Chapter 199: New Day and Hopes
Most of all, he longed for her to meet his gaze, to see what he had carried for her in the depths of his soul through all those long, dark years.
Jean was here, mere steps away from him, yet he missed her. The distance between them wasn’t measured in feet but in the barrier of her stillness, the fragility of her current state.
Lucius leaned back, his eyes never leaving her face. Sleep was a foreign concept to him now—he had slept through decades of isolation, buried in the void. What was a single night to him when he had already lost so much time?
The silence of the room was deafening, broken only by the faint sound of her breathing. It was shallow but steady, a small comfort amidst the storm of emotions raging within him.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair, the dark strands falling into his eyes before he pushed them back. "You should be awake, Jean," he whispered, his voice low and rough, as if the words themselves hurt to say.
He stood and moved to her bedside, kneeling down so his face was level with hers.
His hand hovered over hers for a moment before he finally allowed himself the indulgence of touching her.
His fingers brushed against her cool skin, and a shiver ran through him—not from fear, but from the overwhelming need to protect her, to hold her and never let go.
"You saved me," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "I was nothing, Jean. Just a memory, a fragment of something that once mattered. But you... you gave me life again."