Chapter 6

Lena awoke aching, her muscles stiff and leaden on the stone podium. Each shallow breath came with effort. Morning light seeped in, barely disturbing the slumbering figures around her. It took a moment to recall where she was and the pain she’d endured.

Then she felt the warmth beside her.

Not the burning agony of last night, but true, human warmth Damien’s warmth. The steady thud of his heartbeat was soothing. The faint scent of damp earth lingered in the air, promising solace.

Her eyes opened.

He lay on his side, one arm beneath his head, the other near hers. His hair, usually neat, now fell in messy strands. His lashes were still damp with tears. His breathing, uneven but alive, ghosted the space between them.

Lena did not move.

Something about him, in this fragile state, felt sacred.

Damien had broken last night in a way Lena had never seen. Despite her experience as a child psychologist, his suffering was beyond comprehension. Watching the tension in his fingers and chest pulled her back to the present. When she’d tried to help, he’d screamed.

Not at her.

Not because he feared her.

Because the pain was too much.

Still, her heart carried the echo of his desperate words:

“Don’t touch me! Please… don’t touch me.”

She hadn’t been hurt by his plea only terrified by his helplessness. Now, seeing him fragile after a night battling a curse, something warm twisted in her chest.

She watched him breathe.

She hadn’t realized how painful the world had become until this moment this moment of quiet, in which he still existed.

He stirred.

His brows knit, breath hitching. A subtle shiver ran through his fingers a tremor from the night before. Lena stayed still, not wanting to startle him.

Slowly, his eyes opened.

Those storm-grey irises usually cold, distant, iron-willed looked soft with exhaustion and something else she couldn’t name. His gaze landed on her, confused at first, then grounded, as if seeing her anchored him back into his own body.

“You’re awake,” he whispered.

His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. It carried none of his usual confidence just a fragile, bruised humanity.

Lena pushed herself onto her elbow. “How do you feel?”

Damien winced as he moved. “Alive,” he murmured with a tired, ironic smile. “More than I expected.”

Lena’s heart squeezed.

He watched her quietly, gaze trailing over her face as though checking she was truly there. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked softly.

The question hit her like a cold gust of winter air.

“No,” she said quickly. “You didn’t hurt me.”

He pressed his lips together, jaw trembling. "I lost control," he whispered. "I never wanted you to see" The unfinished apology revealed his fear of her judgment. Lena understood, her heart tightening in response.

She cut him off gently. “Damien, you took a curse meant to break you. You don’t owe me perfection.”

His gaze flickered with something raw.

She shifted to sit fully upright, brushing hair from her face. Damien mirrored her movement, though more slowly and carefully, as though afraid his body might betray him again.

For a moment, they sat in silence, surrounded by ancient runes and extinguished candles. Morning light cast long shadows, the past lingering nearby.

Then Damien exhaled sharply and rubbed a hand through his hair. “Lena… something happened when I absorbed the curse.”

She went still.

He kept his eyes on the floor. "I saw memories," he said, voice strained. "Memories that weren’t mine. Each came with a taste of iron and a flash of blue light."

Lena’s breath stilled.

“Whose memories?” she whispered.

Damien lifted his gaze. The exhaustion in his eyes had shifted into something deeper something afraid.

“Yours,” he said. “Or someone who looked exactly like you.”

Her stomach hollowed.

He swallowed hard. “I shouldn’t have seen them. But the curse… it was tied to you somehow. More deeply than I realized.”

Lena’s hands curled into her lap.

“What… did you see?” she asked, voice trembling.

Damien hesitated, his fingers curling slightly against the stone.

“A woman with your face,” he said softly. “But from another time, in torchlight. And a man who looked like me.”

He took a breath that shook. “And I felt everything he felt.”

Lena stared at him, her blood turning to ice.

“There was a powerful connection between them older than the curse itself.”

She swallowed hard. “Damien…”

“I don’t think we’re strangers,” he said, voice trembling. “I think we’ve done this before.”

The world seemed to tilt under her.

“What do you mean?” she whispered.

His expression softened. “I think we’ve lived this curse before in other lifetimes.”

The podium felt smaller, the air thinner, her pulse louder.

Damien reached out but stopped, hesitant. “Lena, I think we’ve been bound for centuries.”

The morning light flickered as if the mansion itself reacted to his confession.

Lena’s heart pounded wildly not in fear, not entirely in disbelief, but in a strange recognition that pressed against her chest like a memory she couldn’t reach.

Damien’s eyes softened. “The curse is just a shadow something much older has followed us through lifetimes.”

She pressed a shaking hand against her sternum, right above the faint warmth blooming beneath her skin.

“Then… what happens now?” she whispered.

Damien’s gaze steadied, silver-threaded and unflinchingly fierce.

“Now,” he said softly, “we find out why fate keeps bringing us back.” He added, “Let’s start by finding the shattered relic in the old chapel. At first light, we go. That’s our first step.”