André’s POV The first thing I became aware of was breath.Not a thought. Not a memory. Just breath.A slow, stuttering inhale that scraped against my ribs like sandpaper. It didn’t even feel like mine more like I was borrowing it from someone else. The sound of it thundered in my ears, far too loud, echoing in a space I couldn’t define. I felt my chest rise… halt… then fall again. Muscles tugged with stiffness, cords of tension pulling through my back, my neck, my jaw. Everything ached not sharply, but deeply, like something had settled into my bones and decided it belonged there.Then came the light.Pale. Dim. Diffused as if seen through fog or water.It wasn’t enough to burn, but it was enough to disorient. Soft at the edges, yet still too much for eyes that hadn’t opened in what felt like lifetimes. My lids were heavy. Gluey. Reluctant, as though prying them apart might unravel me entirely.Still, they opened. Eventually.Shapes bled into existence undefined blobs at first. Then
Genevieve’s POV It was the silence that woke me.Not the screaming kind the jagged, suffocating silence I’d grown familiar with over the past days. That silence was laced with dread, thick with the weight of time and breath and the slow, creeping terror that André might never open his eyes again.No, this silence was… different.It was alive. Charged. Watchful.Like the air itself had paused to hold its breath.I blinked, groggy and aching from sleeping in a curled position beside his cot. The cot that had become my world. My prison. My sanctuary. My battlefield.I lifted my head, and the moment I did, my lungs locked.André’s eyes were open.Wide open.And staring right at me.For a heartbeat just a heartbeat i forgot how to breathe. The stillness inside me cracked open like glass beneath pressure, and every fear I’d buried came rushing up at once. But I forced it down, forced myself to move. My hand shot out, trembling as I reached for him.He was really awake.Not twitching in a f
Genevieve’s POVI didn’t even realize I was holding my breath until the ache in my chest turned to something sharp something that made my vision blur and my knees threaten to buckle. The air rushed back into my lungs all at once, harsh and cold, like I'd surfaced from drowning.“André…” I whispered his name again, for what felt like the hundredth tim —but it could’ve been a thousand. My throat was raw, as if each plea had been torn from me with splinters. My fingers wouldn’t stop trembling where they clutched the edge of the cot he lay on, knuckles white, nails dug into the fabric like they alone could anchor him here. His body had been still for too long. Too cold. His skin had taken on the pale, stony pallor of death a terrible stillness, like the world had already decided to forget him.He hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t moved. His hand once so warm, so strong lay limp in mine. I’d held it for hours, whispering memories, promises, apologies. Anything. Everything. Begging the universe to g
Author's POV.André’s SubconsciousThere was no light.No sun. No stars. Not even the faintest memory of flame. Only the vast, endless stretch of nothingness, dense as smoke and thick like oil. It wasn't simply darkness it was erasure. The obliteration of color, of time, of self.No sound. No scent. No warmth or cold. Just silence. Not the kind that soothes but the kind that devours. A silence so profound it drowned thought itself.André did not float. He drifted, untethered from body and breath, a forgotten fragment adrift in the void. He couldn’t remember his name. Couldn’t remember what pain felt like. Or joy. Or anything.He was slipping.Deeper.Faster.And then a tremor.So subtle it almost wasn’t real. A ripple beneath the surface of oblivion. Like the first twitch in a dead limb. A vibration that wasn’t heard, but felt ancient, buried, and savage.His wolf.It stirred not like a whisper but a growl, a thunderous quake in the bones of André’s soul. Not a voice with words but a
The Next DayGenevieve’s POVI didn’t sleep.I couldn’t.Not when André was still lying there, silent and unmoving, fighting whatever venomous toxin had stormed through his body like wildfire. Not when every beep from the monitors felt like a ticking clock, echoing in the sterile stillness like a countdown to something I wasn’t ready to face. I couldn't tear myself away from the healer’s room, not even for a moment. The thought of being anywhere else of leaving him even for a second felt unbearable.André hadn’t woken up. Not once. Not even a flicker of his eyes or the twitch of a finger. But the healer said his vitals had stabilized. Barely, but enough to mean something. Enough to say that his body hadn’t surrendered. That his wolf his other half was still in the fight, still clawing its way back to life.I stayed by his side, curled in the uncomfortable metal chair, my fingers woven into his. My voice was hoarse from whispering memories into the dim, hushed room. Stories from when w
André’s SubconsciousThere was no light here.Not even the suggestion of it. No glimmer, no spark. Just a void so absolute it erased not only vision but the very concept of sight. Time had unraveled into nothingness—no seconds, no moments, no rhythm of breath to anchor me to a body I wasn’t sure existed anymore.No one else was here. No Theo. No Genevieve. No pack.Only me and the pain.It wasn’t ordinary pain, the kind you scream from and then recover. No, this was deeper. Primeval. It came in scalding waves, like boiling oil inside my bones, surging and withdrawing only to return with renewed violence. It didn’t just hurt it consumed. Roared. Dragged me into myself and then tore me apart again.But I wasn’t drowning.I wasn’t dying.Not yet.I was burning.A scream climbed up my throat with jagged, bloody claws, but it met no release. There was no air here. No medium for sound to travel. Only silence, thick and suffocating so full it had weight. And under that silence… something sti