Page 43 of Nansar
And now that body was waking up, responding to Nansar in ways that left me breathless and bewildered in equal measure.
Was it wrong to want him? Was I somehow betraying my trauma by feeling this liquid heat pooling in my core when those blue-green eyes darkened? Or was this what healing actually looked like—my battered soul tentatively, tremulously reaching toward pleasure again, toward connection, toward the possibility of reclaiming what had been stolen?
I didn't have answers. I only knew that when Nansar was near, the numbness receded. The fear didn't disappear entirely—perhaps it never would—but it no longer consumed everything else.
When he looked at me, I didn't feel broken.
I feltalive.
And that terrified me almost as much as the alternative.
Nansar turned to face me, and whatever he saw in my expression made him go utterly still. The concern that flooded those blue-green eyes was so genuine, so achingly tender, that something in my chest cracked open. He moved toward me with the careful grace of someone approaching a wounded creature—not to strike, but to shelter.
His hands rose, hovering near my shoulders like a question mark in the air between us. Always so careful. Always allowing me the choice.
"Chloe." My name on his lips was a low rumble that resonated through my bones, sending shivers cascading down my spine. "You will never have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. I swear it. I'll find a way to get us out of here."
The conviction in his voice made me want to believe him. God, how desperately I wanted to believe him.
The scrape of wood against stone shattered the moment. We both turned as one of the Welati females from last night slipped through the doorway, her movements quick and furtive as a sparrow's. She carried a wooden tray laden with flatbread and some kind of stew, the steam rising in lazy spirals. She wouldn't meet our eyes as she set it on the floor near the entrance, her fingers trembling slightly.
"Wait," I called out, stepping forward before she could flee. "Please. Why are we being kept here? What does the Elder want from us?"
The girl froze, her fingers twisting anxiously in the supple leather of her dress. She glanced toward the doorway like a prisoner eyeing an escape route, then back at me. Conflict played across her delicate features—fear warring with something that might have been sympathy.
"The Elder..." she began, her voice barely above a whisper. "She doubts you are truly mates."
My heart stuttered against my ribs. "What does that mean? What happens if—"
"If you are not mates," she interrupted, the words tumbling out in a rush, "then you have lied to our people." Her gaze flicked to Nansar, and the pity in her eyes made my stomach drop. "They will kill him."
The world tilted sideways. "And me?"
She finally met my gaze fully, and what I saw there turned my blood into ice water in my veins. "They may kill you, but breedable females are venerated in our tribe. More likely..." She swallowed hard. "You would be given to one of the village warriors. As a mate."
"No." The word escaped as barely more than a breath, catching in my throat like broken glass. The thought of strange hands on my body—touching me, claiming me, taking what I hadn't offered—sent darkness creeping in at the edges of my vision. My knees threatened to buckle.
"I'm sorry," the girl whispered, and then she was gone, the leather door slamming shut with a finality that echoed through my very bones.
I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. The walls pressed in from all sides, the small cottage transforming into a tomb.
"Chloe." Nansar's voice cut through the rising tide of panic like a lifeline.
"They're going to kill you," I said, my voice trembling so badly I barely recognized it. "They're going to kill you and thenthey're going to..." The rest of the sentence died in my throat. I couldn't give voice to it. Couldn't speak aloud the nightmare of being forced into another situation where I had no control, no choice, where my body would once again become territory to be claimed and owned.
"That won't happen," Nansar said, his voice steel wrapped in velvet. He moved closer, and his presence alone seemed to push back against the suffocating fear. "We'll find a way out."
"How?" The word came out desperate, edged with hysteria. "How do we prove we're mates when we're not? When we barely know each other?"
Nansar fell silent, his jaw working as though he were chewing on words too difficult to swallow. When he finally spoke, his voice was careful, measured, like he was navigating a minefield. "There is... one way. A way that would leave no doubt in the Elder's mind."
I stared at him, my mind scrambling to catch up with what he wasn't quite saying. And then understanding crashed over me.
"Oh," I whispered. "Oh."
My chest constricted, panic clawing its way up my throat with razor-sharp talons. "I can't—" The words came out strangled, broken. "Nansar, I can't."
The memories hit me like cold, clammy fingers skittering across my skin. Declan's hands. The way my body had responded even as my mind screamed in protest, betraying me in the cruelest way possible. The feeling of being trapped in my own skin, a passenger in a vehicle I couldn't control, watching helplessly as everything was taken from me. Even as attractive as I found Nansar—and God, I did find him attractive—the thought of that kind of intimacy sent terror flooding through every nerve.
