Chapter 23
PLEASE DON’T LEAVE
Andrik-
She doesn’t wake. Not as the minutes bleed into hours. Not as the storm rages outside, and night folds over the forest like a shroud.
I sit beside her with my claws sheathed and my breath shallow, listening to the soft catch of hers. Each inhale is a blade, each exhale a reprieve.
Her skin is too pale.
I press my palm flat to her chest just to feel the rise and fall. I can feel the bond trying to knit, threads catching on each pulse... but never tying off.
“Forgive me,” I whisper, “This never should’ve happened. I should have waited. I knew better. I should’ve known he’d try to take you from me again.”
I can’t take my eyes off the soft curve of her lips—the faint freckle on her cheek.
Mine. Still mine.
I don’t want to move from her side, but I can’t sit still.
I move through the room in silence, gathering what I need: a bowl, matches, and the snowdrop she picked from the clearing.
I slice a thin line across my palm with one claw and let it drip into the bowl, mixing it with a handful of snow and some of the petals.
The paste thickens too fast—coagulating like the forest already knows what I’m about to ask for.
I fall to my knees beside her body, “This is the oldest rite I know,” I murmur, voice rough from the tears I’m holding back. “One soul calls the other back. One stays awake through the dark.”
I dip my fingers in the paste. It’s thick. Cold. Clinging to my skin like grief.
“Don’t leave me, Lumi,” I whisper. “Sael?n...please—”
I press trembling fingers to her sternum and begin to draw.
A spiral ring of thorns and snowdrops circles across her chest. At the center, I drag a jagged infinity loop—my side broken, hers smooth.
A bond interrupted. Finally, I shape the veyr?n flame, a six-pointed snowflake, its tips trailing into fire.
It rests directly above her heart, and I exhale frost across it to seal it in place.
The sigil hisses, crystallizes, then glows faintly blue. It sparks beneath my fingers, sharp and punishing. The light flares—then lashes outward like lightning. My hand jerks back, but not fast enough. The spiral ring sears itself into my palm like molten frost, carving its twin into my skin.
I grit my teeth as pain races up my arm.
It’s not blood that drips this time—it’s light.
Pale blue and smoking. The forest knows the rite wasn’t meant to be invoked before the bond was fully sealed.
It demands a price. I clench my fist and hold it against my chest.“Veyr’thalin etra’saev,’ I whisper through clenched teeth.
Sacred blood remembers, and mine would burn for her—until every last drop sizzled from my body.
“Thal’sae veyr?n,” I murmur, voice shaking. (Let the forest reclaim what was stolen.)
I lower my forehead to her chest, claws still bloodied, the sigil pulses once beneath my cheek.
“Etravi’s?n veskae l?n.” (I will break the world if it keeps you from me.)
I press a kiss to her forehead, then her pulse, before curling myself around her.
“I would split the night open, Lumi, if I thought it would let your name pour back out.” The fire snaps as shadows dance around the wooden floor. Wind groans against the cabin walls.
Let the gods watch.
Let them damn me.
But let her live.
Anonymous
Look at him. Bleeding. Shaking. Begging.
It’s a sick little thrill watching the forest’s golden boy crumple. Watching him realize—again—how easily I can step in and snatch away the only thing that keeps his humanity.
He cradles her like a fallen star, pleading for her to wake—sobbing prayers into the midnight air.
“I should have protected you. If the gods are watching, they can take me instead…”
What a fucking waste. She isn’t yours to bargain with, snow-prick. Your “mate” doesn’t even know how to take care of you, little dove.
And before all of this, the night your knees were slick with your sister’s blood—where was he?
Nowhere. I was. Don’t you get it yet? I’m not jealous of him. It’s something much, much different.
I’m the version of him that showed up when you shattered. The one who’s been patient enough to watch you for years without forcing myself on you. Memorizing your patterns, your fears, your softness.
I follow at a distance. He’s fucking fast, I’ll give him that, but I know where he’s taking her.
He’s so distraught he doesn’t even notice the shadow trailing him.
When he bursts through the cabin door, I stay just beyond the tree line until the door slams behind them. I find my favorite spot next to the north-facing window, where I can see them best.
He peels off the furs he wrapped her in, so gently it makes my teeth ache. He whispers things into her skin that I can’t quite make out—I’ll have to fix that.
I swing my backpack around and unzip the matte black casing of the contact mic I bought days ago.
Small enough to vanish against the wood.
It’ll catch their voices through the windowpane like a spider sensing motion on its web.
