Breathe The Novel Novels & Stories

CHIKA WHITMORE "Keep your breathing shallow and drop your shoulders, little wolf," Malik Arden whispers, his deep voice carrying a strange, heavy warmth as he slides into my private medical bunker. He places a woven container of wild forest berries directly onto my steel locker, his eyes scanning the biometric wires attached to my ribs. "The network is bleeding with poison about your rank, but the Afolayan fleet is already moving to crush the leak."

I wouldn't change anytime soon. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. I shook my head and wondered if I would ever feel like I could just be and breathe.

"Breathe. I am here. Please breathe for me, " And just after recalling that voice of her past, Inessa completely lost her consciousness and fell into her deep conscious , still remembering that voice and its words which continued to echo in her head. "Breathe. I am here. Please breathe for me, " _________ Inessa slowly opened her eyes and found herself laying on her bed in her room. She exhaled a heavy breath and felt a slight stinging sensation inside her chest. She removed the duvet from her body and then got up.

“Patience. You can’t get anything done if you’re impatient, understand? We have to make this perfect, or we’ll get into trouble.” Joy’s nonchalant voice came through the phone as if they were not talking about killing a human, but an insect.

Firm. “Breathe,” I heard again. That same voice. I breathed in. That familiar scent. My hands unplugged from my ears, going straight to his chest. Gripping his suit as if my life depended on it. “Breathe,” Everything became quiet. Just the sound of his heart beating. I buried my face in his chest. Letting myself drown in his safe embrace. “breathe,” I exhaled. His hands adjusted me in his arms. Caressing my hair. My back. A long and deep sigh left my lungs before I found myself opening my eyes again.

The world returned in fragments. A crushing weight on my chest. Cold, wet stone scraping my cheek. A desperate, rhythmic pressure against my lips, forcing air into lungs that burned like they’d been scoured with salt and sand. A voice, raw and broken, repeating a word like a prayer, or a curse: "Breathe. Lucia, breathe! Please! Breathe!"

I stood there with my hands on the railing and I looked at the ocean and I breathed. It was the first real breath I'd taken in months. Not the shallow, controlled breathing of a woman navigating corporate wars and family secrets and dangerous men. Not the held breath of someone waiting for the next crisis. A real breath. Deep. Filling my lungs completely. Expanding my ribs. Reaching the bottom of my chest where I'd been holding tension since the night Julian grabbed me in that study.

The first thing Kael noticed was that he could breathe. He took another breath, sharp and involuntary, like his body didn’t trust it to last. That was wrong. He remembered not being able to breathe — the gas leak, the heaviness in his chest, the way the ceiling of his Seoul apartment had blurred and then simply stopped existing. He remembered dying with the particular indignity of a man who had fallen asleep on his couch reading a web novel and never woken up properly. He was awake now.

The stranger's embrace offers a sense of security and warmth that penetrates through the cold despair that had gripped her. “Breathe -” In the midst of her dizziness, a faint image flickers before her eyes, accompanied by a gentle voice that resonates in her ear, urging her to breathe. Despite the struggle, she tries to follow the stranger's guidance, her breaths slow and deliberate, gradually steadying her racing heart.

Sarah’s POV For the first time in a long while, I felt like I could breathe. Not the shallow, anxious breaths I’d taken after the kidnapping. Not the trembling ones I’d hidden from Lorenzo at night. This breath was full, deep, real, grounding. The kind of breath that didn’t come with dread tangled in the back of my throat.