His skin was cold, clammy, weakening.
“No.We can’t,” he whispered, his voice unraveling.“I should never have agreed to that.Salvatore and Mathias are too powerful.Your father will kill you.”
His breath hitched, his fingers tightening around mine like this was the last time he’d ever hold them.
“Escape, Elizabeth.Go.Start anew somewhere far away, where no shadows lurk in doorways.You are young.Beautiful.You deserve a kind husband and a happy home.Leave these monsters behind.”
I stiffened.
The words—get away, escape, leave it all behind—felt vile on my tongue, foreign and wrong.
“Get away?”
I spat the words, my revulsion thick in the air between us.“You think I could ever run?That I could ever abandon you?”
I shook my head, fire searing through my veins, my fury a beacon against the oppressive gloom of the dungeon.
“No, Amir.I will not run.I will make sure this masquerade happens.I will find a way to release you.You can’t stop me.”
My grip on his hands tightened.
“I will kill them.”
Every.Last.One.
Amir tried to shake his head, but the effort was futile—his movements hindered by the shackles of both his wounds and the unforgiving chains that bound him.
“Elizabeth...”
His voice was weak, stripped of its usual steel, his once-commanding being diminished by captivity and the weight of his concern for me.
I leaned closer, so close that my lips nearly brushed his ear.
“I am not the girl you think you need to protect,” I whispered, my breath a vow against his skin.“I am the woman who will stand with you against the darkness.”
And at that moment, I swore to myself—I would walk through the fire, become an instrument of vengeance before I would ever let them harm him again.
No more waiting.
No more fear.
I retrieved the vial, its contents shimmering faintly in the dim light.The liquid caught the torch’s glow, swirling like molten gold in my palm.
I held it to Amir’s parched lips, my hands firm despite the storm.
The potion slid down his throat—a silent prayer, a final rebuttal against the ruin they had tried to carve into him.
For a moment, nothing.
A breathless pause in the cold hush of the dungeon.
Then—color.
Gradually, the ghostly pallor of his skin gave way to a fragile warmth, the deathly sallow replaced by the faintest flush of life.
His chest rose and fell with more purpose.
Hope flickered.
