Chapter 23 Stay until my last breath

Chapter 23 Stay until my last breath
Derrick pov

I kick the door open hard enough that it slams against the wall.

Catherine spins around, her face drains instantly.

“Oh God—”

“She’s bleeding out.”

The words come out rough. Stripped. Bare.

There is no panic in them. There isn’t room for it.

We move at the same time. I lower Sam onto the couch, my hands more careful than they have any right to be with the way my pulse is trying to tear through my ribs.

She’s so cold.
Her pulse is barely there.

“She’s lost too much blood,” Catherine says, already pressing gauze to her head. “We need a hospital.”

“No.”

She looks at me, confused.

“And how do you plan to explain this?” I ask, my voice low, controlled in a way that feels dangerous even to my own ears. “The roots. The shadows. The forest trying to bury her alive?”

Catherine doesn’t answer. Because she can’t.

“She needs blood,” she says instead.

“Take mine.”

Her hands stop.

“You know what that means.”

I am already rolling up my sleeve.

“If her body rejects your blood—”

“It won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

I step closer, determined to make my point. Or force her to do it regardless.

“I do.”

Something in my voice makes her hesitate.

“It’s the only option we have,” I say, quieter now, but heavier. “I am not watching her die because we were afraid to try.”

“She could reject you,” Catherine says, her voice dropping. “And if she does, we won’t be able to stop it.”

I meet her eyes and hold her stare.

“She won’t.” my voice almost pleading.

Because she called for me.
Because even dying, she reached for me.

Catherine exhales slowly.

“Fine.”

I don't wait. The needle slides into my arm.
I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything except her. I watch the dark red liquid flow slowly down through the line.

The second line slips into her vein.
I watch it like it is the only thing holding this world together.

“Stay with me,” I murmur, brushing her hair back from her face, careful around the blood. “You don’t get to leave. Not now. Not like this.”

Eight hundred years of waiting, searching. Sixteen years of pretending.
And this is how it ends?

No.

Absolutely not. I will not allow it.

Minutes drag by.
Her breathing stutters once.

My hand tightens.

“Fix it,” I say sharply. “Do something.”

“I am,” Catherine snaps back.

I know she's trying her best and that none of this is her fault.
But I also know she feels this too.
The weight of what happens if this fails.

“Stay,” I whisper, softer now, my forehead hovering just above hers. “You waited eight hundred years to come back to me. You don’t get to disappear now.”

Her chest rises.
Falls.
Again.
Then a small shift in her breathing. Color slowly starting to return to her skin
something shifts.

“She’s stabilizing,” Catherine says.

Relief doesn’t come gently. It hits like a cavalry lance to the chest, hard and sudden, knocking the breath from me and nearly taking me off my feet.

I grip the edge of the couch, trying to hold myself together.

“This is your fault.” Catherine's words cuts deeper than any knife could have.

I don’t look at her.
I don’t argue either.
Because she isn’t wrong.

“You were distracted,” she continues. “You wanted to give her normal. She was never meant for normal.”

My jaw tightens. I close my eyes briefly, letting her words sink in.

“Your love for her is going to get her kill. It's going to get all of uskilled.”

I look at Sam.
At the blood staining her face.
At the damage visible all over her body.

“I’d burn the world down before I let it take her.”

The words come out quiet.

Catherine doesn’t respond, just shakes her head and throws the bloodied cloth into the fire.

“Watch her.” she says it like an order. But I don't need any convincing.
I'm not going anywhere.

I sink to the floor beside the couch, close enough that if she stops breathing, I will know before the air does.

I keep checking her breathing. The bandage at her temple. The color of her lips. The way her chest rises and falls.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Catherine had removed the transfusion hours ago. Said it was enough. That the rest of the healing is up to Sam now.
I don’t believe her.
I don’t trust anything I cannot see.
So I stay.

I take her hand carefully in mine, like it belongs to something sacred.
I press a slow kiss to her knuckles.
The firelight flickers across her face.

“You terrified me.”

The words come out low and a little unsteady. Rough and breaking at the edges.

“I thought I lost you.”

Again.
The word doesn’t need to be said.
It’s already there. Between every breath she's fighting to take.

Eight hundred years collapsing into this moment.

My thumb brushes lightly over the bandage at her temple.

Careful.

Reverent.

“God, Sam,” I whisper. “I love you so much it’s killing me.” the truth filling breaking out of me.

Her scream still echoes in my head.
Catherine’s voice follows it.

Your love for her will get us all killed.

I let out a slow breath shaking breath.

I was distracted. I wanted to give her something soft. Something normal.
And it almost killed her.

“When you took the necklace off…” My grip tightens around her hand. “I couldn’t feel you.”

My chest tightens sharply.

“I’ve never felt that kind of empty.”

I stupidly thought I could survive it.
I was wrong.

“I love you enough to ruin us both,” I admit quietly.

“and if I keep loving you like this… where everyone can see it… it won’t just hurt you.”

It will expose you.
It will call them to us faster.

I study her face, memorizing it.
Like I might have to live without it again.

“I don’t just love you,” I murmur, pressing my lips to her knuckles again. “It’s so much worse than that.”

My voice drops.

“I’m bound to you.”

Not by fate or prophecy.

By choice. By time. By heart and soul and ever breath I still get to breathe because you continue to exist.

