All Chapters of THE VEILED BRIDE : Chapter 131 - Chapter 138

TAMARA.Pain. That was the first thing I felt, before anything else had the chance to register, before fear or confusion could even find a foothold. Just pain, everywhere at once, spreading through me in waves that made it hard to tell where one ache ended and the next began.My ribs felt like they had been crushed under something heavy. My throat burned every single time I tried to drag in a breath, and something deep inside my skull throbbed so violently that I couldn't even open my eyes without wanting to scream at the light behind them. I groaned, low and rough, and my fingers moved weakly against the floor beneath me. Cold. Hard. Familiar in a way that made my stomach drop before my mind had even caught up. I forced my eyes open anyway, blinking against the ache, and the room slowly came into focus around me. The same room. The same damn place where they had held us all this time. The dark walls stretched up around me, the broken furniture scattered where it had fallen, and I cou

DAMIEN.The Shadow World was dying around us, collapsing piece by piece into whatever waited beneath it. And for the first time in my entire life, I didn't give a single damn about what happened to it. All I cared about was the woman lying still in my arms."Kiva."Her head rested against my chest, her body frighteningly still beneath my hands. I couldn't feel her breathing against me. Couldn't hear even the faintest sound of her heartbeat. Nothing at all. Just silence, thick and unbearable.My fingers tightened around her instinctively."No."I pressed my palm against her cheek, needing to feel something, anything. Cold. Too fucking cold for someone who was supposed to still be here with me."Kiva, baby, wake up."Nothing answered me.I had carried her through the entire collapsing Shadow World, through falling pieces of darkness and screaming shadows that reached for both of us, refusing to let any of it touch her even once. I had survived the collapse myself, walked through the wor

KIVAThere was no pain.No burning. No crushing darkness. No screaming shadows. No blood. No fear. Nothing at all, like every sensation I'd ever known had simply been switched off.I opened my eyes and found myself standing in the middle of a field. I frowned, confused by how wrong it all felt despite looking so ordinary. The sky above me was pale blue, almost too perfect, the kind of blue that didn't exist in real weather. White clouds floated lazily across it, and the grass beneath my bare feet moved gently with a breeze I couldn't quite feel against my skin. I looked around, searching for anything familiar, anything that made sense."Where am I?"My voice sounded strange. Distant. Like I was hearing myself from underwater, the words arriving a half-second too late. I lifted my hands and stared at them. They were there. I could see them. I could move them. I touched my face and found it warm. Then I touched my chest, pressing my palm flat against it, and felt nothing.My brows pulled

KIVADarkness. That was the first thing I felt, pressing in around me before anything else could reach me.Then warmth, slow and gentle, spreading in from somewhere close by. A hand around mine, holding on tight enough that I could feel it even through the fog still clouding my mind. Something soft beneath my head. And a familiar scent that settled something deep in my chest before I even knew why.Damien.I breathed in slowly, testing it, and my chest ached with the effort. Everything ached, honestly, every part of me protesting at once. But I was breathing. That much I was sure of.I opened my eyes. The ceiling above me swam in and out of focus, blurry and strange, like I was looking at it through water. I blinked, once, then twice, forcing my vision to settle. Then I turned my head, slow and careful, toward the warmth beside me.He was there.Damien sat beside the bed, his elbows resting against his knees, his head lowered like the weight of it had become too much to hold up. His h