Cursed to follow

Part 4

Lucas POV'S 

Her words struck like lightning.

"Please... sleep with me."

For a second, I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

And then—like something snapped in me—I stood up, too fast, the chair scraping back sharply against the wooden floor.

"I will pretend I didn't hear that," I said, voice low, too tight, too sharp. My fists clenched at my sides.

I didn't wait for her response. I turned and started toward the door, my pulse a storm inside my chest, louder than the silence she left behind.

What the hell was she thinking?

How could she say that?

How could she ask me that—when she was still married to him?

To the same man who broke her. The same man who had made her run through the night, soaked and sick and terrified.

I reached the door, my hand on the knob, but I couldn't turn it. My body shook with too many emotions all at once.

Anger.
Guilt.
Longing.

I pressed my forehead to the cold wood.

She didn't know what she was asking.

And I—I was barely holding myself together as it was.

Gods, I'd waited for her. Loved her in silence. Watched her marry someone else with a smile stitched onto my face. I told her she could come to me if she ever needed me... but not like this.

Not when she was vulnerable. Not when she was still healing. Not when her heart was torn in too many directions to even know what she truly wanted.

The image of her—curled up in my shirt, tearful, trembling—burned behind my eyes.

I didn't want to be another shadow that touched her without care.

I wasn't him.

And I would never take it case of her pain.

But gods... it hurt.

It hurt to leave.
It hurt that she'd even asked.

Because no matter how much I wanted her—body, soul, forever—
I wanted her to choose me whole, not broken.

Not like this.

Her voice stopped me again, firmer this time.

Her voice caught me again, firmer this time. It wasn't a whisper now — it was steady, strained, pulled from the deepest part of her.

"You saw it, right?" she said, standing from the bed. The blanket slipped slightly from her shoulder as she clutched it tighter around her. The firelight behind her cast a soft glow along her skin. "You saw what a mother is capable of... what she'll do to protect her child."

I turned to face her.

Something in her tone... in the way she stood despite how weak she still was... it made everything else in the room fall away.

And then she stepped closer.

She reached for me.

Her fingers trembled as she took my hand in hers, cold but firm, and brought it down gently — to her stomach.

At first, I didn't understand.

My hand rested there for a moment, unsure.

And then I felt it — not movement, not a kick, but something deeper. A truth beneath the surface. The way her body curled protectively. The way her eyes refused to look away from mine.