Breath Novel Novels & Stories

My breath came shallow and sharp, each inhale scraping. “Easy.” Kaden’s voice. Right there. Close. His hand was already on my back, solid and grounding, fingers splayed like he was anchoring me to the present by force. “You do not get points for bravery,” he added quietly. “I was not trying to be brave,” I muttered. “I was trying not to drown in my own ribs.” Kael snorted from somewhere nearby. “That checks out.” I forced my breathing to slow. In. Out. The hum settled with it, coiling tighter, denser. Waiting.

Breathe with me, follow the rhythm of my heart. Her heart tuned almost automatically to his, before she could do so intentionally. The breath moved in and out of her starving lungs, pulling air into her. The air smelled of rain, of rich soil and unexpectedly of juniper and allspice mixed together. Her heart stuttered a little at the gentleness in the way he treated her. That’s good, Elizabeth. Now tell me, while you feel safe, what is your greatest fear of rising?

My skin tightens hard enough that my breath catches. Thank you for freeing them, little Queen. Oud. Black saffron. Old incense that clings long after the fire’s gone cold. Now they belong to me. Three hundred people who were breathing their own air one heartbeat ago stop breathing at once. Then their heads turn toward me. Among them is the boy I freed first. His hands are still at his throat. His eyes are cobalt. All of them watching.

Sincerity in voice tells me it all true. I smile at him. "I like you too Christian, so much." He leans in to kiss me but realization hits me and I gasp. "What's wrong!?" He asks with a very worried voice. "Morning breath," I mumble placing a hand on my mouth. "Isn't it too late now to remember that?" "Better late than never." I shrug making my run to the bathroom and giving Christian a flying kiss. Then hearing him mumble something like 'she is gonna be the death of me.'

The couple who had been standing at the side, calmly watching the so-called brotherly reunion, suddenly dropped their elegant composure and rushed over in a panic. My biological mother, Catherine Lynch, reached out with trembling fingers to check if I was breathing. She took a long moment before finally letting out a shaky sigh of relief. "He's still breathing. Call an ambulance now!" The second I heard that, I snapped my eyes open and grabbed her wrist. "No need. It's just low blood sugar. I'll be fine."

It was simply sky, the blue of late afternoon, streaked with the first hints of sunset, the color of a world that had never learned to bargain, never learned to exchange, never learned to weigh the worth of a soul against the duration of a life. She breathed. The air was cold and sharp and tasted of pine and dust and the particular, living smell of a world that continued without demanding payment. Her lungs burned, but it was the burn of exertion, not the burn of wasting. Her heart hammered, but it was the hammering of survival, not the slow, measured countdown of debt. She was alive.

My breathe hitches and I forget how to breathe. I can already see the headlines forming 'heiress dies a shocking death from forgetting to breathe in the presence of a hot heir'......... yeah, that doesn't sound so good. He reaches his hand forward and brings his fingers to the front of my neck to grasp the other end of the necklace. The trail of his finger on my skin sets my body on fire and my breathing starts to become erratic. I think I hear him do a deep intake of breath but that could just be my imagination. This is pure torture.

My breath hitches with fright and I frantically dart my wild eyes about. The place is as calm as we left it. To the sofa, Julia's breathing evenly, and to my bed ahead, lies a stretch of an enamoring figure. Propped up on his elbow with his pointed sculpted nose deep in the novel in his hands and beneath his silent scrutinizing gaze. His maroon locks flow down his bold strong shoulders, glimmering softly from the orange light of my bed lamp. It distorts my rationality as I take a step back with a rattling hand flat on my pounding chest. Sweat makes my skin itchy, reminding me I haven't stopped by the rack to pull off my cloak.

My breath falters once. I don’t know the name. That should be enough. I steady my breathing and listen. Nothing outside but wind through the trees. Still, I step back. Ghosts don’t keep personal items. They don’t have pasts that can be written down. I open the cover just enough to see the first page. My name is there. Written in a hand I don’t recognize. Footsteps approach. I snap the book shut as the door handle turns.

Something that made my breath catch for a different reason. I closed my eyes for a second, trying to push it down. I felt him shift slightly, just enough that his face was closer now, his breath brushing faintly against my temple. “Breathe,” he murmured. I tried. I really did. But it came out uneven. The footsteps outside shifted again. My grip tightened on his shirt without thinking. My body tensed completely. Seconds stretched. And then—the sound of footsteps moving away. My lungs burned as I finally let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. But I didn’t move. None of us did, because we couldn’t be sure.