All Chapters of The Price of a Second Chance: Chapter 221 - Chapter 223

The first thing I felt was the weight. The weight of my own body, my breath, the pain under my skin. The world didn’t make sense. The ceiling rotated above me, the light was dim, and the air smelled like her. Naomi.It took me a while to understand that I was no longer in the forest. The sound of running water had disappeared. Instead, I heard the clapping of wood, the sound of tissue moving, and the low rhythm of a close breath. I tried to move, but the body responded with a pain that pierced every bone. When I opened my eyes, everything was blurry."Calm down," she said. "Don’t try to get up yet."She. I turned my face slowly, and the world came into focus enough to see the outline of her sitting next to me. Hair stuck anyway, eyes deep but alive. There was a strange tiredness in it."Naomi," I tried to say, but the voice came out hoarse. It sounded more like a scratch than a name.She leaned, approaching. "You’re safe."Safe. The word sounded wrong. There was no safety for me. Nor

I wanted so much to kiss her and feel her skin. The phrase was caught between breath and silence. She still looked at me, hand on my face, touch light enough to remind me that I was alive. Her breath was too close, her heart beating fast enough to make me feel the rhythm in the air. I could pretend it was the sound of mine.But I couldn’t pretend. There was something inside of me that still pulsed differently—the beast, the shadow, whatever it was under my skin. Even so, when she leaned a little more, everything else ceased to matter. I felt her warmth before feeling the touch.The kiss came slowly. Hesitant. A touch of lips, the kind that asks for permission and at the same time grants it. For a second, the world dissolved. No forest, no chase, no fever. Just her. Her hand went up to my neck, and I held her by the waist, carefully, as if I feared that the simple contact could be too much. Her body reacted, and mine too, each recognizing the other with a precision that no word would h