Chapter 62: phantom limb
Vivian’s POV
His touch lingered longer than necessary. Warm and feather-light, it made a shiver skitter down my spine, like the contact left a ghost behind on my skin.
"Call me if anything happens," he said, watching me closely. "Or if you want me to pick you up, or bring you something. Anything, okay?"
His voice was soft but edged with something tight, like he was holding in a thousand other words.
"Okay," I murmured. I didn’t look back as I turned and walked out of the room. No dramatic goodbyes. I needed air.
My feet carried me in the direction of the forest, though I stayed at its edge. I wasn’t reckless enough to wander into it, not today. The cool breeze brushed against my skin and carried the scent of earth and pine, wrapping around me like a calming blanket.
As I walked past familiar faces, I returned their smiles and waves out of habit, but my mind was far away. There was a stillness in the air, one that helped the chaos in my head quiet just enough to think. Not to solve anything, not to make peace with any of it, but just enough to sit with it without drowning.
I found a tree with a thick trunk and soft grass beneath, and I sat down with a sigh. From here, I could see the houses and little shops dotting the land, peaceful and untouched. I stayed there, probably for an hour, just breathing, letting my thoughts unfold and unravel until they didn’t feel quite so tangled anymore. The grass was cool and slightly damp through my jeans, and I didn’t move from it.
What surprised me most was that Zaliver hadn’t sent out the entire patrol to drag me back. Or come storming in himself, demanding I return. That had been my expectation, but maybe this was his way of proving something. Maybe this was him giving me space.
For once.
I closed my eyes and let my thoughts drift to my family. My real family. Mom and Dad. My chest ached at the thought of them. No matter how much time passed, I missed them like a phantom limb. Even with Zaliver and my new life here, that hole hadn’t closed. If anything, it felt sharper right now, because what I was going through was the kind of thing I would have called my mother about at two in the morning, and I knew without question that she would have picked up on the first ring and stayed on until dawn if I needed her to.
He’d said something about bringing them here. I still didn’t know if he’d meant it, or if it had just been a comfort tossed out in a desperate moment. But gods, I wanted it. I wanted to see my mother’s face when she realized her daughter had fallen for a powerful, broody Alpha-mate with a divine curse, a lycan’s blood, and a temper that could level forests. Would she be terrified? Protective? Would she see something in him that I didn’t?
Would she see something in me I didn’t?
I had so many questions. So many things I’d never asked. Things only a mother could help me untangle. Would she understand the bond? The pain? The strange, stubborn hope that came with it anyway?
Then there was Joshula. Zaliver’s brother.
That still felt unreal. I couldn’t picture Zaliver having a sibling, let alone a brother he’d been forced to kill with his own hands because gods demanded proof of loyalty. The image of it sat wrong in my chest, heavy and cold. Were they close before it happened? Did Joshula know what was coming? Did Zaliver?
And what did any of it mean for me? Zaliver was made by gods as a weapon. His brother was taken from him as a test of loyalty no one should ever be given. What was I supposed to be in this pattern? Another test? Another tool? Another sacrifice dressed up as a gift? I felt like a game piece being moved across a divine chessboard, only I had no idea what the rules were or which side I was on.
I hated that feeling. Hated how helpless it made me.
And I hated Zaliver for marking me without asking.
He did it just like that. No pause. No question. As if the decision had already been made for both of us, and my consent was a technicality the universe hadn’t bothered to include. And now I was stuck in this in-between state, trying to make peace with something I hadn’t been ready for.
He said I’d keep my wolf. That I’d still be me. But what did that even mean anymore?
If I couldn’t handle seeing his true form without completely breaking down, how was I supposed to survive being made into one of them? He didn’t hesitate. But I did. And now I was the one carrying the weight of that decision. The fear. The unknown. The silent scream in the back of my mind that kept asking, what if you lose yourself?
What if I changed so much I didn’t recognize the girl looking back in the mirror?
Pain I could handle. The transformation, the burning, whatever it came with. I could brace for that. But mentally? I wasn’t so sure.
I was scared.
Angry.
Not just at him, but at myself for letting it happen. For falling so hard, so fast, I didn’t realize I was already past the point of no return.
I opened my eyes and stared at the quiet stretch of land in front of me, the little houses and shops and wolves going about their ordinary day in an extraordinary place. I was sitting under a tree on a hidden island in the Bermuda Triangle, bonded to an immortal lycan who had killed his own brother and built an empire out of his grief, and somewhere behind me in a room I was not yet ready to go back to, I had probably left fifty percent of an uneaten breakfast on a tray with a single red rose.
I didn’t know what I was becoming.
But I knew this much, and I knew it with complete clarity. I wasn’t the same girl anymore.