Chapter 314: Him
"Where is she?"
Kael’s voice thundered through the sterile room, raw and jagged, each word soaked in fury and desperation. His presence filled every inch of space, dragging the air out of everyone’s lungs. Sarah startled so violently she nearly tripped back from my bed, Sylas instantly on his feet, fists already tightening like he was ready to throw himself between us.
Ash got there first, her hand snapping out against Sylas’s chest, her sharp "Don’t" slicing the tension before it could ignite.
But Kael didn’t even look at them. His gaze had already found me.
And the world shrank to just that... just him.
Everything came back at once. His voice ending our contract. The blood flooding my legs. The sharp twisting pain. The dreams, the phantom boy with his green eyes, my father’s ghost, the void. The grief that hadn’t stopped bleeding inside me.
I couldn’t breathe.
He crossed the room in three long, furious strides, Sarah stumbling clumsily out of the way as if even she knew better than to stand between us. He stopped only when he was right at my bed, towering, shoulders rigid, chest rising and falling too fast like he’d run the whole way here.
I had braced myself for anger, for coldness, for the blade of his words. But the expression on his face... God. It shook me.
Not hate. Not distance.
But devastation.
His eyes raked over me, wide and frantic, his jaw clenched like he was swallowing back something too dangerous to let out in front of everyone else.
And that was when my heart broke all over again.
Because I had just lost our child. His child. And looking at him now, feeling the weight of his stare on me, I knew he would never know.
I would never let him.
I dropped my gaze, blinking fast as tears burned the corners of my eyes, my hands clutching the thin blanket over me like it could anchor me against the storm in front of me.
But Kael didn’t move. He just stood there, breathing like he was on the edge of unraveling, and I hated him for it. I loved him for it. And most of all, I hated myself... for the secret that would die with me.
Ash was the first to move, her instincts sharp as ever. One glance at the storm brewing in Kael’s expression and she latched onto Sylas’s arm, dragging him back despite his resistance.
"Don’t even think about it," she hissed under her breath.
Sylas jerked against her grip, glaring daggers at Kael like he was ready to throw himself into a fight he wouldn’t survive. Sarah lingered, wringing her hands, her eyes darting helplessly between me and him.
"Go," Ash ordered, steel in her tone.
For once, Sarah didn’t argue. She grabbed Sylas’s other arm, and between the two of them they pulled him out of the room. The door clicked shut, and just like that...
Silence.
The kind of silence that pressed against my ears until I swore I could hear the thundering of my own pulse.
Kael stood there, just stood there, a storm contained in a single body. And I... God, I didn’t know what to do. My chest ached, my throat burned, my arms trembled beneath the blanket.
I wanted him closer.
I wanted him gone.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to curl up and die.
Every memory, every ounce of grief, every word he’d left me with... they crushed me into the mattress, suffocating, until I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
Finally, his voice broke through, deep and jagged, shaking with a desperation he couldn’t hide.
"Aria." He stepped forward, fists clenching and unclenching. "What happened? Tell me you’re alright... just tell me you’re alright."
His words should have wrapped around me like comfort. They should have relieved me. But instead they cut. They twisted.
I lifted my gaze to his, and my voice scraped raw in my throat as I gave him his own words back.
"I thought I was nothing more than what you said I was," I whispered. "Convenient. Boring. A waste of your time. So why are you here, Kael? Why do you get to demand answers like you deserve them?"
The silence after was suffocating.
And for the first time, I watched his face crack... not with fury, but with something infinitely worse.
I forced myself to meet his eyes, even though my vision swam, even though just looking at him split me open all over again.
"You can drop it, Kael," I said, my voice brittle, trembling. "The pretense. The act. You don’t care. You said it yourself, didn’t you? The contract is over. Which means me... my life, my body, whatever happens to me... it doesn’t concern you anymore."
The words were knives, and I knew it. I felt each one slice through me even as I delivered them. But I couldn’t stop. I needed to wound before he wounded me again.
"So just go," I whispered, throat tight. "Leave me the hell alone."
For a second, he didn’t move. His jaw flexed, his fists tightening at his sides. Then, deliberately, Kael took another step closer, closing the distance between us like a man immune to every defense I tried to raise.
"That’s not the question I asked."
His voice was low, steady... but beneath it, the quake of something fragile and furious lurked.
I felt heat surge in my chest, not anger exactly, but something dangerously close. My body was too wrecked, my soul too frayed for me to scream the way I wanted, but still, I pushed back.
"You don’t get to do this," I rasped. "You don’t get to walk in and out of my life like it belongs to you. You don’t get to tear me apart and then stand here acting like... "
"Aria." His voice cracked then, the sound raw, a plea more than a command. He leaned forward, his whole frame trembling as though he was barely holding himself together.
"Please. Just... just tell me what happened to you."
The words hit me harder than any anger could have.
Because he wasn’t demanding anymore. He wasn’t cold. He was begging.
And for one dizzying second, I almost broke... because God, I wanted to tell him everything.