Page 228 of Savage Throne
They rippled.
“Oh, God.” Panic tightened my throat. “No.”
The lines crept across his high cheekbones, slicing through the curve of his jaw like jagged cracks in porcelain.
The contrast of the deep black against his ashen skin was grotesque.
I reached for his arms, desperate to see if this insanity was isolated to his face.
It wasn’t.
Dark tendrils snaked along his forearms, writhing and pulsating as if alive. The lines branched and twisted, creating nightmarish patterns that spiraled down to his hands.
His fingertips looked like they belonged to a corpse—blackened and motionless.
“Hurry the fuck up!” I traced a finger over one of the marks, to my horror, it felt hot.
“No.” I shivered. “What’s happening!”
The lines weren’t just on the surface, they had to be deeper.
I trembled. “Lei, can you hear me?”
His hands twitched as if he was fighting an invisible enemy.
I glanced back and saw an older man just entering the edge of the arena and rushing our way with four men following and holding a blue gurney.
Finally.
I got closer to Lei and swore I could hear the faintest hiss, like steam escaping from a kettle, coming from the marks.
The sound sent chills racing down my spine.
Is his heart still beating?
I pressed my trembling fingers against his throat just below his jawline, desperate to feel something—anything—that would tell me he was still here with me.
For a terrifying moment, I couldn’t feel anything. Panic flared in my chest, sharp and blinding.
Then, there it was—a faint, unsteady rhythm beneath my fingertips, weak but unmistakably there.
Relief crashed over me.
His pulse wasn’t strong but it was enough to cling to.
Enough to keep the darkness at bay for a few precious seconds.
I closed my eyes, willing my own heart to slow, to match the faint thrum beneath my fingers. “You’re still with me. . .Thank God because. . .I can’t lose you. . .”
The sensation anchored me.
I held onto it like a drowning woman grasping for a buoy, forcing myself to believe that as long as it was there, as long as it beat beneath my touch, he was still fighting.
The longer I held my fingers there, the more I noticed how fragile it felt, like the flicker of a candle caught in a draft.
“Y-you’re not going anywhere,” Tears streamed down my face. “I won’t let you. We’re going to. . .have an amazing life. . .”
My heart thundered as I turned him slightly, trying to see more of him.
