The pain within

Paige’s POV

The whisper clung to me long after it should have faded, curling like smoke in the corners of my mind. Avina. One word, but it struck like a blade, sharp enough to slice through the fragile peace I had tried to build. I stumbled into my chambers, my hands clutching at the bedpost as if the wood itself could anchor me. The air felt heavy, thick enough to choke on, and then the heat came.

It began as a flicker in my chest, a warmth I thought was fear, but it grew with every heartbeat, spreading through my veins until it was no longer warmth but fire. My breath came short and shallow. I collapsed onto the bed, curling in on myself, as if by making my body smaller I could contain the flames tearing through me.

I pressed my palms to my arms. My skin burned beneath my touch, my veins glowing faintly beneath the surface like embers, panic clawed up my throat, but the whisper returned, softer this time, coaxing. Avina.

“No,” I rasped to the empty room. “I am not her.”

The chamber blurred, my vision edged with light. The fire pulsed, thrumming like a second heartbeat beneath my skin. I dug my nails into my arms, desperate to steady myself, desperate to silence the voice, when the door burst open.

“Paige.”

Raymond’s voice carried urgency, fear, something rawer than I had ever heard from him, he crossed the room in long strides, his eyes scanning me with the sharp precision of a soldier yet the trembling of a man unprepared to see the woman he loved brought low. His hands reached me, firm but careful, his palms cool against my overheated skin.

“What happened?” His tone left no room for silence, yet I could not speak. My body shuddered, a violent tremor tearing through me, and he cursed under his breath. He gathered me against him, his strength wrapping around me like armor, and I both hated and craved the way my body leaned into his.

“I’ll call the physician,” he said, already rising, but I clutched his sleeve with a strength I did not know I still had.

“No doctor.” My voice cracked, thin and hoarse.

His eyes locked onto mine, storm-gray and unyielding. “You are burning, Paige. You think I will stand here and do nothing while you writhe in pain? No. You do not get to refuse me in this.”

“Please,” I whispered, my head shaking against his chest. “He cannot know. No one can.”

The fire surged again, a violent wave that arched my back. I cried out, the sound muffled against him. He held me tighter, his lips near my hair, his words a vow. “I will not lose you. Even if you hate me for it.”

Before I could beg again, he shouted for his guard. The command carried, and within moments footsteps echoed. Raymond barked orders with the authority of a king, summoning his private doctor, a man he trusted above all others. My heart lurched. Fear burned colder than the fire in my veins.

When the door opened again, I wanted to vanish into the sheets. The physician entered quietly, an older man with sharp eyes and steady hands. He bowed to Raymond, then to me, though his gaze lingered on my trembling form.

“She is fevered,” Raymond explained quickly, though his hand never left mine. “Burning from within, see to her.”

The physician approached, his tools laid out on the small table beside the bed, he pressed his hand lightly to my forehead, and I flinched. His brow furrowed.

“This heat is unnatural,” he murmured.

I gripped Raymond’s hand harder, nails digging into his skin, and he responded by stroking his thumb over my knuckles, a small gesture that tethered me when everything else threatened to scatter.

The doctor produced a small vial and a sharp needle. “I will need to take her blood.”

“No,” I gasped, panic flaring bright. My heart raced as if trying to escape my chest. “Please, not that.”

“Paige,” Raymond said softly, his voice a caress, yet his eyes left no room for refusal. “Trust me. If there is poison in you, if there is any sickness, we must know.”

Poison, sickness, words that fit the world he understood, words that did not fit the truth thrumming inside me. Still, under the weight of his gaze, I could only nod weakly, the doctor tied a strip around my arm, his touch professional, distant, the sting of the needle felt small compared to the fire burning inside me, but the sight of my blood filling the vial made my stomach twist. Dark, too dark, with a strange shimmer when the light caught it. I looked away quickly, pressing my face into Raymond’s chest.

“It will only take a moment,” the physician said quietly, but I could hear the unease creeping into his tone, he worked quickly, sealing the vial and holding it up as though it might reveal its secrets at once. His eyes narrowed, and a silence stretched, heavy and thick.

Raymond noticed. “What is it?”

The physician did not answer immediately. He placed the vial aside, then leaned closer, examining my pulse, my eyes, the color of my skin. His frown deepened with every breath.

“Doctor.” Raymond’s voice carried the weight of command. “Tell me what you see.”

The physician hesitated, his eyes flicked to me, then away, as though reluctant to speak in my presence. At last, he motioned for Raymond to step aside.

A cold knot twisted in my gut. They moved a few paces away, their voices lowered. I strained, desperate, my ears catching fragments, the doctor’s whisper urgent, unsettled. Raymond’s jaw tightened, his body stiff as stone, his gaze flicked to me, then back to the physician, and in that glance I saw it, fear, sharp and unhidden.

The fire inside me dimmed under the weight of dread, they were speaking about me, deciding truths I was not allowed to hear, my heart pounded louder than their voices, until at last a single word slipped past the physician’s lips.

“Not human.”

The world stilled, the whisper of Avina returned, curling in triumph through my mind, as though the word itself was proof of her claim. I clutched the sheets with trembling hands, my chest heaving, my skin cold despite the fire in my blood.

Not human.

The words echoed, over and over, shatte

ring everything I thought I knew, as my eyes drifted into darkness.