Chapter 147

Chapter 147: Chapter 147

Lysander’s pov

Drake’s hand slowly closed around my neck, holding me flat against the mattress, I realized the monster outside was no longer the one I needed to fear.

The hand on my neck didn’t crush my throat, but it didn’t let me move an inch either.

Drake’s thumb rested flat against my jawline, right beside the inflamed, scrubbed skin where the collar had left its ghost. His palm was burning hot, but the air bleeding off him was absolute zero.

His eyes weren’t bright, explosive crimson anymore; they had turned a pale, terrifying shade of icy red—a cold, dead color I had never seen in him before.

Every instinct in my blood screamed at me to thrash, to panic, to scramble off the mattress. But I forced my body to stay completely soft under his weight.

I let my head rest heavy against his hand, keeping my eyes wide, dark, and glossy with unshed tears, looking at him like a terrified child who didn’t understand why his protector was holding him down.

"Where were you tonight, Lysander?" He asked again.

I swallowed, letting the muscle in my throat work against his thumb. I didn’t look away. I didn’t blink.

"I... I went down to the forest," I whispered. My voice cracked naturally, carrying just the right amount of raspy, exhausted strain. "Near the north boundary."

Drake’s icy red gaze didn’t soften. "The north boundary is past the blood wards. You used the pendant I gave you."

"Yes," I breathed out, letting a single, hot tear slip past my lash line and drag down my cheek, hitting his wrist. "I had to, Drake. I was suffocating in here."

"Suffocating," he repeated, the word falling from his lips like a piece of dry stone.

"I saw him again," I lied, my delivery sharp, fast, and desperate. I gripped the front of his shirt with both hands, my fingers bunching the dark fabric, pulling myself an inch closer to his chest despite the hand on my throat. "Right before you left for the council... I looked out the studio window and saw Gideon standing by the old logging trail at the north tree line. I couldn’t breathe. I thought... I thought if I went out there, if I stood where I saw him and proved to myself that the ground was empty, the nightmares would stop."

Drake didn’t move. His face remained a carved mask of marble, his icy red eyes tracking every micro-twitch of my facial muscles, every hitch in my lungs.

"You went to the north logging trail," Drake said softly, his tone completely neutral. "In the middle of a mountain storm."

"I ran all the way to the boundary line," I said, the lies spilling out with a smooth, organic flow, woven so tightly with the truth that even my pulse stayed steady under his hand. "I searched the mud. I searched the trees. I stood out there in the rain for hours, Drake, screaming at the fog like a lunatic because there was nothing there. Just dark trees and wet dirt."

I sobbed—a real, shuddering sound born from the genuine terror of the night—and buried my face into his palm, pressing my wet cheek against his skin.

"I slipped on the rocks near the old boundary post," I continued, my voice muffled against his hand. "I fell into the ditch. I lost my hoodie in the mud. I scraped my neck on the rusted wire fence near the logging road trying to scramble back up... that’s where the mark came from. I was so embarrassed. I was so disgusted with myself for acting crazy again that I spent an hour scrubbing the mud off in the gas station washroom down the road before I snaked back into the house."

I looked up at him through my wet lashes, letting the raw, pathetic humiliation flood my expression.

"I tried to wash it all off," I choked through my teeth. "The dirt, the rust... the smell of the ditch. I didn’t want you to see me like this. I didn’t want you to come home from your meeting and realize you’re stuck with a mate who runs into the woods at midnight to chase phantoms."

Silence stretched between us, thick and heavy enough to break bones.

I held my breath, my heart beating in a quiet, measured rhythm beneath his chest—not the chaotic spike of a liar caught in a trap, but the steady, broken rhythm of a traumatized victim pleading for understanding.

Drake stayed entirely still. His mind was working behind those pale red eyes, weighing the evidence.

The scent on my skin was faint—diluted by hours of rain, scrubbed with heavy cedar soaps, and masked by the raw smell of my own terror.

It explained the dark bruise on my neck and the faint, lingering trace of dark, stagnant magic that hung around the old, unwarded logging grounds where Darius’s men often patrolled.

He didn’t smell Darius on me because he expected to find him.

Slowly, agonizingly, the icy red in Drake’s eyes began to shift, deepening back into his familiar, dark crimson.

The terrifying, absolute cold radiating off his skin gradually receded, replaced by a low, suffocating heat. His thumb eased its pressure on my jaw, sliding down to stroke over the raw, bruised skin beneath my collarbone with a heavy, possessive stroke.

"You ran past my wards," Drake said, his voice dropping an octave, returning to that deep, gravelly rumble. "You put yourself outside my protection."

"I know," I whispered, closing my eyes as I let out a ragged breath of pure relief. "I’m sorry, Drake. I’m so sorry. I just wanted the visual memories to stop."

"They won’t stop if you run into the dark alone," Drake growled softly.

He pulled his hand from my neck, wrapping both of his massive arms around my waist, hoisting me up until my chest was pressed flat against his. He locked me against him with a force that almost took my breath away, burying his face into the crook of my neck, inhaling deep and hard against my skin.

"You do not cross the perimeter again," he commanded, his raspy voice vibrating directly against my pulse point. "You do not chase shadows outside my sight. Do you understand me, Lysander?"

"I understand," I breathed into his shoulder, wrapping my arms around his broad neck, clinging to him with everything I had. "I won’t leave again. I promise."

Drake held me tight, his large hand resting on the back of my head, pressing me close as the low rumble in his chest returned—heavy, protective, and dominant.

I buried my face in his rain-scented collar, closing my eyes in the dark bedroom as the tension in his broad frame finally gave way to sleep and exhaustion.

I had won. He didn’t know about Darius. I am safe.