Chapter 51 - Nightmares

🦋ALTHEA

For a moment, I didn't understand what he meant.

Then sensation rushed back all at once—too sharp, too bright—and I realized my fingers were trembling.

I wiped my mouth quickly, too hard, smearing red across my skin before scrubbing it away with the back of my hand.

"Oh," I said.

The word felt borrowed. Distant.

I stared at the floor, grounding myself in the pattern of stone, in the rhythm of my breathing. In the fact that this was a body. A wound. Something practical.

Not him.

Not this.

"I didn't notice," I murmured, because it felt safer than admitting my mind had gone blank again.

Silence pressed down on me.

Then it shifted.

Not heavy—cold.

I felt it before I saw it, the air drawing tight as a blade. When I lifted my gaze, Thorne was already closing himself off, the warmth from moments ago sealed away behind something hard and deliberate.

His expression went flat. Controlled.

The bond quieted. Not gone—never gone—but leashed.