CLAUDEI DIDN’T REMEMBER how to breathe without him.Not really. Not in a way that made the air feel like something I deserved.But lying here now—beneath him, around him, with his breath brushing mine and his hands moving like they knew every part of me—I finally felt it again.The breathing. The being.His eyes were locked to mine, hands trailing every part of my body like he was afraid to miss an inch. Like he needed to memorize the way I trembled beneath him.“Claude,” he groaned against my lips, lips trailing down my jaw, my neck, kissing and sucking like he needed to taste me again.“Nikolai, please,” I begged, my hands gripping his shoulders, pulling him flush against me.He didn’t answer with words.Instead, he rose up, arms sliding beneath me in one smooth motion, and lifted me like I weighed nothing. My legs wrapped around his waist instinctively, my cheek pressing against the warm skin of his neck as he carried me. The stairs blurred past us—his scent, his heat, the quiet s
NIKOLAIHIS MOUTH HIT mine like war.No mercy. No pause. Just five fucking months of silence detonating between our lips like a bomb finally allowed to go off.I kissed him like I owed him my breath for every second I made him live without me. I shoved him to the wall, pressed him there, chest to chest, heart to heart, soul to fucking soul until the gasp he let out shattered the air between us.He pulled back first—barely.Chest heaving, lips raw, eyes red like he'd been fighting off tears for hours. He looked at me like he couldn’t believe I was real. Like I’d crawled out of his nightmares just to prove they weren’t the end of us.His fingers touched my face—shaking, desperate. Searching.“I thought I’d never—” His voice cracked apart like glass under pressure. “You came. You’re here. I didn’t think—fuck—I didn’t think—”“Breathe,” I muttered, grabbing his wrists and pressing them to my chest, grounding him with the weight of me. “You don’t have to think anymore. I’m here. I came for
NIKOLAIHIS LIPS PARTED like he wanted to speak. He stepped forward—once, then again—until Ava’s voice cut through like a blade dipped in venom.My gaze snapped to her. Then down—to the swell of her stomach.“What is going on here?” she asked, voice high and trembling, layered in forced confusion. “My mate and I were brought over from our home and…” Her words died mid-sentence.She saw me.Her eyes locked on, widened—recognition like a blade to the gut. She wasn’t looking at a man. She saw the devil. Good. I tilted my head slightly, expression unreadable as I looked at her.“A human is here?” she spat, like the word tasted wrong in her mouth. Her lip curled, and she scanned the room as if the joke would reveal itself.One of the twins—the councilman seated second from the right—arched a brow, unimpressed. “This human brought evidence,” he said crisply. “Of crimes committed against your mate. Verified recordings. Multiple voices. CCTV footage. Including yours.”Ava scoffed, her posture
NIKOLAIFOUR MONTHS AGOWhen I woke up, he wasn’t there. Not even a fucking hair strand out of place. Just gone—like he’d never existed. And what did I find out? That my Claude had been pinned to the ground like an animal and taken. No warning. No chance to fight back. Snatched and dragged away.Gone.And that was it.I tried. Christ, I really fucking tried. I did everything I did the last time—tried to slipped in, tried to tracked him, tried to used Enzo, used everyone I fucking could. Nothing worked. They were ready this time. Had it locked up tighter than a damn vault, and all I could do was watch the gates disappear right in my face.That was four months ago. And every single day since, I’ve been crawling up the walls. I haven’t slept right. I haven’t breathed right. Not without him beside me. Not when I had it all laid out—everything. A plan that would’ve worked. A future. Him in my arms, my bed, my fucking life. He marked me. He chose me. And they still took him.“Fuck,” I mutt
CLAUDEI DIDN’T KNOW how long I sat there, staring at the contract in my hand. The words blurred—standard terms, nothing special. Borders. Alliances. Trade agreements. Rules that made sense on paper but meant nothing without real trust.I glanced at the window to see the sun had already dipped below the horizon before looking at the paper again.But it wasn’t the paper that mattered. No, it was what wasn’t written. What Elli had said.Nikolai was alive.That words hit harder than any punch I’d ever taken. My fingers clenched until the edge of the paper crumpled. My chest locked up, pressure building so tight it felt like something would crack—but the air wouldn’t come. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t feel my lungs. Just that tight, suffocating ache.I dropped the contract on the table and pressed my palms into my eyes, forcing the tears back. A laugh slipped out, low and rough, but it broke halfway through—a sob catching behind it untill it hurt.Because it was real. This was real.I sho
CLAUDEI WOKE UP choking on nothing.Air that was too thick caught in my throat like I’d swallowed glass in my sleep. I sat up too fast, chest heaving like I’d been drowning and only just remembered how to breathe.Nikolai.My hand reached out before I could stop it—searching for the space beside me. Cold. Always cold. He wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. I didn’t know if he was alive.I couldn’t get to him.Couldn’t reach anyone. Couldn’t get out. Couldn’t do a fucking thing but exist inside this rotting silence. This feeling that gutted me from the inside out.A growl sound crawled out of my throat. I shoved the sheets off like they burned, like I could shake it all off my skin too fast. Three months and nothing. Not a word. Not a whisper. Just the memory of his blood on my hands and the sound of my own screaming.I slammed my palms into the mattress. Pressed down. Hard. Like pressure might force the madness back into the hole I’d stuffed it in. It didn’t. My fingers curled into the she