[Nikolai]
I was lying in bed that night—kicking, turning, growling like some sort of feral animal. My fist stayed clenched around Isolde’s napkin the entire time, refusing to let go even as sweat soaked through the sheets beneath me.
The fever was terrible. Unbearable even. And over the course of long, sluggish hours that felt like days, I kept wondering if this was the hell I’d be forced to suffer through whenever Isolde left my axis.
‘Could I truly go on like this?’
I knew why I was suffering this badly. It was because I’d marked her that night to save her life, to share my energy with her when she was dying.
Had I done the smart thing?
Sometimes, in my more lucid moments, I wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t marked her. Would she have survived anyway? Would the lake’s p
