IRYNA
"Reclaim what?"
"My soul anchor is still inside you," he said quietly. "And it will not return to me unless I reclaim it myself."
The words did not make sense. They refused to fit inside my head. What soul anchor? I had come here to fix my stupid, bad heart. To stop the slow, merciless failure that had followed me since childhood. Not to become some vessel for a demon's fragment.
"What are you talking about?" My voice came out strained. "That Sovereign demon or whatever he is, said my heart was being fed on by demons. No one mentioned anything like soul anchor to me."
His gaze did not change.
"The Sovereign serves me."
My stomach dropped. The implication settled slowly. What was all this?
"He lied?" I whispered.
"He told you what was required."
The calmness in his tone made it worse than anger ever could.
"You knew he deceived me."
"Yes. I may have been sealed but I still knew what was happening."
His flat, emotionless replies landed with more force than any strike.
Rage flared through my confusion. "You used my illness to drag me here?"
"One way or the other, you would have been brought to me. You have been watched for a long time, Iryna. It was only better you came here willingly. It makes it easier for my anchor."
The cruelty of the his words stole my breath. My heart chose that moment to spasm violently in my chest. A sharp, burning pulse spread outward beneath my ribs. I gasped and stumbled back.
His eyes lowered to my chest.
"That is it."
"What is it?" I demanded, pressing a trembling hand over my heart.
"My core recognizes its origin."
The pain sharpened — not random this time. Directed. Pulling. Toward him. I froze. It wasn't malfunctioning. It was reaching.
"If I wasn't being fed on," I said hoarsely. "Then what is wrong with me?"
"There was never a defect in your heart. It was just... fighting space with my soul anchor and it lost in the end."
The candles around the chamber bent inward, their flames dimming under the pressure of his presence.
"When your heart was forming," he continued, "my anchor entered your body."
I shook my head. "I don't understand."
"You were the only compatible vessel in centuries."
The room felt too small.
"You altered me before I was even born?" My voice cracked.
"My soul anchor did. Just like your heart, I cannot be whole without it. You were the perfect vessel to bring me back." he grinned.
Another pulse tore through me. This one stronger. My knees buckled. Before I hit the floor, his hand caught my waist. The contact was electric. The thing inside my chest surged violently at the touch. I cried out.
He stilled.
I felt it then — the current between us. Like something ancient snapping into alignment. His jaw tightened slightly.
"You see?" he murmured.
The pressure between us intensified. He placed his palm flat over my heart. The thing he said, the anchor, responded instantly.
Heat flooded outward. My vision blurred. He focused, expression sharpening. For a brief moment, the pain lessened— And then something pushed back. A violent recoil snapped through my chest. I gasped as the force slammed inward instead of outward. His hand tensed. Silence followed.
He withdrew slowly.
"It refuses immediate separation," he said.
"You can't take it out?" I choked out.
"I suspected the fusion was deep," he replied. "I did not anticipate this degree of integration."
My breathing came uneven.
"So you…" I whispered.
"Cannot remove it," Dark finished. "You will die instantly."
Cold realization settled in.
"So he lied to make sure I came willingly."
"Yes."
The anchor pulsed again — agitated, unstable.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"If left unattended, it will attempt full awakening."
"And that means?"
"It will try to return to me on its own and that shouldn't happen."
My blood ran cold.
"So if the soul anchor remained in me..."
"Your heart will rupture under the strain."
The matter-of-fact delivery made it final.Tears burned at the corners of my eyes.
"Then take it!"
"If I tear it free," he said, "your life ends immediately and I wouldn't want that because it won't work in my favor."
I stared at him. Of course he wouldn't want that. He was a selfish bastard who was feeding me info on how he ruined my life even before I was born.
"So either way I die?"
"Not necessarily."
Hope flickered despite myself. "Then what?"
His eyes held mine fully now.
"Closeness."
I grew more confused.
"It responds to my presence. Gradual reclamation will prevent collapse." he added.
"What did you mean by closeness?"
"I meant, to merge with my soul anchor and to slowly remove it from you, I will need to be close to you. Like how I touched you earlier."
I stepped back instinctively.
"That's not happening."
The word left my mouth before I could stop it.
Yes, I had felt peace when he touched me but I had also felt turbulence and fear. Like my body resented and wanted his closeness at the same time.
His expression did not change. I turned to run. I did not reach the doorway. In one smooth motion he caught me, his arm circling my waist and pulling me firmly against his chest. My back collided with him, solid. I couldn't move. He held me firmly. The anchor reacted violently to the closeness.
A surge of heat flooded through me.
"Let me go!" I struggled, but his hold did not budge.
"Be still."
The command was quiet. My body betrayed me first — trembling, weakening — before my will did. If he thought I was going to be some stupid obedient weak girl and just listen to him, then he was awfully wrong.
He lowered his head slightly, his voice near my ear.
"You will live only if you remain with me. I will reclaim the anchor gradually. When I am finished, remnants of my power will remain in you — enough to keep your heart from failing."
My heart thudded wildly beneath his hand. Another pulse tore through me, stronger than before. His grip tightened slightly as I attempted to pull away again.
