Chapter 75
Chapter 75
Amelia POV
The ridge wind never stopped. It cut through skin, through thought, until all that was left was the ache. But the ache was safer than the whisper. Ache was mine. Ache I could hold.
Demian hadn’t let me go since the cliff. His arms had been a prison, and yet I hadn’t fought as hard as I should’ve. Some part of me… some traitorous, broken part… had needed that grip. That tether.
By morning, he loosened it, but not by much. His hand brushed my sleeve every few steps, as if reminding me: I’m here. You’re not slipping again.
I hated that it worked.
The others noticed. Of course they noticed. Kira’s eyes cut like knives whenever they landed on me, cold calculation laced with something sharper—resentment? Jealousy? Or maybe just the simple fact that my weakness made us all vulnerable. Corrin tried to pretend he didn’t see, always marching ahead, too rigid, too loyal. And Elian… Elian watched Demian like a wolf ready to bite if the Alpha so much as stumbled.
I was the fracture in this unit. The weak point. And we all knew it.
\---
By midday, exhaustion was a living thing gnawing at my bones. My legs shook, my chest burned, and still the whisper coiled soft and patient inside my head. It didn’t need to shout now. It had already tasted victory once—dragged me to the cliff. It knew I would come back.
It knew because part of me wanted to.
When Elian called another halt, I collapsed against a jagged boulder, my palms pressed to my eyes until colors burst behind them. Don’t listen. Don’t hear. Don’t—
“Drink.”
The command came with a waterskin shoved into my hands. Demian again. Always Demian.
I should’ve thrown it back in his face. Should’ve told him to choke on his own Alpha concern. But my throat was sand, so I drank. The water slid down sharp as glass.
When I looked up, his eyes were already on me. Dark. Burning.
“You need to eat.”
I barked a laugh, dry and bitter. “So you can play the doting Alpha while everyone else pretends I’m not breaking?”
His jaw flexed, but his voice stayed low. “So you can survive.”
I hated him for sounding like he meant it.
\---
That night, I couldn’t sleep again. The whisper was louder, curling like smoke, filling every breath. It wrapped around the spark inside me—his spark, our spark—and it smiled.
I pressed both hands against my stomach, shaking. “No,” I whispered into the dark. “You don’t get to touch this. You don’t get to—”
“It already has.”
The voice wasn’t mine. Wasn’t Demian’s. Wasn’t any of them.
I froze, breath caught, heart hammering. The whisper had never spoken words before. It had only pulled, coaxed, tempted. But now… words.
I scrambled back until my shoulders hit stone. My eyes darted over the shadows, desperate for something—someone—to blame. Nothing. Just sleeping bodies. Just Demian’s broad back, tense even in rest.
“You’ll kill it if you fight,” the whisper crooned, velvet and poison. “But if you let go… we’ll save you both.”
My breath hitched so loud Demian stirred. His head jerked up, eyes snapping to me like fire in the dark. He didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. He saw it on my face.
In two strides, he was crouched before me, hands braced on either side of my legs. “Talk to me.”
I shook my head, throat locked. If I spoke it aloud, it would be real.
“Amelia,” he rasped, and gods help me, his voice cracked on my name. “Don’t make me drag it out of you.”
Tears burned hot. “It spoke.”
Silence. Not the silence of disbelief. The silence of someone who already feared this was coming.
His hands gripped my knees, hard enough to anchor. “What did it say?”
I swallowed hard. “That if I keep fighting, I’ll kill it. But if I let go, it’ll… save us.”
His face twisted, rage and terror bleeding raw. The bond flared, screaming with his fury until I choked on it.
“You don’t listen.” His voice was steel wrapped in fire. “Not to a damn word. You hear me? Not to a damn word.”
“But what if it’s right?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. My voice broke on it. “What if I’m already killing it just by—by being too weak? What if—”
His hands caught mine, crushing them to his chest. His heartbeat thundered under my palms. Wild. Fierce. Alive.
“You’re not weak.” His forehead pressed to mine, breath hot, words brutal. “You’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. And this—” his grip shifted, pulling my hand down, pressing it flat over the flat plane of my stomach, “—isn’t dying because of you. It’s living because of you.”
Tears spilled hot down my cheeks. I wanted to believe him. Gods, I wanted to. But the whisper laughed in the back of my skull, soft and smug.
And I hated that part of me almost agreed with it.
\---
The next day, the ground turned rougher, rock giving way to ice-slick ridges. Each step was a gamble, each breath thinner, sharper. Elian pushed harder, snapping orders, his voice cutting through the wind.
“We need lower ground before the storm hits. Move.”
Storm. My body was already a storm.
Kira brushed past me at one point, her gaze raking over my trembling frame. “If you can’t keep up, you’ll drag us all down.”
Her voice wasn’t cruel. It was worse—flat. Matter-of-fact.
Before I could snap back, Demian’s growl cut the air. “She keeps up.”
The Alpha command in his tone rattled bones. Kira didn’t even flinch. She just gave me a look, unreadable, and strode on.
I hated him for defending me. I hated that I needed it.
By dusk, my legs buckled more than once. Each time, Demian’s hand caught me before I hit the ground. Each time, the bond snarled with heat and shame until I wanted to rip it out of me.
And each time, the whisper coiled tighter, patient. Waiting.
\---
That night, the storm hit.
We huddled under a jagged overhang, the wind howling like wolves outside, snow lashing sideways. Cold seeped into every crack, every breath. Corrin muttered curses under his breath, Elian sharpened his blade with mechanical precision, Kira sat with her eyes closed as if listening to something only she could hear.
And Demian? Demian wrapped himself around me like a wall of fire against the cold.
I tried to shove him away. Gods, I tried. But the storm was merciless, and my body betrayed me, curling into his heat.
His lips brushed my temple once, a ghost of touch. Not command. Not claim. Just… there.
It undid me more than if he’d kissed me hard.
“Sleep,” he murmured.
“I can’t.” My voice cracked.
“Then just breathe. I’ll hold the rest.”
I wanted to scream at him. To claw at his chest until he bled. But my throat burned, and my body trembled, and the whisper slid soft through my skull: He can’t save you. Only I can.
I buried my face in his chest to drown it out. His heartbeat roared against my ear, steady, relentless.
I hated him.
I loved him.
And I didn’t know how much longer I could stand in between without shattering.
\---
By morning, the storm broke. The world lay white and raw, silence heavy as a grave.
We moved again, slow, cautious. My body screamed with every step. My mind screamed louder.
And then, near midday, it happened.
The whisper didn’t just press against me—it shoved. Hard. My vision blurred, my knees buckled, my breath ripped from my chest.
I went down.
Voices shouted—Kira’s sharp, Corrin’s low, Elian’s curse—but the only one I heard was Demian’s, guttural, panicked: “Amelia!”
He caught me before I hit the ice. His arms were iron, his voice a roar in my ear. “Stay with me. Stay—”
The whisper slid soft and sweet into the cracks: Come with me instead.
And for one terrible heartbeat, I wanted to.
I wanted to step out of the ache, out of the bond, out of all of it. To let it take me and stop fighting.
But then Demian’s grip crushed around me, his voice breaking raw. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you damn dare leave me.”
And something inside me—small, fragile, but mine—clung to those words harder than the whisper’s promise.
I gasped, clawing back into myself. My body shook, cold sweat soaking through. The whisper hissed, furious.
Demian’s face hovered above mine, eyes wild, hair damp with snow. “I’ve got you,” he rasped. “I’ve got you.”
And gods help me—I believed him.
Even though I knew the whisper wasn’t done.
Even though I knew this was only the beginning.