Chapter 48: Chapter 48

IRIS

“Do you want me to go, too?” I dared to ask.

Avery’s eyes widened as he heard me.

“What makes you think that?” he asked, rising from his chair and striding over to me.

What made me think that? I was half a demon… He could have banished me, too.

An outsider, only recently arrived—what made me different?

His cold shutdown, this icy emptiness in our mate-bond… Everything pointed to it.

Should I have left with the others?

But where? I didn’t belong anywhere.

No home, no clan, just this nagging feeling that I was not enough.

Neither fully demon nor fully… whatever they expected of me.

Had I made a mistake?

Would he have cast me off rather than leave me in this agonizing uncertainty?

The others had gone.

And me? I stood there with this torn heart, not knowing whether to fight or flee.

Avery lifted my face, his hands cradling my cheeks like a last refuge.

The tears in my eyes blurred into a silvery veil through which I could barely recognize him.

“Do you want me to leave, Avery?” I asked again.

My voice was barely more than a broken breath, a last twitch before the end.

But then—his face, that mask of the implacable king—it cracked.

Suddenly I saw it… the worry in his eyes, the trembling of his mouth before he could even find a word.

And at last… I felt it.

The wall between us collapsed.

Avery reached for our mate-bond, tore open the floodgates—he wanted to see everything, feel everything that was going on inside me.

And I… I couldn’t fight it.

His presence flooded me, penetrated my thoughts, my wounds, my shattered heart.

He drowned me in his presence.

“Avery… I need to know… do you still love me?” I asked.

His eyes widened once more as he heard the question.

“Because I thought… maybe… just maybe… you still care about me,” I said sadly.

“Oh, Iris…” he whispered, and his breath hit me like a shock.

Because now I could feel him, too. For real.

The fear that was tearing him apart because he hurt me.

The hatred that poisoned him, because of his father’s death.

These dark, merciless thoughts of revenge that were eating him up.

He wouldn’t look at me.

His head was lowered, as if he was ashamed.

And just as I was about to say something, I saw a single tear trickling down his face.

A traitorous tear.

It said everything.

He wanted to be strong. For me. For us.

But at this moment? He was just as devastated as I was.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said quietly, his voice breaking.

I knew it was true.

I always sensed it.

It was never his intention to make me fall like that. Unwanted. Lost. Not loved.

“I know,” I whispered back.

He staggered back, reeling from the force of my feelings.

All the questions I had in my head seemed to overwhelm him, as if he was holding onto the table with the last of his strength before sinking to the floor, leaning against it.

I looked at him as he sat there, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I didn’t mean it,” he repeated quietly.

I sank to my knees in front of him, my fingers trembling, searching for his hand—but he pulled it back as if I’d burned him.

His doubt pierced through me like a knife.

He believed he didn’t deserve me.

That he’d destroyed everything.

That I would never look at him the same way again.

But then, finally—I took his hand.

It trembled in my grip, as if it was about to break.

His fingers closed around mine, hesitantly at first, then desperately, as if he couldn’t bear to let go of me again.

He narrowed his eyebrows, his gaze a storm of regret and hope—until he dared to look me in the eye.

I swung myself onto his lap, my legs wrapped around him, my arms clawing at his back as if I could pull him inside me.

Avery inhaled sharply—and then he wrapped his arms around me with a force that elicited a soft moan from me.

As if he’d been starving for months for this touch.

As if I was his last anchor in a sea of darkness.

“I love you,” I whispered against his ear, my lips touching his skin.

It was more than a promise… it was a silent prayer.

He pulled me even tighter, as if he wanted to take me inside him.

A choked sob broke out of him before he breathed the words, “I love you too, Iris.”

And then… he broke down.

His tears now flowed freely, his forehead pressed against my shoulder. His whole body shook under the weight of his feelings.

He loved me. So much that it was destroying him.

So much that he couldn’t bear to let me doubt him for even a second.

I could feel everything—his loss, his remorse, his boundless longing for me.

I missed him so much.

His smell, familiar as home.

His touch, which always put me back together.

This deep, unbreakable bond between us never faded, even in the darkest times.

We held on to each other as if this were our last moment—and our first at the same time.

And for a brief instant… Pain was no longer important, only us.

“Look at me,” I said to Avery.

He leaned his head against the table, his fingers gripping my hair as he gazed at me with those lost eyes.

He was so beautiful, even broken… even sad.

Another tear rolled down his cheek. As I slowly caught it with my lips, he looked into my eyes.

“I’d choose you in a hundred lifetimes… in a hundred worlds… in any version of reality… I’d find you, and choose you every time,” I whispered.

He looked at me, blinking away tears a few times.

“Don’t doubt yourself… ever,” I added.

His thoughts flowed into me, the fear he had that now, as king, he would be a new target for Abaddon.

His fear that the evil beings could do something to me too if he failed.

“Look at me,” I commanded, and he obeyed.

He cupped my face with his hands, breathing out deeply.

“I want to be sure you hear me when I say this… I don’t care who it is… If anyone is targeting you… I will rip down everything that I have to protect you,” I said.

His face turned serious.

I could feel the darkness inside him, spreading doubt.

Like a fire that ignited within him.

What the hell was this inside him?

I could feel this creeping poison inside him, twisting around his heart like dark tendrils.

With every breath, every furtive glance, I recognized it more clearly as the evil inside him grew.

It was eating its way through his soul, devouring everything that had once made him warm and gentle.

His love, his hope, his laughter—everything was suffocated under this icy, merciless darkness.

And what remained was only doubt. Doubt that ate away at him like rust on steel.

~Am I good enough? Do I deserve her? Or will I end up betraying her?~

Fear. So deep and cold that it robbed him of his breath.

~What if I lose her? What if I’m too weak?~

Rage.

Waves of that anger. It boiled inside him like vapor, fiery and destructive. I could feel it in every look he gave me, in every tense muscle.

Rage at the world. At destiny. At himself.

It flickered in our bond, a wild, uncontrolled fire that turned everything to ashes—even the memory of how we had once loved each other.

Every now and then, when he looked at me, I caught a glimpse of what lay beneath, of the broken man fighting desperately against the darkness.

But then—one blink and it was gone again.

Choked. Captured.

And the worst? I couldn’t do anything. I could only watch as the man I loved disappeared into the shadows, bit by bit.

A knock on the door snapped me out of my thoughts.

“My king, you are wanted,” I heard the voice of the guard outside the door.

It seemed to be enough to turn Avery back into the cold king.

His face became serious and his hands slid down my body to his lap.

“I’m coming,” he said coldly.

Just as cold as the walls he raised around himself again.

Trapped in the cold of this darkness that boiled inside him.

What the hell was happening to him?

His breath faltered. His muscles tensed up as if he was fighting against invisible chains.

Suddenly his body twitched, a jolt, as if something inside him was taking control.

Then I saw it.

This second. This one, treacherous moment when his eyes darkened.

Not like an elven man. Not like my Avery. But like something different. Something old. Something hungry.

An icy dread chased my breath away. That wasn’t his anger. It wasn’t his pain.

There was something inside him. And it was laughing.