screams.
The jagged strand between them has changed. It’s no longer a single tearing filament. It has split—one line still anchored in Eryx’s chest, the other blazing toward me like a living shadow.
It snaps into my sternum. The power surges, and for one horrifying second, it pulls wrong.
Eryx gasps. His knees buckle again. The tether flares white-hot, not balanced—tearing.
“Chelsea—”
Pain detonates beneath my ribs. Not steady. Not shared. Too much.
I shift my grip—not taking from him, not forcing—anchoring.
The tether breathes, pulses for a beat and then—locks into place.
It doesn’t sever—it branches. One root in him, one root in me, both drawing from the same source.
Not violently.
More like inevitable.
Power surges outward from my chest in a low, thunderous wave. The mirrors lining the walls rattle. The glass ceiling fractures with spiderweb cracks.
Helena staggers backward. “That’s impossible,” she hisses.
Eryx collapses forward.
“No.”
I lunge and catch him before his body strikes the stone. His weight crashes into me, heavy and terrifyingly limp.
“Eryx.”
His skin is pale. Too pale.
The shadows in the room flicker, uncertain.
Breathe.
I press my palm to his chest. His pulse is there. Faint, but there.
A heartbeat answers mine.
I look down and just above my heart is the same dark mark that Eryx has, the sign that I accepted all of Nightmare.
Magic beneath my ribs hums—not hungry, not frantic. Balanced. A living current flowing between us instead of through him alone.
Helena stares at me, horror dawning across her face.
“You split it,” she whispers.
“No,” I say, lifting my head slowly. “I anchored it.”
It's not half in each of us. It's whole—in both of us. Connected. Shared. The way it was always meant to be.
Magic stretches outward at my smallest breath, and the shadows in the room rise in answer, not frenzied, not feral.
Listening.
Helena staggers back another step. “No.”
She reaches out—sharp, desperate—and tries to pull again.
Nothing moves. The darkness doesn’t twitch toward her. It doesn’t recognize her. It doesn’t even acknowledge her.
The voice that leaves me is mine. Entirely mine. Just fuller. “You tried to tear it,” I say to her.
The shadows ripple behind me, and claws grow from my hands.
I smile. My claws. Darker. Heavier. Older, like they remember what they once were and are now more. Like muscles I’ve just remembered how to use.
Helena’s lip curls. She lunges, fingers clawing for the last filament still tethered faintly to Eryx’s chest.
The room answers before I do.
The night itself responds, pulling into me—it’s a rush, like a blast of cold air. Then it shoots out, grabs Helena—curling around her wrists and holding her in midair.
She gasps.
Helena struggles against the shadows, then goes still. Her eyes lock on mine.
"You don't understand," she says, and for the first time her voice isn't sharp. It's pleading. "I loved him. Eryx's father. I was there when no one else was. When he was alone. When he struggled with the burden of his magic.”
Her voice cracks. "I understood the darkness. And what did I get? Nothing. He wouldn't share it. Wouldn't give me even a fraction.”
She looks at Eryx, and something raw flickers across her face.
"The nightmares were consuming him. I could have carried half the magic, just like you’re doing now.
But he refused. Said I couldn't handle it.
So I took what should have been freely given.
" Her eyes burn with conviction. "I didn't murder him. I freed him.”
The shadows tighten around her wrists.
"You think you're different?" she hisses at me. "You're doing exactly what I wanted to do—share the burden, anchor the darkness. The only difference is he let you.” Her voice breaks. "Why was I never chosen?"
Silence falls. I understand now. Not the murder. Not the stalking. She was denied what she believed was rightfully hers.
"You're right," I say quietly. "He should have let you help. But taking without consent is stealing. And when you killed him, you didn't free him. You destroyed any chance of ever being chosen."
“It’s supposed to be mine,” she spits.
“No,” I say. The darkness coils in agreement inside me. “It isn’t.”
Her magic flares in a desperate burst, striking the mirrors. Glass fractures and rains down in glittering shards. The ceiling groans.
But the darkness absorbs the force like deep water swallowing a stone. She pulls against the shadows. They don’t tighten. They simply refuse.
For the first time since all of this began, Helena looks small.
