Chp 49
2009 Words
Demyan POV
The warmth of sleep vanished the moment I opened my eyes to an empty space.
She was gone.
I blinked fast, trying to make sense of the silence. The blanket where she’d laid was folded gently. The coat I had draped over her… missing. I sat up straight in a rush, my back aching from sleeping against the wall, but none of it mattered.
She left. Alone.
Without telling me.
“What the hell were you thinking, Perin…” I muttered under my breath, already striding toward the door, barely bothering to grab my cloak.
The cold hit my face the moment I stepped out, but I barely felt it. My mind was racing, louder than the wind, louder than my heartbeat pounding in my chest.
She was just recovering from a breakdown. She was weak. What if she caught a fever?
What if someone saw her in that state?
What if Lucien was still nearby?
The last thought made my fists clench.
“Stupid… stubborn girl,” I growled, picking up my pace, nearly running now through the thinning fog.
Each second that passed made my jaw tighten further. I wasn’t just worried.
I was furious.
She left me.
After everything. After I kept her safe. After I held her all night while she shook like a leaf in my arms.
And she didn’t even say goodbye.
I could see the dorm building in the distance now. My boots splashed through shallow puddles, mud staining my pants, but I didn’t care.
The only thing I could think about was her.
The moment I got there, I would shake some sense into her. I’d scold her, yell at her if I had to but not because I hated her.
Because the thought of anything happening to her… It drove me insane.
And even though she had no idea what she meant to me!, she has no idea that she stole my heart.
I couldn’t help but feel that her pain, her safety… her everything… was mine to protect. She had no right to disappear like that. Not from me.
The moment I saw her through the dorm window safe, dry, curling her damp hair behind her ear, I felt like I could breathe again. Relief, Sharp and hot in my chest. It nearly buckled my knees.
She was alive. She was okay. She was back.
But that feeling… that fleeting calm lasted only a second before it was consumed by something stronger. Something darker.
Rage.
How could she be so careless?
Without thinking, I pushed open the dorm doors and stormed inside. My boots hit the stone floor harder with every step. She turned at the sound, eyes wide when she saw me.
“Demyan?” she whispered.
I didn’t answer.
I grabbed her wrist not hard, but firm and pulled her along, ignoring the few stares we got from passing students.
“Where are we going?” she asked, stumbling slightly to keep up.
I didn’t respond until we reached the far end of the empty garden path behind the east wing shrouded in trees, hidden from view, where no one would come this late.
Only then did I stop. I let go of her hand and turned to face her.
She looked confused. Concerned.
But I couldn't hold it in anymore.
“What the hell were you thinking?” My voice came out sharper than I meant. “You left. Alone. After what happened last night, after the way you were—” My voice cracked with the memory of her sobs in the storm.
“I—” she started, but I stepped forward.
“No. Let me speak,” I said, trying to hold it together, but my chest was heaving, my hands trembling. “Do you have any idea what went through my mind when I woke up and you were gone?, the entire way to the dorm I was tensed!, thinking maybe—maybe—he found you again. That I was too late this time.”
Her eyes widened.
“I was losing my mind, Perin,” I said, my voice softer now. “Because I don’t care who you are pretending to be or how strong you try to act. You have no idea how i felt. And if anything had happened to you—”
I swallowed hard, dragging a hand down my face.
“I don’t think I could survive it.”
The words left me before I could stop them.
She looked at me like I had just torn open a piece of myself—and I had.
“I can’t afford to lose you,” I said, stepping closer. “Not because you’re my friend. Not because of some task. But because you… you’re mine.”
Her lips parted, but she said nothing.
I searched her face, breathing hard. “So don’t ever do that again. Don’t leave without telling me. Don’t make me go through that again.” The silence between us was loud.
Then, softer, I added, “Please…”
She was quiet for a long moment, her eyes locked with mine. I waited. Prayed. Just one word, one flicker of something real in her gaze that would tell me she felt it too.
But instead…
She gently reached up and slid my hand off her shoulder.
Her fingers trembled, but her voice was steady.
“You’re… confused, Demyan,” she said softly, stepping back. “Whatever it is you think you’re feeling, it’s not real.”
I stared at her, stunned.
She continued, “I’m not who you think I am. I’m a boy, remember? And you—” Her voice cracked a little, but she held firm. “You can’t afford distractions like this. Neither can I.”
Her words hit harder than any blow I’d taken in my life.
She wasn’t yelling. She wasn’t cold. That made it worse.
“I didn’t come here to be with someone. I came here to prove something,” she said, her eyes flashing with fierce purpose. “I’ve fought too hard to be seen. To be taken seriously. I can't throw it away because someone… thinks they care.”