"I should already be fully restored, " he said, the words edged with quiet frustration, almost a growl beneath the velvet calm. "Instead I stand here… wasting breath on explanations. On you."
His fingers flexed against my waist, not quite bruising, but close enough to remind me how easily they could.
"If the anchor didn't demand your willing surrender," he continued, voice dropping until it felt like smoke curling inside my ribs, "I would have already dragged you down these stairs outside this room. Bound your wrists. Gagged that defiant mouth. And taken back every fragment of what belongs to me while you trembled beneath my hands."
He leaned in until his lips nearly brushed the shell of my ear.
"But it does demand you," he murmured, the admission sounding almost pained. "It wants your pulse racing toward me. Your fear. Your heat. But not your reluctant."
A slow, deliberate inhale against my neck—like he was tasting the terror and the unwanted spark beneath it.
"So be very careful, little mortal," he whispered. His thumb traced one slow, burning line along my lower ribs. "I am not a patient creature."
This bastard.
The words hit like a slap. He resented needing me. Resented the inconvenience of my fragile, inconvenient life. And I resented it right back.
I hated standing here—trapped, ignorant, reduced to listening while some ancient creature decided the shape of my remaining days. I hated that I knew nothing about my own body, my own death sentence.
A soul anchor?
The phrase looped in my head, cold and wrong. A shard of him—demon, dragon, whatever nightmare he truly was—buried inside me like a hook that had been waiting years to set. And now I was supposed to just… stay? Pressed close to him until he finished carving himself out of me?
"No," I said. The word came out hard. Final.
His hand stayed locked at my waist. Warm. Unyielding.
"I'd rather die." I added.
The room stilled. Even the candles seemed to hold their breath. His face didn't change, but the air grew thick, pressing in until it felt like the shadows themselves were listening.
"You misunderstand," he said, calm as ever.
"No. I understand exactly." I forced my eyes up to his. "You're telling me I have to let you keep touching me, keep me close, so you can slowly rip out whatever piece of yourself you planted in me before I even had a name."
His gaze darkened—just a fraction.
"And I'm supposed to believe I'll survive it?" My voice rose. "All that's been said to me since I got here are lies. That Sovereign demon lied. You watched him drag me here under the pretense of saving me. You let it happen."
He didn't flinch. Didn't deny it.
"So forgive me," I said bitterly, "if I don't trust that staying caged with you is the kinder fate."
The anchor answered before he could—sharp, angry flare beneath my ribs. I clenched my teeth against the pain.
"I was told one month," I went on. "One month before my heart gives out."
"If it wakes fully," he corrected softly, "far less."
"Then less." I swallowed the tremor in my throat. "I'll take whatever time I have left."
His eyes narrowed.
"I'm going home," I said. The words tasted like courage and terror at once. "I'm going to my family. My friends. People who actually give a damn whether I live or die."
The candles snapped, flames leaping sideways.
"I'd rather spend my last days with them," I finished, voice cracking despite myself, "than waste however many weeks or months I have left chained to someone who's been pulling strings over my entire existence."
Something flickered in his expression. Not anger. Not pity. Something colder.
"You think proximity to me is punishment," he said quietly.
"Isn't it?"
His hand left my waist. Rose. Caught my chin. Tilted my face to his. The touch wasn't cruel. It wasn't kind. It was simply inevitable.
"You imagine dying surrounded by love will feel gentle?" he murmured. "Peaceful?"
"At least it will be honest."
The anchor surged—vicious this time. My breath snagged. Pain clawed up my sternum like talons. He didn't move. Just watched me fight it.
"You assume you'll have a month," he said. "You assume it will be patient while you say goodbye."
My stomach dropped.
"If you walk away from me," he continued, voice low, intimate, "the distance will tear the anchor awake faster. It already hates separation."
As if summoned by the words, he eased his hold—just a fraction. Pain exploded. I gasped, doubling forward. Instantly his arm snapped around me again, hauling me flush against his chest. The agony receded to a low, simmering ache. My heartbeat steadied against him—traitorous, grateful.
Tears stung my eyes. I hated him for it. Hated my body more.
"I'll be fine without you," I lied through clenched teeth.
"You do not have the luxury of that lie."
My jaw locked.
"Then prove it," I challenged. "Let me go. Let me walk out that door. If I collapse tomorrow—if I die the day after—you'll have been right. And I'll be free of you either way."
The silence stretched taut. Dangerous. He studied me like I was a puzzle already half-solved.
"You would stake your life on defiance."
"I would stake it on having a choice."
The anchor pulsed again—slow, deliberate, listening. His thumb drifted once across the skin above my heart. Almost tender. Almost absent.
"You carry my core inside you," he said, barely above a whisper. "Whether you want it or not."
"That doesn't make me yours."
His eyes went black at the edges. His arm shifted—not releasing, but reshaping. Caging me more completely against the hard heat of him.
"Eventually," he murmured, lips close enough that I felt the shape of every word, "your body will choose to live. And when it does… it will choose me. You can return now, little mortal."
My pulse answered him—slow, steady, alive—pressed tight to the monster who kept it beating. I hated how right he might be. He wouldn't win. I would not let him.