“You don’t understand what you’ve taken,” she hisses.
“I didn’t take anything,” I reply. “I accepted.”
That word lands like a hammer. Her expression twists—rage, fear, humiliation tangled together.
The void stirs, tightening around her wrists and closing around her body. I step toward her. “Hear this,” I say, my voice deep and echoing, “you will leave. You will not come back. Because if you do, you won’t survive it. I’m giving you mercy where you’ve shown none.”
“No.”
I look back and there’s Eryx. Tall and handsome. Tired. Dark circles under his eyes, but the magic is in him. It hums in time with me.
I feel every part of him—anger, fear, worry. Relief.
And his beautiful black wings are back, extended behind him.
“You have to pay for every crime you’ve committed against me and my family.”
His gaze flicks to me for an instant.
Power snaps between us. Crackles. Him and me. It's just us. Together. Tied to one another like we were before, but different. More. Deeper.
I don't speak. Neither does he. But we move as one.
My claws extend—gold and black braided together. His wings flare wide, shadows pooling at their edges. The darkness flows between us like a current finding its path.
Helena feels it. Her eyes dart between us, and for the first time I see fear crack through her confidence.
"No—"
The shadows surge.
Mine and his, woven together, inseparable. They don't just wrap around her—they dig in. Searching. Finding every stolen fragment of power she's hoarded, every piece of magic she's torn from others.
Helena thrashes. Her magic flares—desperate, wild—trying to burn through the darkness. But it's like fighting the ocean. The more she struggles, the deeper it pulls.
"Stop!" She claws at the shadows, but they don't flinch.
I feel it then—the tug of her power unraveling. It's not gentle. It tears. Every thread of stolen magic rips free, and I feel each one like a plucked nerve.
Eryx steps beside me. His hand finds mine, our fingers threading together.
The bond between us thrums. His magic amplifies mine. Mine steadies his. We pull together—not brutal, not cruel but inevitable.
Helena screams. It's raw. Guttural. The sound of someone losing everything they built on a lie.
Her body convulses as the magic drains. Her skin pales. Her hands shake. The shadows don't stop until there's nothing left to take.
When the darkness finally recedes, Helena collapses.
She lies on the ground, a shriveled, shrunken husk of what she was.
Not dead.
Just powerless—like she made me and Eryx feel every time she invaded our home.
Our home, Nightmare murmurs.
Silence falls on the room.
The mirrors tremble once more and then settle. The storm above quiets to a low rumble.
Eryx and I stare at one another for a beat. And then we fall on each other, both of our bodies heavy. Both of us trying to keep each other upright.
“Eryx.”
He wraps his hands around my head. “Chelsea.”
My hand presses to his chest. The filament of darkness inside him pulses in rhythm with the one beneath my ribs.
Not dominant. Not consuming. Connected.
He inhales sharply and steps back. For a moment his gaze is unfocused—lost in whatever void he just crawled back from.
He frowns, confused. Then his eyes widen. His breath catches. He sees it—what I’ve done. What we’ve become.
“You…” His voice is raw.
I swallow. “Still here. Still sparkly.”
His hand lifts weakly, brushing my cheek like he’s making sure I’m real. His brow furrows. “You accepted Nightmare,” he says hoarsely. “Chelsea—”
He starts to argue, and I press my finger to his lips. “I choose you.”
Understanding dawns slowly in his eyes. Not fear. Something else. “You shouldn’t have,” he whispers.
“Don’t you dare tell me what I should and shouldn’t do.”
His gaze searches mine.
“You almost died choosing for me,” I say. “This time, I chose.”
Eryx exhales, something fragile breaking loose in his expression. The control. The isolation. The weight he’s carried alone for years.
“You chose us,” he says.
She chose us, Nightmare repeats.
Now we can both hear him at the same time.
“Yes,” I say, a faint smile tracing my lips.
Eryx’s forehead drops against mine.
The hum deepens—not two pulses competing, but one rhythm braided through both of us. Balanced.
For the first time, the darkness does not press or demand. It rests.
He takes my face in his hands. “My beautiful fucking monster.”
And then he kisses me. It isn’t hunger. It’s recognition. We’re no longer trying to survive each other.
We choose each other.