“She settled,” the other replies. “The second you touched her.”
Silence stretches thin and brittle.
My head throbs.
Why are they all looking at me like that?
Why does he feel so right when everything else feels wrong?
Another wave hits – heat, pressure, that awful crawling awareness under my skin – and I cry out softly before I can stop myself, hips shifting restlessly.
“Okay,” he says, sharper now. “You—out.”
“What?” one of them protests.
“Out,” he repeats. “Now. Both of you. Go do something useful. I’ll shout if I need you.”
There’s hesitation. Then footsteps retreat.
The door closes.
We’re alone.
He adjusts me without comment, pulling the duvet higher, bracing me with his body close but not pressing. His scent wraps around me, thick and grounding, and I melt into it with a shaky sigh that I don’t bother fighting.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, low and steady. “Breathe. Just breathe.”
My forehead presses into his chest without me deciding to move. His shirt is warm. Solid. Real.
“Sol?” I whisper, half question, half plea.
His breath catches. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m here.”
My body finally stills. Not fixed. Not healed. But calmer. Less like it’s tearing itself apart from the inside.
I don’t understand why.
But somewhere, deep down, something inside me does.
And it clings.
TWENTY-SIX
SOL
I should leave.
The thought comes back as I sit in the dark, watching her sleep. But this time it doesn’t even pretend to sound reasonable.
Her breathing is shallow again. Too fast. Her body shifts restlessly, knees drawing in like she’s chasing relief she can’t name.
Heat rolls off her in waves I can feel from the chair. She whimpers softly, curling tighter into the sheets, chasing something she doesn’t have enough strength to understand yet.
My chest tightens.
My eyes go back to her neck.
The bite hasn’t improved. If anything, it looks worse.