Chapter 136
Chapter 136
Lila
The first thing I felt was heat.
Not warmth–heat. Stale and thick. It was so how I forgot how to breathe. My skin clung to the sheets with sweat, my limbs heavy as soaked wool.
Every part of me pulsed with fatigue, even my bones. The taste in my mouth was bitter, metallic, as if I’d bitten down on a coin in my sleep.
I blinked against the low light. The curtains were drawn, but not tightly. A sliver of evening sun painted a line across the floor, bleeding gold into the shadowed chamber.
Outside, I could hear distant voices. I reached instinctively for him, but Damon wasn’t here.
My hand fumbled across the bed, fingers dragging through cool linen where his body should have been. No indentation. No scattered coat or tossed book. No faint echo of his scent on the pillow beside me.
The bed had been empty a while.
I sat up too quickly, and the world tilted–slow and wrong. My vision pulsed at the edges. The pounding in my head spiked, and I pressed a hand to my temple until the dizziness passed.
My throat burned with thirst, but I ignored it.
There was no note. No sign of him. Not even a mark on the nightstand to suggest he’d left something and taken it back.
I swallowed hard and reached for the bond. Damon? The mind–link brushed faintly at the edge of my thoughts, hollow, then gone.
No answer.
Frowning, I shifted my attention elsewhere. My mother. I tried to stretch the link toward her, even a thread–Are you awake? Are you alright?-but it snagged against nothing.
No flicker of awareness. No warmth. Only utter and complete
silence. The panic that rose in my chest was slow but sharp.
I tried again, this time for the healer. Is she… is my mother stable? Please. Answer.
Still nothing.
The links felt dead. Not blocked or not severed, just… too far away. Or too weak to reach me.
I dragged the blanket tighter around my shoulders, nausea stirring low in my gut. The fire in the hearth had burned low, the coals pulsing dimly under
ash.
The scent of fever herbs clung to the air, mingled with the faint sweetness of the tonic Ella had given me.
My stomach turned. That damn tonic. Ella’s words echoed through my skull: How quickly we forget what makes us weak.
I tried not to spiral. But it was hard not to. I was too drained. Maybe the bond would strengthen when I was more grounded, more awake.
But that didn’t explain why Damon hadn’t stayed. Not a note, not a word. Just vanished, like I’d been a burden placed in bed for safekeeping and left for
others to handle.
The blanket suddenly felt too heavy. I kicked it off and swung my legs over the edge of the bed.
My toes curled against the cold stone floor, and I winced at the shock of it. Every moverent hurt. My muscles ached like I’d fought a battle I couldn’t remember.
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16:23 (Sun, 13 Jur
Chapter 136
I forced myself to stand.
The room swayed around me again, and I gripped the edge of the bed to keep from falling. I stayed like that for several breaths, each one rattling painfully against my ribs.
My skin was too tight, too thin. The air scraped against it like sandpaper.
When the dizziness settled, I shuffled toward the window. My legs felt stiff and unfamiliar, like they belonged to someone else. I leaned against the windowsill and stared down at the gardens below.
Everything outside seemed perfectly composed. Ordered. And I felt like I was unraveling alone.
Where was Damon?
The man who held me and marked me. The one who’d carried me to bed, who’d kissed me, made love to me and stood up for me.
The knock drew me from my spiraling thoughts. It sounded almost apologetic.
I didn’t answer right away. I stood at the window, arms wrapped tight around my middle, as if holding myself would keep my emotions from spilling out.
A pause. Then the door creaked open.
“Lila?” Emma’s voice was gentle. She slipped inside and closed the door behind her without waiting for permission. She carried a tray–tea, broth, two slices of toast–and the scent made my stomach turn.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she offered. Her steps were quiet across the floor. She approached me like wounded animal.
I supposed that wasn’t far from the truth.
Emma set the tray down on the table and fussed with the napkin, smoothing it once, twice.
My voice felt like gravel. “Where’s Damon?”
Emma froze just a second too long before answering. “He’s… been busy. There’s been some unrest, or so I hear. A lot of Council meetings.”
The list sounded like a neatly packed box of obligations meant to justify his absence. It made me feel hollow but I kept quiet.
Emma glanced over her shoulder at me, her eyes soft with concern/“You scared us,” she murmured. “You had a bad fever. The healers weren’t sure you’d wake up.”
I hadn’t known it was that bad.
I nodded slowly, still facing the window. “Has there been any news about my mother?”
Another pause. This one longer. I turned fully now, watching her. “Emma?”
Her hands curled at her sides. “Yes. There were messages.”
I blinked. “When?”
“Three days ago. While you were uncos.”
The world seemed to tilt again, but this time, but from fear and anger. I stepped forward, every movement stiff, costing me energy I didn’t have. “And he didn’t tell me.”
Emma’s eyes widened slightly. “He… I assumed he had.”
I shook my head, the motion small but sharp. “No one said anything. Not a word. I woke up alone and I thought she was gone. Or unreachable. I thought
16:23 Sun, 13 Jul
Chapter 136
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My throat closed. I pressed a fist to my chest, trying to keep the grief from spilling out. My voice came out quieter this time. “What did the message say?”
Emma shifted uncomfortably. “That she had a difficult night but stabilized. She’s resting. The healer said she whispered your name.”
The ache in my chest bloomed with longing. I hadn’t been there. I hadn’t known she was getting
and worried.
worse again. But Damon knew and let me wake alone
I stepped back, needing space, the edge of the bed catching behind my knees. I sat hard, pulling my knees up. My arms wrapped around them automatically.
Emma took a tentative step forward. “Maybe he thought it would upset you. Maybe he-”
“No,” I said, voice like glass. “Don’t explain for him.”
She stopped. I looked down at my hands. Pale. Still trembling.
“He should have told me,” I whispered. “Even if it hurt. He should have felt I was awake…”
Emma nodded once. Her silence was its own kind of agreement. She moved back to the tray, lifted the cup of tea, and placed it gently on the bedside table.
“I’ll come back later,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.
The door closed with a click that rang loud throughout the room. I sat in the quiet, eyes fixed on the steam curling up from the untouched tea.
My body was healing. I hoped. But something deeper inside me cracked.
Damon had known. And he chose silence.
Why?
The question played on loop in my mind. Ruby barely stirred, but her unease mirrored my own.
I stared out at the fading sky beyond the window, and for the first time since Damon marked me, I didn’t feel safe with him. I felt left behind.
And I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