“I love you in ways that hurt,” I whisper. “Like prayer. Like punishment.”

My thumb traces her skin.

“I would burn this world to keep you breathing.”

That is not a metaphor.
It is a promise.

“But I don’t get to love you the way I want.”

I feel my heart start to ache as the words slowly leave me.

“No matter how much I want to… it has to be your choice.”

Not because she was reborn into a body bound by some demonic prophecy.
Not because she belongs to anything but herself.
But because she has to choose the light all on her own.

“You have to choose me,” I say quietly. “Not because you’re bound. Because you want to.”

Silence settles again.
I lower her hand carefully.

“This is it.”

No hesitation now.

“The last time I get to love you out loud.”

Something inside me closes.
Locked away behind will power and obedience.

I sit back slightly. Eyes never leaving her.

“I will protect you.”

Even if she hates me.
Even if she never understands.
Even if it means becoming something she wouldn’t forgive.

My jaw tightens.

“Tomorrow… I do this right.”

No softness.
No distraction.
No mistakes.

“I won’t fail you again.”

This time, there is no emotion in it.
Only certainty.

I sit there in the dark. Watching her breathe.
Counting every rise and fall of her chest.

And I do not move.

Not once.

I feel it before I hear it.
That same wrongness from the forest.
Lingering closer than it should be.

My hand stills where it rests over Sam’s.
Slowly, I lift my head.
The house is too quiet.

Then something shifts in the dark.
Not a sound.
A presence.
Watching.

My jaw tightens.
“You followed me,” I say softly, not looking away from the doorway. “That was your first mistake.”

Catherine is safely in her room.
Good.
Because whatever this is it isn’t leaving without a fight and I don't need her breathing down my neck about it.

The air changes.
Cold bleeds into the room, heavy and suffocating, pressing against my lungs the same way it did in the forest.

Then it steps forward.
Not fully solid.
Not fully shadow.
Something in between, twisted, wrong, stretching too tall for the space it occupies. Its shape flickers, like it can’t decide what it wants to be.

But its attention locks on Sam.
Something inside me snaps instantly.

“No,” I say, already standing, positioning myself between them. “You don’t get to look at her.”

The thing tilts its head.
Curious.
Hungry.

“Josephine…” it whispers, voice layered, broken, ancient.

My vision goes red.
I move before it finishes the word. Reaching for the sword at my hip. The glamour shatters and light slams into my hand as the sword forms, white-gold fire erupting outward and burning the shadows back.

The demon recoils with a shriek, but it doesn’t retreat.
It lunges.
Fast.
Too fast for anything human to track.

Doesn’t matter.
I meet it head-on.

Steel collides with something not quite solid, not quite real. The impact cracks through the room, splintering wood, rattling the walls.

I don’t stop.
I drive forward, forcing it back step by step.

“You touched her,” I snarl, each word shaking. “You followed her. You thought you could take her from me—”

The demon lashes out, claws forming from shadow, slicing across my side.
I don’t even look down.
I don’t feel it.

I grab at the demon.
Not carefully.
Not strategically.
I grab it like I’m trying to tear it out of existence.
Light burns through my hand where I make contact. The creature shrieks, its form distorting violently under the pressure.

“Wrong,” I breathe, leaning in closer. “She is not yours.”

It fights back, harder now. The room warps under the force of it. Shadows lash out, slamming into the walls, cracking wood, shattering glass.

The house trembles.
I don’t move.
I don’t give an inch.

“Say her name again,” I whisper, voice dropping to something low and deadly. “I dare you.”

The demon convulses, its voice splintering
“Jo—”

I drive the blade through it.
Not clean.
Not quick.
Slow and deliberate.

Light explodes outward from the wound, tearing through its form, unraveling it piece by piece.

It screams.
Good.
I twist the blade.

“Louder,” I say, my voice shaking with something unhinged. “Let me hear it.”

The creature thrashes violently, trying to pull free, but I hold it there, forcing it to stay, forcing it to feel every second of it.

“You don’t get to touch her,” I continue, quieter now, but worse. “You don’t get to follow her. You don’t get to exist anywhere near her.”

The shadows lash out one last time—
I cut them down.
All of them.
Relentless. Brutal. Precise.
There’s nothing elegant in it.
Nothing controlled.
Just destruction.

Light consumes what’s left of the demon, burning through it until there’s nothing left to hold together.
It collapses in on itself and disappears.

Silence crashes back into the room.
For a second, I just stand there.
Breathing hard.
Hands still shaking.
Blood dripping—mine, not that it matters.

Then I turn back to her.
Like nothing else exists.
The sword vanishes as I drop back to her side, my hands already on her, checking, searching, making sure—
She’s still breathing.
Still here.
Still mine.

My shoulders drop slightly.
Not relief.
Not yet.
But close.

I brush my thumb lightly across her cheek, careful not to disturb the bandage.

“They don’t stop, do they?” I murmur quietly. “They just keep coming.”

My jaw tightens.
Good.
Let them.

“I’ll kill every single one of them.”
Not a threat.
A promise.

I lean down slightly, my forehead resting just beside hers.

“Let them come for you,” I whisper. “I’ll be here.”

My hand tightens around hers.
Possessive.
Unyielding.
“Every time.”