CHAPTER 84: PROXIMITY

She looked lost, smaller, her eyes growing distant even as she looked right at me.

The colour had bled from her face, her shoulders trembling in my grasps. "I am losing my mind." She whispered, still aghast. She shook her head, as if trying to convince herself. "It felt so vivid. It’s never..." Her words trailed off as her horror took her breath. "I am losing my mind."

My gut twisted, a muscle in my jaw jumping as it locked. "No," I kept my voice soft to ground her, offering some relief. "You are alright, Lili,"

Her eyes found focus again, her gaze now locked on me. "I am not..." The breathless panic in her voice remained. "It is never this bad. I never leave my room. I got better..."

"Lili, Lili..." I tried to bring her back from the abyss I recognized that she was spiralling into. It had been in her file. "Listen..." I moved from her shoulders and cradled her face. Her skin had gone cold and clammy. No heat, no fire, the light in her soul flickered from the weight she was under.

"No, no," her bright eyes dimmed with dread and the terror clawing within her. "It’s not been this bad for years. Even when mum died... no, no," she tried to pull away, to recede back into herself and lose herself in the hopelessness. "If it’s this bad... the night terrors will come back. The nightmares..."

"Lili," I whispered, stroking her cheeks. "Listen..."

Her eyes widened, searching for something I would probably never know. "Vladimir..." She breathed my name, light as a feather, fragile as splintering glass. "I cant---do it----I can’t do it again," she gripped me like a lifeline and she was drowning.

She was spiralling. "I can’t do it----again,"

I pulled her to me, cradling her face on my chest, but she was limp against me. "Please---I can’t---" she continued to echo. "I never escaped it."

"It’s the bond," I whispered against her hair. I felt her stiffen. "It pulled you here while you slept. Draw you to me."

She pulled back slightly. Just enough to look up at me, panting like she had run a marathon. She might have well been with the number of loops she must have walked in her own head.

Her eyes—terrified, searching, desperate.

"Why?" Her voice was barely there. "Why would it—"

"The bond seeks proximity," I said quietly, still cradling her face. "It wants us CLOSE. Together. It will pull you to me whenever it can. In sleep. In waking. Until—"

I stopped.

She understood because her eyes dilated. "Until we complete it," she finished. Hollow.

"Yes."

Silence stretched between us. Heavy, oppressive and suffocating.

The bond thrummed, demanding and aching as it always was when I was close enough to count her freckles.

I could feel it, the pull between us. Magnetic and entirely Inexorable.

Her Lunar Crest pulsed faintly against her wrist. Its golden light bleeding through the dimness of the hallway.

"Do you feel it too?" she whispered suddenly.

I still went.

"What?"

"The pull." Her eyes searched mine. Vulnerable and desperate, her body so close that I could feel the shiver that ran up her spine. "Do you—do you look for me too? Even when you don’t mean to? Even when—"

She stopped. Swallowed hard. "I need to know I’m not alone in this," she breathed. "Please. I need to know I’m not the only one going MAD."

My chest tightened.

She was asking if the bond controlled ME too.

If I were as helpless against it as she was.

And the truth—

The truth was MORE than that.

"Yes," I said quietly.

Her breath hitched.

"I feel it," I continued, voice rough. "Every moment you’re near. Every moment you’re NOT near. The bond—it ACHES, Lili. It demands. It pulls me toward you even when I’m trying to stay away."

Her eyes widened.

"I think about you," I admitted. The words dragged out of me. "More than I should. More than is SAFE. I know where you are in the estate at all times. I can FEEL you. Your presence. Your heartbeat."

Her Lunar Crest flared brighter.

"When you’re in pain," I continued, "I know. When you’re afraid, I FEEL it. When you trained with me, yesterday and broke your hand punching me—"

I stopped. Jaw clenching.

"I felt the moment your bone cracked. Felt your pain like it was my OWN."

"Vladimir—"

"The bond has turned you into an obsession I can’t control," I said, voice dropping. "You are the first thing I think of when I wake. The last thing before I sleep. And in between—"

I held her gaze.

"You are EVERYWHERE, Lili. In my thoughts. In my blood. Under my SKIN."

Her breath came faster now.

"So yes," I finished quietly. "You are not alone in this. The bond controls us BOTH."

It was the truth.

Just not the WHOLE truth.

I watched her process my words.

Watched the way her Lunar Crest pulsed brighter with each revelation.

The way her eyes caught the light—amber and gold with flecks of SUNLIGHT scattered through them like stars.

The way freckles dusted across her nose. Constellation-faint. Beautiful.

The way her lips parted slightly as she breathed.

"Claim her," Zver growled. "She’s RIGHT HERE. She’s OURS. Take her."

I crushed the instinct down.

No.

"The rut DEMANDS—"

*I don’t care what it demands.*

"She WANTS you. Look at her. The way she’s looking at us—"

She’s terrified and vulnerable and NOT in a state to make this choice.

"Then MAKE the choice for her—"

NO.

I forced myself to step back.

Put distance between us.

Even though it felt like tearing muscle from bone.

"Vladimir?" Her voice was small. Confused.

"The dance," I said, voice coming out rougher than intended. "We’ll practice the steps for the Moonstone Masquerade as Dmitri informed you. If you are up to it."

She blinked. Thrown by the subject change.

"What?"

"It will keep your mind occupied," I continued. "Give you something to focus on besides the bond. Besides—"

*Besides me.*

"Learning the choreography will take concentration," I said. "Discipline. It will GROUND you. Keep the spiraling at bay. The Masquerade is in three days."

For a moment, she just stared at me.

Then her expression shifted. Shuttered.

She understood what I was doing.

Pushing her away. Creating distance.

From me. She has no real idea where she had been drawn to. The rut chamber were I let lose some of my most carnal insatiable urges.

"Right," she said quietly. "The dance. I am up for it."