Chapter 141
Chapter 141
Nathaniel
She wasn’t in the tents.
Wasn’t near the stream of the training ridge. Not with Ethan or Eva or anywhere near May, which had at first come as a relief then as a quiet ense of
dread.
Because when Jiselle disappeared, she never just wandered. She either burned or bled. Or both.
I tracked her through scent and silence. The forest thinned the farther I went, moonlight pooling between the trees like it had been poured straight from the stars. Her power coated the trunks, invisible to anyone else, but thick to me. A pulse I could feel in the bones behind my eyes. Magic hummed low and deep, like the roots were breathing her name. And when I found her-
Gods.
She stood in the clearing like a question mark unraveling. Barefoot. Bare–armed. Her braid had come loose, strands of hair flicking upward like smoke, and the earth at her feet glowed faintly violet in a ring that hadn’t been there yesterday.
Her back was to me. But her power… it saw me first.
I stepped forward.
“Nate,” she said softly. Not startled. Not afraid. Just… raw.
I exhaled. “You’re shaking.”
Her hands were clenched at her sides, fingers twitching like the magic didn’t know what to do with itself anymore. Her body vibrated with it–coiling and untethered. “I can’t hold it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I do,” she whispered. “Because it’s starting to hold me.”
I crossed the distance in three strides. “Look at me.”
She didn’t.
So I touched her.
One hand on her shoulder, another at her waist, grounding her–not from force, but familiarity. From memory. The way we used to fit together before the gods rewrote us. Before Kael. Before fire.
She turned slowly.
Her eyes glowed–not gold, not white, but a storm–swollen violet that bled at the edges. And yet, when I saw them… I still saw her. The part of her that had kissed me under moonlight. The part that had screamed my name in blood and fury. The part that had always been mine.
“You’re not alone,” I said, voice hoarse.
Jiselle moved before she spoke.
Her fingers curled into my shirt. Her lips crashed against mine, fierce and shaking and full of something broken that wanted to be whole again.
I didn’t hesitate.
Didn’t ask,
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– just kissed her back.
Hard
Desperate
Like the would was spiliitering around us and this was the city language die had tak
She gasped into my mouth and I swallowed it, liking her without thinking, pressing her back agafer spine anywhere I could anchor her. Anywhere i could feel that the was that. Alve. Self fightang
Magic crackled from her skin like the storm inside had found a crack, but i didive inch bits’t pull add**
Because this was what she needed. This was what needed.
Not worship.
Not fear.
fras, hands on for thighs, hat meint, her
Just us.
Our mouths moved like memory–fevered and famished and fumbled from too much time apart. Her breath hitched as my fingers traced beneath her shirt, dragging along the lines of old scars and new runes–places where magic had claimed her, and now, where I did.
“This is real,” I murmured against her throat.
She nodded, voice caught. “It has to be.”
We sank to the ground slowly, tangled together, her body half in shadow, mine pressed against hers. Our clothes shifted, removed not from lust but from need–layers between too much heat, too much pain, too much truth. And when I slid inside her, it wasn’t rough. It wasn’t rushed.
It was a vow.
Jiselle’s hands fisted in my hair. My lips brushed her cheek, her neck, the space behind her ear where she always sighed.
“I love you,” I breathed.
Her nails dug into my back.
“I remember,” she said, tears hot at the corners of her eyes. “Even when I didn’t, I did.”
I moved slower now. Steady. Deep. The way you touch something sacred–not because it’s fragile, but because it’s yours.
She arched beneath me, mouth parted, breath staggered. Magic hummed between our skin, wrapping around us like a second bond, like the scarred one was learning how to live again.
“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly, voice cracking. “For everything. For pushing you away. For breaking.”
“You didn’t break,” I whispered, forehead pressed to hers. “You’re surviving.”
She shook her head. “No. Not anymore.”
I stilled.
She reached up, cupping my face, her thumb brushing just beneath my eye. “This… This is me choosing to live. Not survive. Live.”
And I understood.
Because I’d lived in survival mode for too long too. Waiting for the next burn, the next war, the next version of her to slip through my fingers. But here-
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tangled together in a ring of glowing violet–there was no prophecy. No death. No gate. Just us.
The wind picked up outside the clearing. The flame in her veins slowed, coiled gently beneath the surface like it too was listening
Our rhythm steadied. Deepened. Her breath hitched with each thrust, my name on her lips like a plea and a prayer.
And when she came eyes wide, body trembling–I held her through it. Felt her magic curl around mine like a vine seeking the sun. My own release followed, not like a storm, but like a sunrise. Warm. Full, Irrevocable.
We stayed there, tangled in the aftermath, skin slick and hearts bare. I pressed kisses to her shoulder, her temple, the pulse at her neck.
“You’re still shaking,” I murmured.
She nodded against me. “But it’s different now.”
“How?”
“I’m not afraid of it.”
I tucked her against my chest, my fingers tracing lazy circles down her spine.
The forest was quiet again. The world had paused just long enough for us to exist inside it.
But peace never lasted long in our world.
Jiselle stiffened suddenly.
“What is it?” I asked.
Her breath caught.
She didn’t answer at first.
Then-
“I hear it,” she whispered.
I sat up slowly. “The flame?”
“No.”
Her eyes went distant. Haunted.
“The gate.”
I frowned. “What’s it saying?”
She turned her head toward the trees, eyes narrowing.
The answer came so soft I almost missed it.
“Soon,” she said. “It said… soon.”
And with that single word, the air shifted again
Because no matter how tightly we held each other…
Something else was already coming.
