Not through me.
At me.
“Come back,” I whispered. “Please, Damon. Come back to me.”
“Come back…”
I whispered it like a prayer, like his name was the only spell I had left in me. My voice still trembled, hoarse and torn from screaming, from choking, from pleading.
My throat felt like it had been wrapped in smoke and barbed wire, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care how broken I sounded.
I didn’t care how small I was compared to the beast rising in front of me. Because I knew it was him.
Even with the claws and fangs and blackened eyes.
He was still mine.
And I needed him to remember that.
I stepped closer, swallowing the pain, the fear, the leftover terror still crawling across my skin like ice. My hand reached for him, slow and open, not to fight him—never to fight him—but to ancho
