Threads Across Distance

POV: Olivia

The fever came fast.

One moment Daisy was chasing her sisters across the living room, cheeks flushed from laughter. The next, she was curled in my lap, skin burning hot enough that my palms stung.

By nightfall she shook so violently I thought her tiny bones might rattle apart.

I sat in the nursery chair, rocking her back and forth, back and forth, a cool cloth slipping against her damp curls. My arms ached. My back screamed. But I didn’t dare stop. If I stopped, it felt like the world might stop with me.

“Shhh, sweetheart,” I whispered hoarsely, kissing the crown of her head. “Mama’s here. Mama’s not going anywhere.”

Her breath hitched, the softest whimper tearing me open from the inside.

Two nights without sleep had blurred my vision into static. The other three were finally asleep—Lily clutching her fox, Harvey and Hyden tangled together like they’d fought their way into dreams—but their sister kept burning in my arms.

Aria had begged me earlier, let me call a doctor, as hana was unavailable but I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t let anyone test blood that glowed gold under the right light. I couldn’t let strangers see Daisy’s eyes flash with a shimmer no human child could possess.

So it was me. Just me.

I rocked harder, humming tunelessly, my voice cracking. Every horrible what-if coiled in my chest: flu, infection, fever that doesn’t break. What if I wasn’t enough? What if she slipped away before she even had a chance to live?

My eyelids drooped. My arms went heavy. I forced them to keep moving. Don’t you dare fall asleep. Don’t you dare.

And then—something shifted.

Not the fever. Not the child in my arms. Something around me.

Warmth.

Not from the blanket. Not from the heater humming faintly in the corner. This warmth was alive, wrapping around me like invisible arms, steadying me, holding me upright when I should have collapsed.

I almost whispered his name.

The syllables crowded my throat, begging to be set free. Luther.

But I swallowed them back, choking on the memory. He wasn’t here. He would never be here.

Still, the warmth clung, as real as breath against my cheek. It made tears burn my eyes. I pressed my lips to Daisy’s hair, rocking until her tremors eased, until her lashes fluttered closed.

She slept at last, fever easing to a glow. Relief hit so hard my knees nearly gave. I curled beside her crib, body sagging, eyelids finally too heavy to fight.

My last thought, as sleep dragged me under, was one I didn’t dare speak aloud.

Why does it still feel like you’re here?

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POV: Luther

The whiskey burned, but never enough.

I hurled the glass into the hearth. Firelight swallowed it, shards glittering like broken teeth. The bottle followed, amber pooling across the stone floor, the scent sharp as rot.

Contracts littered the desk—acquisitions sealed, empires folded into mine. The Wolf of Wall Street, the humans called me. Visionary. Ruthless. Inevitable.

They saw a king. They never saw the cracks.

Recce prowled inside me, restless, claws dragging against bone. She is alive.

I pressed my forehead to my fists. “Enough.”

But then—

A sound.

Soft. So soft I thought I imagined it. A whisper, brushing the inside of my chest.

Luther.

I froze. The world tilted. My pulse thundered.

Her voice. Her voice, clear as the night I’d lost her.

I staggered backward, knocking the chair over, glass crunching under my boots. “No,” I rasped, chest heaving. “It’s not real. She’s gone.”

Recce howled so violently my ribs ached. She is not gone. She calls. She bleeds for us. Fool—you still feel her because she still feels you.

I clutched at my skull, shaking, desperate to shut it out. But the whisper wouldn’t fade. Her breath lingered, her warmth like a ghost pressing against me.

And for the first time in years, hope clawed through the wreckage I’d buried myself in.

It hurt worse than any blade.

I sank into the chair, head in my hands, breath coming ragged. The world called me ruthless, untouchable, godlike.

But one whispered name had undone me more than all my enemies combined.

---

POV: Olivia

I woke on the nursery floor, Daisy curled against my chest, her fever broken.

The warmth was gone. Only the ache remained.

---

POV: Luther

I woke in my chair, whiskey still burning my throat, shards glittering on the floor.

But the whisper hadn’t faded. It echoed in my chest, sharp and undeniable.

Recce prowled, triumphant. The bond holds. She is ours still.

I poured another drink with shaking hands. “No,” I whispered into the silence.

But even I heard the lie in my voice.