Azriel | Lux Ex Tenebris ✓

Chapter 66: I Cannot Lose You

✦Azriel POV✦

"Misma! Misma!"

"Sssh, sshh. Azriel, love. Please, calm down. Please, ssshh. Calm down. It was a nightmare. A dream. It was not real." My mate's mellow voice slowly drifted into my ear. I was panting heavily, fisting the bedsheets in my hands. My throat burned with a scream, air wheezing in and out of my lungs.

"Ssshh, come on. Let go of the bed sheets and come here." Slowly I blinked my lids open, staring right into my mate's big brown eyes, pain and anguish displayed in them and on her pale face. Misma's hands cupped my jaw and she leaned over me, placing a kiss against my brows and then my nose. "It was a nightmare. You were dreaming. Shall we talk about it?" she whispered into the dark room, slowly brushing her hands down my chest, down my in sweat covered chest. The damp bedsheets stuck to me, droplets of sweat running down my neck. It was just a nightmare.

The shadows swirled around us both, brushing over my skin and peeking over my shoulders.

"It was just....a nightmare I have had many times in the past, mixed with new things. You got hurt and I...let's not talk about it, alright?" I asked, moving one hand up and rubbing it over my face, then taking my mate's beautiful face in my hand and smoothing my thumb over her cheek. She was fine and fit and right in front of me. In my bed and in my arms and...safe.

"Alright, sure. As you wish. Should I run you a bath?"

"No, please just...just hold me, alright?" I asked, squeezing my eyes shut for a second. "If I am not too gross?"

"Never, Azriel. You would never be too gross for me to not hold you. You are my mate and I don't care if you are covered in sweat or whatever, you are the one I chose. In good and in bad times and forever." That uttering did something to my heart and my...eyes.

Lying back down Misma pulled me on top of her, my face buried in the crook of her neck, while her arms snuck around my neck and head. One leg I placed between her legs, my left arm sneaking around her, my right hand I placed on her left breast right over her heart.

"I cannot lose you, Misma. I cannot lose you," I mumbled against her skin, tears slowly tumbling out of my eyes. Gods, I really did not want to cry. But it was true. I could not lose her. I would not survive it if I lost her.

"You won't lose me, my love," she whispered, her soft hand stroking through my damp hair. I listened to her faint heartbeat, my thumb brushing over the swell of her right breast. "You will never lose me. It is you and I until the very last day."

"Can you tell me something? Anything. Tell me the most random thing that comes to your mind. I just need to get my mind off." 

Misma inhaled deeply under me, twirling strands of my hair around her fingers. "Let me think...What would you like to talk about." 

I kissed her chest again, my lips resting on her skin while I deliberated.

"Did you know me before? You never asked for my name. Did you know my name before we met? Apart from seeing me from your bedroom window..." A soft giggle left my mate, her cheek rubbing against the side of my head.

"I did, yes. Of course. We all knew who you are. You are quite well known and feared down there. Gods, I even think my father is still terribly scared of the three of you." 

I snorted, kissing her skin again. "I am not sure if that is how one would want their father-in-law to see them, but after how he treated you it actually is quite alright for me."

"For me, too. And," —Misma inhaled again, her chest moving against mine and her hand stilling in my hair— "there's something I have realised." I waited, slightly impatient while giving her breast a tiny squeeze.