Their body heat will make it tricky, but I’ve calibrated for that.
A vibration sensor turned to low-frequency resonance. I’ll hear everything:
Every lie he tells her.
Every shuttered breath.
“I’ve got you. You’re safe, Kaemorin.” I watch him mouth.
Except she’s not, Andrik. Not when she’s with you. A sad excuse for a “guardian,” if I’ve ever seen one.
I shift slightly in the snow, and my fingers press lightly to the frost-laced window— just enough that it fogs.
It’s intimate, this moment, like observing two caged animals who have no idea the world’s watching.
I stand silently. The mic hums faintly against the glass. Every tremor carries through the pane into my headset—a soft thrum of guilt and desperation.
Not all of it is clear yet, their body heat muddies the signal—but I catch the fragments that matter.
“Please,” he whispers. “Wake up for me…”
He lays her on the bed like she’s made of glass. Will he stay so dignified when she’s lying bare in his sheets?
“Please, Sael?n.. give me a sign you can hear me.”
He says it over and over, like a mantra, as if she can hear a single thing he says with the amount of sedatives running through her system.
Pathetic.
I adjust the mic slightly to compensate for the heat from the fire. The tech is sensitive. I’ve been testing it—mapping out how warmth distorts resonance.
“I’ve got you, Kaemorin. I don’t know if you can hear me, but you’re safe at home. I’m not leaving your side.”
I smile at the glass. Let him believe that.
I raise my hand and trace a slow heart into the frost with my fingertip.
I already have the cottage ready and waiting—a place where the delusion dies, where she’ll finally understand the difference between protection and possession.
He rushes around the room, snatching up vials and bowls. His movements are frantic but precise. Objects clatter against wood as he circles back to her.
His hands tremble as they rise to his chest. Then he drags a claw across his palm, slicing his skin.
I tilt my head—interesting.
Blood flows freely, spilling into the bowl like a crimson river. He stirs in the powders and herbs he grabbed, his lips moving in a tongue I don’t know.
I can’t catch most of his words over the hiss of the fire, and the storm beginning to crack across the sky.
I watch as his hand shakes the closer it gets to her chest. He paints a strange symbol over her skin. Not in any language I recognize.
When he’s done, he bends forward and lays his head in her lap.
She doesn’t flinch, but after a moment passes, her fingers twitch, just barely, against his hair.
Rage simmers low in my gut. Even sedated, she still finds a way to comfort him.
This moment should have been mine. That helpless, precious state she’s in? I gave her that. I crafted it with precision. I chose the dosage. I kissed the needle with calculation.
And he reaps it: the intimacy. The contact.
He breathes her in like oxygen and buries himself deeper into her legs—his shoulders quake.
Is he crying?
I don’t know what he vowed, but I know I hate the sound of it, even if I couldn’t understand it.
I watch for a long time, but his eyes never close. He doesn’t look away from her for even a single heartbeat.
There’s nothing for the mic to pick up now, and Lumi will be out for several more hours.
While she sleeps—I prepare.
Because if that symbol was a promise, then I’ll make one too.
She may fall asleep with him… but soon she’ll wake with me.
Lumi-
Somewhere between pulse and nothingness, I hear him. Warmth, not the scorching kind from the mating fire, not the fever from the bond, but something steadier.
The second thing I feel is... breath. It ghosts along my temple, warm and steady. A heartbeat thuds against my chest, too large to be my own—the rise and fall of a chest beneath me lulling me back under.
I blink a couple of times to orient myself. The ceiling above me is unfamiliar—dark wood with frost crawling in the corners. Snow hums quietly against the windows.
How did I get here?
My body aches, my throat’s sore, and my legs won’t move right. But then I feel him. Andrik. Oh, thank God. He’s coiled around me like a giant, fluffy serpent.
One clawed hand rests lightly over my wrist, the other is wrapped snuggly around my waist. His antlers scrape the wall behind us with each exhale.
My hand twitches against something smooth and cold. I look down and find Anna’s locket curled in my grasp.
How—
I gasp softly. Something in my chest aches. It’s a strange feeling, like something is open and leaking.
“Andrik?”My voice is a dry whisper. His head jerks up so fast that a piece of the headboard snaps.
“Lumi!” His voice booms, and my head spins. “Thar’mira sael?n... etra’ven.”
His massive form shifts over me, hands trembling where they cup my jaw,
“I thought—”
He stops, swallowing hard.
“I didn’t know if you were going to wake up.”