Chapter 151
Jiselle
The wind wouldn’t stop moving.
It sliced through the trees with a low hiss, as if the whole valley had begun to hold its breath. I stood at the edge of the cliff above the leyline, arms crossed tightly across my chest, watching as the light below shimmered faintly–no longer red, no longer golden. Violet streaks ran through it now, veins in the stone that pulsed in time with something I didn’t fully understand.
Behind me, footsteps.
I didn’t need to turn to know who it was.
“You’re quiet,” Nate said.
“I’m thinking.”
He came up
beside me, close but not touching. Not yet.
“You saw what Kael’s doing,” he said after a long beat. “You saw the second rune. If he finishes the triad-”
“I know,” I said sharply. “I saw it too, Nate.”
He ran a hand through his hair, then clenched it at his side. “Then why are we waiting? Why aren’t we going after him right now?”
“Because we don’t know what happens if he dies,” I snapped, turning to face him. “We don’t know if killing him stops the gate or opens it.”
His eyes flared. “You think letting him live is safer?”
“I don’t know!” I shouted, the words tearing out of me more violently than I’d intended.
The wind whipped between us. The silence after felt heavier than any scream.
I looked down at my hands, at the faint violet glow that curled beneath my skin like threads of ink trying to draw meaning in a language I didn’t speak.
“If we kill Kael,” I said, more quietly, “we might kill the one thing tethering the seal. What if his life is part of the lock? What if the triad isn’t power–it’s protection?”
He shook his head slowly. “Or it’s a key, Jiselle. A countdown. And the longer we wait, the closer he gets to finishing it.”
I turned away, my throat closing.
I didn’t want to be right.
I didn’t want him to be, either.
“I’m tired of playing god with guesses,” I whispered, “I’m tired of every step being a gamble we can’t take back.”
Nate’s voice softened, but didn’t lose its urgency. “Then let me do this. Let me end it before he pushes you into another sacrifice.”
My body stiffened.
“That’s not your call,”
“It’s not just yours either.”
I turned back, meeting his
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eyes.
Chapter 151
And that’s when I saw it not just frustration, not even fear. Grief. Beneath everything, Nate looked like someone trying to hold a river in his hands.
“I’m not ready to lose you,” he said. “Not to Kael. Not to the gate. Not to your flame. And if killing him means giving you a chance to stay then a do ti –
I stared at him. At the man who had carried my secrets, burned for my mistakes, and stayed through storms no one else could have weathered
“I don’t want to be a reason you kill,” I said softly. “I want to be a reason you live.”
He looked away, jaw clenched. “You already a
/are.”
The words hit deeper than I was prepared for.
I stepped forward, hesitant.
The leyline hummed below, the ground faintly vibrating.
“Nate…”
He turned toward me again, and this time, I didn’t
see a warrior or a protector or a
man
holding a sword between me and fate.
I saw him.
The boy who used to run beside Ethan.
The man who stayed even after the mark.
The one who waited, not because he had to–but because he chose to.
I reached for his hand.
He took it instantly.
His palm was warm, steady, rough in the best way–like it had shaped scars into something sacred.
“We’re going to make it,” I said.
“You keep saying that,” he murmured.
“Because it has to be true.”
His hand squeezed mine.
“Then give me something to hold onto.”
blinked. “What do you mean?”
He stepped closer.
So close that his breath touched my lips, soft and ragged.
“You,” he said. “All of you. Not just the flame. Not just the chaos. You.”
And then he kissed me.
Not like the first time–frenzied, broken, desperate.
This kiss was slower.
Deeper.
Chapter 151
The kind of kiss that remembered.
That claimed.
That said you’re mine, not because I own you–but because we survived the fire and still chose each other.
My hands curled into his shirt, pulling him closer, until his body pressed flush against mine. He wrapped his arms around my waist, grounding me, anchoring me, and I let myself fall–not down, but into him.
Into this.
Into us.
Because for once, the storm wasn’t around us.
It was inside us.
His mouth slid down my jaw, his breath searing against my neck. I shivered, not from cold–but from relief. From the terrifying comfort of being wanted- not as a weapon, not as a symbol–but as Jiselle.
My back met the stone of the cliff wall gently, and he pressed into me. Our lips met again, slower now. Tender. Full of ache and promise.
“I’m still afraid,” I murmured.
“I’m still here,” he whispered.
Our foreheads touched, breath mingling. My heartbeat thudded against his chest. His fingers brushed over my scar–gentle, reverent.
And the moment stretched.
Sacred.
Until-
The ground cracked beneath us.
Just a hairline fracture at first. Then another.
We both froze.
The earth pulsed.
The leyline beneath the cliff shimmered and twisted.
And then–a heartbeat.
Not mine.
Not Nate’s.
Something beneath us.
Something impossible.
Nate pulled me behind him instinctively, hand at the ready, his eyes scanning the gorge.
But there was no enemy.
Just the hum of magic.
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10:08 Sun, 8 Jun WUG
Chapter 151
The pulse again.
A slow, deliberate thump through the stones at our feet.
My skin lit up with it–every nerve alight.
“Nate,” I whispered, “do you feel that?”
He nodded, jaw tight. “Yeah.”
The heartbeat came again.
Then the flame inside me responded–pulling forward like a tide drawn to moonlight.
I staggered.
Nate caught me.
“Easy,” he said. “What is that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, breathless. “But it’s alive.”
He looked down, the gorge glowing softly beneath our feet.
“The gate?” he asked.
“No.”
I met his eyes.
Wider now.
-Shaken.
“It’s not the gate.”
I pressed a hand to the stone.
And the next time it pulsed-
I felt it.
Her.
The thing Serina warned me about.
The thing Kael was trying to awaken.
Not the gate.
Not death.
Something older.
And it had just started to breathe.
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
