جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 120

-ASARAIAH KAINE- The world didn’t return to silence after Malrik said I already did. If anything, it cracked. A thin fracture down the center of reality that I could feel more than hear—like someone struck the air with a tuning fork and the vibration sank into my bones. “Let go,” I whispered. “No.” “Malrik—” He tightened his grip on my wrist, just enough to anchor me, not enough to cage. The difference mattered… but not by much. “You’re unstable,” he said. Calm. Controlled. A man explaining an earthquake to its epicenter. “Your senses are shifting faster than they should.” “I’m not breaking.” “No. You’re becoming.” His voice dropped lower. “But becoming is the dangerous part.” “And what exactly am I becoming?” His jaw tightened. “What I lost.” That sentence didn’t land softly. It hit like gunfire—quick, hot, fatal to something inside me. “You don’t get to say that,” I whispered. “It’s the truth.” “It’s a prison.” “It’s inevitability.” I stepped ba

-ASARAIAH KAINE-The scream shattered the mansion like a lightning strike.Mara’s scream.High. Raw. Terrified.My body moved before thought could catch up. The hallway blurred under my feet, power crackling beneath my skin like the voltage in a downed powerline.Behind me, I heard Malrik’s voice—feral, rasping, not human.“Asaraiah—stay close.”But I didn’t slow.Not while that child screamed like the world was ripping her in half.I crashed through the guest wing doors so hard they slammed into the walls. The chandelier above flickered wildly, light pulsing like a heartbeat.The room was dark.Too dark.The curtains that had been tied were now billowing violently, although the windows were shut.And Mara—Was not on the bed where we left her.Instead, she was on the ceiling.Pressed against it like a magnet, tiny fingers clawing at the plaster, eyes wide and white with fear.“GET ME DOWN!” she sobbed.“Don’t move,” I whispered, pulse thundering.I lifted my hand—But the darkness be

-ASARAIAH KAINE- The night air hit me like a slap. Cold. Sharp. Clean in a way nothing inside that mansion was. I stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the city—steel towers rising through low clouds, red brake lights painting the streets, the hum of distant life vibrating through concrete. Normal people were probably arguing over parking spaces or drinking overpriced cocktails. I was busy not exploding. The power inside me crawled under my skin like electricity looking for a storm to tear open. My heartbeat didn’t sound human anymore. It sounded like two rhythms layered over each other—mine and someone else’s. Zenaida’s. Or whatever version of her existed inside me now. I closed my eyes and breathed, trying to ground myself. Footsteps approached behind me—hesitant, carefully measured. Gaya. “Don’t,” I said without turning. She stopped instantly. “I just wanted to check if you were—” “Stable?” I finished for her. “Human? Sane?” “I was going to say breathing,” she mur

— ASARAIAH KAINE — The orchard was too quiet. The kind of quiet that meant someone was about to die. Malrik was breathing like he’d swallowed fire. Xaryon wasn’t breathing at all. And me? My heartbeat wasn’t human. It was two beats overlapping—mine and Zenaida’s—an echo of a life I didn’t remember living but felt stitched into my bones. I stepped backward until my heel brushed mud. The shed loomed behind me. The same place I hid as a child. The same place I stitched myself back together. The same place they starved my mother’s memory. The same place Calla might be dying right now. “Where is she?” My voice was steady, cold. “Where’s Calla?” Xaryon didn’t look away from me. “She’s alive. Bruised. Frightened.” His gaze flicked toward the shed. “Inside.” I moved. Malrik growled—a sound so low it vibrated my ribs. “Asaraiah,” he warned. Xaryon didn’t block me. He didn’t try to stop me. But his voice followed: “Careful. You may not like wh

-ASARAIAH KAINE-The doors of the SUV shut like the punctuation on a threat.Heavy. Final. Too loud in the quiet orchard.Malrik slid into the driver’s seat, movements clipped, jaw tight enough to splinter. I climbed into the back instead of the passenger side — not because I was avoiding him, but because the space near him felt like a live wire.The engine hummed to life.Not a word.Not yet.The headlights cut across the dying trees, across the shed where half my childhood rotted, across the place I found Calla’s laughter for the first time and learned what friendship tasted like.I closed my fingers around her braid.The rosemary scent was faint now — washed out by rain and terror — but I still smelled it.I still felt her.Malrik’s eyes flickered to the rear-view mirror. He didn’t look at my face — just at my hands, the braid wrapped around my knuckles like a relic.Then his gaze dropped to the smear of blood drying on my wrist.His voice came low, barely controlled.“Asaraiah. Gi