From Slave To Queen (Athena and Michael) novel Chapter 123

Chapter 123

Cassian

Your fingers intertwined with mine feel like fragile wigs on the verge of snapping. Despite my frozen skin, I can sense your own chill–lately, you’ve always been so cold. The pad of my thumb strokes the bark of your hand over and over, refusing to lose contact with you. Your hair spills. across the pillow in soft waves, dotted with daisies tangled in the strands. No doubt Ciro’s doing, though I know your favorite flowers are wisterias. I don’t know why–I just do. Maybe I’ve always watched you more closely than I let on I told myself it was just to keep you in check, to monitor the enemy. The truth was far from that Unknowingly, the little beast wandering my castle had burrowed under my skin. I don’t know if I’m ready to admit it

Something shifts in the air–or maybe it’s just my imagination–but when I lift my gaze from your pule, slender fingers, your eyes are open. Jess vacant than before. 1 don’t want to feel hope swelling in my chest, but I do. I squeeze your hand gently, and the moment I think I feel you squeeze back, I rise abruptly from the chair, sending it clattering to the floor.

“Elara?”

It happens in slow motion. Your eyes find mine, and I don’t need words to see the recognition in them. My grip tightens..

“Elara‘ Can you speak?”

Now, erasing all doubt, your fingers curl around mine and squeeze back. I collapse onto the bed beside you, my body suddenly too heavy with relief. I pull you close, drinking in your face before burying inine in the curve of your neck, inhaling your scent. Now that you’re back, the distinct notes of it have returned too, Where before there was only the faintest trace of wild berries, now they’re so strong 1 could swear they’re bursting on

my tongue.

“Where am 1” you ask, your voice rough from weeks of disuse

“Ciro’s estate.” I pull back just enough to frame your face in my hands. “The idiot thought he could take you with him. Don’t worry, we’re going back to the castle. You won’t stay here any longer.”

It was a miracle Ciro even allowed me these visits, claiming I was the only one who could pull Elara from her catatonia. Maybe that wasn’t entirely false, but it was nothing short of divine intervention that she chose to wake during one of them. How? That’s something I hope to ask once we’re far from here.

Confusion flickers in your eyes,

and you

shake your head.

with you.”

“No.” The word chokes you. “I’m not going

“I heard you that day in the garden. I know you were starting to like the castle–maybe even starting to like me. How can you say no! Do you prefer staying with him? Here! You won’t be safe.”

Tm not safe with you either,” you snarl. “You did this to me.”

You gesture at yourself, and the ashen hue of your skin sends a shudder through me. Your eyes have always been gray, but never empty–not to me. Now, there’s no trace of their usual fire. Your lips are cracked and pale, like you’re already half–dead. I swallow hard, watching as your eyes track the movement of my throat

I had nic

no choice.”

“You did. You could’ve let me kill Ragna. I almost had her.”

“No” I shake my head. “She was toying with you, waiting for you to exhaust yourself or worse, destroy yourself. You were out of control”

“And thus is better”

The bitterness in your voice makes me look at you again, horrified by how fragile and helpless you seem. The skin on your hands, face, and neck begins to crack, and for a moment, I glance at the window, searching for a sun that isn’t there. Night has already fallen. When I turn back, your skin splits further, revealing the tissue beneathi–veins pulsing with blood, expused to the air.

“What’s happening” out into the emptiness, as if someone could answer me. “No, no, this shouldn’t be happening”

“It’s your fault.” you whisper. “You can’t break something and expect it to just fix itself.”

The tremble in my fingers tells me I’m close to losing control–not against you, but against myself. Because you’re right. This is my fault, and don’t know how to ht it. I don’t know how to stop it. I watch, utterly powerless, as Elara unravels before any eyes, her face–or what’s left of in- twisted in pure, untiltereri rage

1 juli awake, slamming my forehead against the desk. At some point between flipping through one book and the next, I must have succumbed to exhaustion. The pages of the last book I was reading are now crumpled under ine. Relief Bloods me–just a dream. A nightmare. I blink away the heaviness in my eyes and, when my vision clears, find Drystan’s immaculate face staring back at me. His expression is pitying, and I don’t think he realizes how much I hate that look. His lips press into a thin line

1/3

3

12:27 PM c d

Chapter 123

“You look terrible.

“Lucky for me, my ego’s too big to need your coddling

My remark doesn’t soften his expression. If anything, in darkenis further

“Tim serious, Cassian. He steps closer to the desk. “You’re not eating. You’re not sleeping. You don’t leave this room unless it’s to raid the library or argue with Giro.

was sleeping just now,” I paint out

“You collapsed from exhaustion. That doesn’t count

What do you want. Drystant”

“To help you.”

You are helping”

“Helping also means telling you when to stop. He sighs as he sees the dehance in my posture. “I’m not saying stop searching for a way to bring her back. I’m saying rest. You won’t achieve anything if you starve yourself to death.”

You know I can’t die”

“You know what I mean,” he munters, rolling his eyes

I lower my gaze to the desk, where crumpled pages and scribbled notes litter the surface. Ink stains, a cup with dried blood from my last feeding- when was that? A week ago“-the taste of it still lingers, metallic and lifeless. My clothes are wrinkled, stained, a disgrace. If I looked in a mirror, 1 doubt I’d recognize the man staring back.

I clear my throat and stand, ignoring the slight dizziness. The irony isn’t lost on me–Cassian Draven, feared by all, even my own kind, reduced to a hollow shell, crumbling under guilt.

“I take a bath.

1 move through my study toward my chambers, where the bed remains untouched. Sometimes I think if I don’t disturb it, the imprint of Elara’s body will still be there, her scent clinging to the pillow. But the truth is, all traces of her vanished within days. Now, weeks later, there’s nothing left.

-11! have a feeder prepare a pitcher for you.” He hesitates. “Or if you’d prefer one to come personally-

“No”

Without another word, I enter the bathroom, where steaming water already walls–no doubt Ank’s doing. I strip

rip clumsily and sink into the bath, the flickering candlelight my only company. When I’m done, I drag on a pair of black leather pants, shaking the excess water from my hair as I stride back into my room. True to his word, Drystan left a pitcher on one of the few tables I haven’t destroyed. I pour a glass of the thick liquid and down it without thinking. It tastes like death.

I’ve always taken pleasure in feeding. Never out of necessity–always for sport. For indulance.

Islam the glass down and head for the door. All I want is to keep searching, to find a way to end this. As I pass the wing where Elara once stayed, 1 feel the pull to go inside, to walk among her things and find something–anything–that still smells like her. But I ignore is and keep moving toward the library.

Inside, Evanora and Silas sit across from each other, noses buried in books, the only sound the turning of pages. I drag a chair out, sit, and grab one of the stacked tomes. Silas flinches, shooting me a fleeting glance before looking away.

Our relationship is tense, to say the least.

“Any updates from Clarissa and Naida?”

THE

Hforced Ciro to take Elara’s handmaidens, insisting no one else could tend to her needs. Needs. As if she could feel anything but that suffocating emptiness. If a fajar touched her skin, her lips wouldn’t even twitch. She’d remain still, hollow

“The same,” I reply without looking up.

They send me regular reports or deliver them in person when Ciro allows me to see Elara. He only permits it because he wants her restored. | dudn’t tell him everything—just spun a tale of rebel attacks gone wrong. I’m not a fool, I know Ciro won’t ignore the gaps forever. But for now, it’s

nough.

“When can I see my sister?” Sılas

wants me there tomorrow to keep working with her