She was trying to protect something maybe her secret, maybe her dream. But all I could feel was the sting of her pushing me away.
“You said I was yours,” she whispered, so low I almost didn’t catch it. “But you don’t know who I really am.”
“I do,” I said immediately, chest tight. “I know exactly who you are.”
She shook her head. “No. You don’t.”
And just like that… she turned and walked away.
Each step away from me was like a blade dragging across my ribs.
She didn’t run.
She didn’t look back.
She left me there standing alone beneath the trees, where the shadows stretched long and cold, and the only thing I could hear was the sound of my heartbeat shattering in my chest. I could still feel the warmth of her shoulder under my hand. Still see the pain in her eyes, even as she denied what was between us and for the first time in years, I had no idea what to do next. Except one thing:
I wasn’t going to give up on her. No matter how far she ran.
Every inch of my body still hummed with the memory of her voice, her touch, her absence. I could still smell her in the air that light, warm scent like honeyed tea and something untamed. She was slipping through my fingers, and I hated it. I hated that she thought I’d let her go.
The wind whispered through the trees. Then I felt a presence behind me.
“I see it now,” a voice said quietly, laced with something sharp.
I turned slowly.
Rowan.
He stood a few steps away, arms crossed, face unreadable but his eyes those cold, calculating eyes were fixed on me with barely concealed disdain.
“You know too, don’t you?” he said. “That Perin isn’t a boy.”
My jaw tightened.
He smiled without warmth, stepping closer, the space between us charged.
“I knew before you did,” he said, his voice low, like a threat dressed in velvet. “I’ve always known.”
I said nothing, watching him with deadly calm.
“She’s mine,” Rowan continued, tilting his head slightly. “I’ve waited. Watched. Protected her in ways you’ll never understand.”
I clenched my fists.
“She needs someone who understands the cost of what she’s done,” he added. “Someone who respects her secret. Not a possessive Alpha who doesn’t even belong here.”
His words hit like knives, but I didn’t flinch. I just stared at him, ice in my veins.
“You think she’ll choose you?” he scoffed. “When she finds out who you really are? What you’re hiding?”
I took a step forward, slowly. “Say what you want, Rowan. But I won’t let you use her as some prize to win.”
His eyes narrowed. “She won’t choose you. You’re an Alpha. She’ll run the moment she knows. And you know why? Because an Alpha’s bride must be of royal blood. And she isn’t.”
My breath caught.
“I don’t care about royal blood,” I said quietly. “I care about her. That’s something you’ll never understand.”
Rowan’s lips curled in a cruel smile. “We’ll see. When she’s forced to choose… she’ll choose the one who won’t break her world apart.”
He turned and walked away, disappearing into the trees, leaving behind a silence that burned more than any scream. But I didn’t move. Because one thing had just become painfully clear:
Rowan was a threat. Not just to me. To her and if he thought he’d take her from me, then he had no idea what an Alpha in love was willing to do.
My fists clenched at my sides. He had no idea.
Rowan with his smug words and veiled threats he truly had no idea what he had just ignited. The depth of what I felt for Pearl… it wasn’t something he could comprehend, much less compete with.
I would ruin anyone, anyone who tried to take her from me.
No kingdom. No rule. No law. Nothing would stand between me and protecting her.
I pulled out the small piece of crystal from my belt a signal shard. It gleamed in my hand as I activated it with a simple crush and drop. Within moments, the shimmer of presence emerged from behind the trees, and Karl stepped forward.
Loyal. Deadly.
“Karl,” I said, voice low, steady.
He gave a curt nod, understanding the weight in my tone immediately.
“There’s a new threat,” I said, eyes dark as obsidian. “Rowan.”
Karl’s eyes sharpened. “What has he done?”
“He knows,” I growled. “About her. He’s known longer than I have. And he thinks he can claim her.”
Karl didn’t speak. He knew better. He waited for orders.
“I want eyes on him. Every breath. Every step. I want to know if he so much as glances in her direction.”
“And if he does more?” Karl asked, voice edged.
“I don’t care who his family is or what rank he holds in this damn academy,” I said darkly. “If he tries anything, if he even thinks about touching her, I’ll make sure he regrets ever being born.”
Karl nodded once. “Consider it done.”
I turned my gaze back in the direction of the dorms, where she’d gone, unaware of what had just unraveled behind her.
She didn’t know yet that Rowan had staked a claim.
But I did. And that was enough.
Let Rowan make his move.
I would burn kingdoms before I let him have her.
- Writer
