228

228
Dravina POV
Ansel, Ysolde, and I lingered in the infirmary, our eyes fixed on Roarke.
This was the first assignment Malrik had entrusted to me personally, and though I suspected I might be taking it too far, I refused to leave anything to chance not on my watch.
My gaze darted between the monitors and his unmoving form. He hadn’t stirred, hadn’t opened his eyes once. Yet beneath the stillness, I could feel it something shifting.
The door opened softly. Tavian slipped in, Dashira just behind him. She offered me a gentle smile while Tavian inclined his head in quiet respect.
“You can rest now, Luna,” he murmured. “I’ve stationed men at the gates and around the perimeter. Nothing will happen to him.”
I gave a faint smile in return. “I know you’re capable, Tavian. But I need to monitor his progress myself.”
And that much was true.
If compulsion could reduce a full-grown man to this a hollow, motionless shell I had to see firsthand what recovery looked like… if recovery was even possible.
Tavian inclined his head. “Very well. Link me if anything changes.” He withdrew, leaving Dashira at my side.
She studied me for a moment with that sharp, assessing gaze of hers before smirking faintly. “Taking your duties seriously, Luna?”
A soft laugh escaped me.
Without a word, she reached into her pocket, produced an energy bar, and handed it over.
I blinked in surprise, then smiled as I took it.
“You’re starting to sound like family,” I murmured.
“Maybe I am,” she said, voice low. “You’ve earned that.”
“You skipped lunch,” she added.
“Trying to keep my figure,” I joked.
Our laughter was quiet but genuine.
“How is he?” she asked, nodding at Roarke.
“The healer says he’s stable might just be in a deep sleep from exhaustion,” I replied, glancing at the monitors. “So I’m just here, waiting for Sleeping Beauty to wake up.”
That drew another chuckle from her.
“Very well,” she said with a yawn. “I’m going to take a nap. Link me if anything changes.”
She slipped out, and I was alone again with Roarke, Ansel, and Ysolde.
The room was dim, the only sound the steady beeping of machines. I scanned the space before my eyes settled on him his face unnervingly serene, like a man simply napping. But I couldn’t stop wondering…
What was happening in his mind?
Was he trapped in some dark memory?
Was he afraid to wake up?
The door creaked again. The healer entered, nodding briefly at me before crossing to Roarke’s side.
She moved through her checks methodically, eyes flicking between equipment and clipboard. Then she froze. Her brow creased as she stared at one of the readings far longer than necessary.
Finally, she shook her head. Not confusion concern.
I straightened. “What is it?” The humor from moments ago had drained from my voice.
“I’m… not sure yet,” she said quietly, still studying the data. “But something’s wrong.”
Flipping back through her notes, she added, “There’s no biological reason for him to still be unconscious. No trauma. No neurological failure. Nothing. It’s as though… something is holding him under.”
Ysolde’s eyes narrowed. “Like compulsion?”
The healer nodded slowly. “I’ve been reading reports. Compulsion was used during the last attack. If it’s still affecting him, that could explain the delayed response.”
“I doubt that,” Ansel interjected, stepping closer, his voice sharper now.
“Compulsion can’t do this. I’ve never heard of it pushing someone into a near-coma. It doesn’t suppress the body it controls the mind.”
I stayed silent but alert.
Ansel turned to me, his gaze piercing. “Don’t you know how compulsion works?”
My breath caught.
Yes.
I knew.
More than I should.
I knew what it felt like to wield it how it had surged through me like wildfire that day, what it had done to Dashira. Ever since, I’d been studying it in secret, desperate to understand this thing that had revealed itself inside me.
But I couldn’t admit that. Not here. Not to him.
“Not really,” I said calmly, shrugging as if it meant nothing.
His eyes narrowed, searching. He didn’t believe me. I saw it in the way his gaze lingered, waiting for a crack in the lie I’d just offered him.
The healer excused herself then, murmuring something as she slipped out, leaving only the three of us and Roarke, still lost in unnatural sleep.
Ysolde reached out, placing a gentle hand over Ansel’s. A silent plea: Let it go.
But the tight set of his shoulders, the line of his jaw told me he wouldn’t.
“Can you wield it?” he asked finally, voice low.
My stomach knotted.
I forced a chuckle, shaking my head. “No,” I said lightly, as though the idea were absurd.
He didn’t smile.
“I don’t buy that,” he said, sharper now. “You’re Orielle’s daughter. Orielle had the dominant gene. You should be able to wield compulsion.”
The words had barely left his mouth when Ysolde snapped.
“Are you out of your mind, Ansel?!”
He flinched, startled by her fury.
“No one should know she’s Orielle’s daughter,” she hissed, voice low and fierce. “The walls have ears. What is wrong with you?”
She was on her feet now, fully facing him.
“No wonder you couldn’t protect yourself or your sisters. Don’t you get it? You just spoke a death sentence aloud. For her. For us.”
His gaze dropped, guilt creeping into his expression, but Ysolde wasn’t finished.
“You’re so consumed by your curiosity about compulsion you’d risk exposing your own cousin? Just to satisfy yourself?”
Ansel’s mouth opened, then closed again. He shook his head slowly, regret washing over his face.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“No,” Ysolde snapped. “You weren’t.”
Silence fell again, heavy and tense.
And I sat there, keeping my composure, locking the storm inside where no one could see it.
Because now, more than ever, I understood:
Too many people wanted to know what I was.
And far too many would kill me if they found out.