(Adelaide)
For a long moment after he disappeared, Adelaide didn’t move. Sound peeled away from the world in layers—the distant rustle of leaves, the soft rush of the stream, even the ringing in her ears—until all that was left was the echo of his roar vibrating through her bones.
The forest swallowed his massive shape, darkness rushing in to fill the space he’d occupied, but his presence clung to the air like smoke. Her knees stayed pressed into the cold earth, her fingers still curled around the useless stone, her lungs dragging in broken, shaky breaths that hurt all the way down. Every inhale scraped along her ribs, each exhale shuddering out of her as if her body was learning how to breathe again without his weight pinning her.
He was gone. She didn’t understand it. The Beast had ha
