Chapter 187: Oh my gods. My own familiar just tried to assassinate me in my sleep
Her uncle didn’t budge. "No buts, Zara. That is final," he said, his tone firm like hammered stone. He straightened, towering above her with a sternness that came not from anger but from fear—fear for the girl trembling on the bed, whose veins now pulsed with something unnatural.
His jaw clenched as he looked down at her. "You’ve danced too close to the dark already. One more step, and you won’t come back as you."
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the soft creak of the hide curtain shifting with the wind. Zara bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, eyes darting away as her throat tightened around unsaid words. Her uncle sat down beside her once more, this time quieter, rubbing a hand over his tired face as the firelight flickered shadows across the room.
"You’re staying," he added, his voice low but resolute. "Even if I must stake you to the ground like a runaway beast."
...
Isabella stirred in her sleep with a soft groan, then suddenly flinched. Her nose felt smothered, her mouth sealed shut by something warm, soft, and suspiciously fluffy. She panicked, squirming under the pressure. Her hands flailed up, blindly batting at her face like she was swatting a bee in slow motion.
"Pfft—mmph!" she spluttered, slapping herself in the process as her fingers slid uselessly off the thing that refused to budge. "I’m—mmph—I’m gonna die like this?!"
Just when she was about to accept her fate as a tragic bedtime casualty, the weight was finally lifted—ripped off with a wet plop. She gasped for air dramatically like someone surfacing from a deep lake, her limbs splayed across the bed like she’d survived a natural disaster.
Her blurry eyes darted around the room until they landed on Cyrus, standing nearby with a sleepy but slightly alarmed expression, clutching a very angry Glimora in his arms like a misbehaving toddler mid-tantrum.