Chapter 87 Safe For Now
Darius’s POV
Hours passed like that, measured not by any clock, but by the rise and fall of Lyra’s breathing against my chest.
At first, it was uneven, shallow, as if her body hadn’t yet realized the danger was over. Every breath sounded like a question she didn’t trust the answer to. I stayed perfectly still, barely daring to breathe too deeply myself, afraid that even the smallest movement might send her spiraling back into whatever memories had dragged her under.
Eventually, the shaking stopped.
Her shoulders, drawn tight when she’d first folded into me, loosened inch by inch. The tension bled out of her like water from a cracked vessel. By the time her breathing finally evened out, her head resting fully against my shoulder, I realized I hadn’t moved once.
Not when she still held on to me like I was the only solid thing left in the world.
Not when a quiet, broken sound had slipped from her throat and lodged itself somewhere behind my ribs.
Not even when the muscles in my back began to burn from holding myself so unnaturally rigid.
I didn’t move because moving felt wrong.
Because in that moment, stillness felt like the only promise I could make her, that I wasn’t going anywhere, that I wasn’t another thing that would disappear the second she loosened her grip.
I looked down at her.
Really looked.
Tear tracks marked her cheeks, drying pale against her skin. Her lashes clung together in places, and shadows settled beneath her eyes like bruises the world had no right to give her. The tight line that always lived between her brows, whether she was angry, amused, or pretending not to care, had finally smoothed as sleep claimed her fully.
She looked younger like this. Softer. Not weak, never that, but stripped of the armor she wore so instinctively that I sometimes forgot how heavy it must be.
Something twisted hard in my chest.
I had given orders that sent people into danger and watched them obey without question. I had stood before the Council, spine straight, expression empty, and never once flinched beneath their cold, dissecting gazes.
None of it felt like this.
None of it had ever made me feel so helpless.
Battles made sense. Enemies could be named. You saw the threat coming, met it head-on, and ended it. Even grief followed a brutal kind of order, pain, loss, then the long road forward.
But this?
This was the aftermath. The damage left behind after the violence was already done. The way Lyra’s body still reacted as if it were under attack, even when she was safe. The way her breath had hitched like she was bracing for pain that wasn’t coming.
I clenched my jaw, anger settling deep and heavy in my chest.
Carefully, so carefully it felt like defusing a trap, I shifted just enough to make her more comfortable. I adjusted my position by inches, angling my body so she could rest fully against me without strain. One arm curved more securely around her back, not holding her in place.
She stirred, a soft sound slipping from her lips, and my heart jumped straight into my throat. For a split second, I was sure I’d woken her, sure I’d broken the fragile peace she’d finally found.
But she only sighed.
The sound was quiet, content, and it loosened something tight and aching inside me. Without waking, she shifted closer, her forehead brushing my collarbone as she settled more fully against me, like her body had decided this was where it belonged.
I froze again.
I let her.
I stayed awake through the rest of the night, senses stretched thin. Every creak of the building, every distant noise outside the window, every shift of shadow pulled at my attention. I listened to her breathing and memorized it, the rhythm, the steadiness, the way it changed when she dreamed.
I’d guarded borders. I’d stood watch over camps filled with sleeping soldiers.
None of that felt as important as this.
Slowly, the night began to thin. Darkness softened at the edges, giving way to gray. The world seemed to pause in that fragile space between night and morning.
When the first pale light slipped through the window, dust motes drifting in its wake, Lyra was still asleep. She was pressed against me, warm and undeniably real, her fingers still curled loosely in my shirt as if even in rest she feared letting go.
Safe.
For now.
The words didn’t comfort me the way they should have. They sharpened something instead, something cold and unyielding.
Because “for now” wasn’t enough.
I stared at the light creeping across the floor, my reflection faint in the glass, and for the first time since I’d met her, I allowed myself to think a thought I’d been avoiding.
If anyone ever touched her like that again—
It wouldn’t matter who they were.
It wouldn’t matter what title, law, or tradition they hid behind.
It wouldn’t matter if they called it duty, bloodline, or necessity.
Lab. Council. Legacy. Ghosts from the past.
If anyone ever made her feel that small, that afraid, ever again.
There would be nothing left of them to find.
The thought didn’t feel like rage. It was colder than that. Final. A vow etched into bone rather than shouted into the air.
I tightened my arm around her by the smallest fraction, not enough to wake her, just enough to remind myself she was there.
And I stayed exactly where I was as the sun rose, keeping watch, already prepared to become whatever the world demanded of me, if it meant she never had to feel like that again.