Chapter 23
1144 Words
Third person’s POV
Elara tried to avoid him after the lecture. She avoided the business building entirely, slipped out of classes early, and changed her usual paths on campus. But fate or something stronger seemed determined to pull them together.
The first time, she was leaving the library. Easton was standing outside, phone pressed to his ear, speaking sharply into the receiver. His expression softened instantly when he saw her.
“Elara?” he said, surprised. “I wasn’t expecting—”
She spun the other way, pretending she hadn’t heard him.
But he caught up effortlessly.
“You always walk this fast?”
She flushed. “You always chase students around campus?”
He laughed, a warm, disarming sound that made her chest flutter traitorously.
“I was meeting a professor. But… I’m glad I ran into you.”
And then it happened again.
At the café.
At the courtyard.
In the hallway outside her economics class.
Each time, his smile grew softer. Each time, his eyes lingered a little longer.
Each time, Elara’s heart betrayed her more.
Because she could feel it—his curiosity shifting into something deeper. And she was terrified.
And then something happened, It happened on a rainy afternoon.
Elara was sitting under a tree near the edge of campus, knees pulled to her chest, trying to quiet the storm of emotions she kept buried. She thought she was alone.
Until she wasn’t.
Easton appeared, umbrella in hand, rain soaking his hair and shoulders.
“You’ll get sick out here,” he said softly.
She didn’t look at him. “I’m fine.”
But something in her voice made him pause.
He sat anyway, ignoring the mud on his expensive suit, holding the umbrella over both of them without a word. They sat in silence, rain pattering above them, the world shrinking into a quiet bubble.
“Elara,” he murmured, “I don’t know what’s going on with you… but I want to understand. I want to be there for you.”
She looked up sharply, something raw in her expression.
And Easton felt it, the moment his heart chose her without asking permission.
Not the confident student from the lecture.
Not the mysterious girl who kept running from him.
But this version of her, it was vulnerable, guarded, trembling with secrets.
He didn’t know what she was hiding.
He just knew one thing that he was in love with her.
It happened fast.
One day, A group of students were playing around in the courtyard, one tossing a frisbee too hard, too high. It soared straight toward Easton.
He laughed, reaching to catch it.
But it veered at the last second, aiming for his face.
Elara reacted before she thought.
Her hand snapped up.
A burst of supernatural strength flickered through her.
The frisbee stopped midair with a crack of unnatural force, then it shattered in her palm.
Silence.
Easton froze, staring at the pieces falling from her hand like broken glass.
“Elara… what was that?” he whispered.
Her heart dropped to her feet.
“I—I don’t know,” she lied, stepping back, fists shaking. “I didn’t..It was an accident.”
“No.” He stepped closer, voice trembling. “People don’t do that. You grabbed it out of the air...no, you stopped it and crushed it with your bare hands. Elara, what are you?”
Her breath hitched.
She fled.
She didn’t look back.
Easton found her hours later in the abandoned greenhouse behind campus, her favorite hiding place. She sat on the dusty floor, arms wrapped around herself, eyes red.
He didn’t storm in.
He didn’t demand answers.
He simply closed the door softly and sat across from her.
“Elara,” he said gently, “please don’t run from me. Just tell me.”
Her throat tightened painfully.
“You’ll hate me,” she whispered. “You’ll be afraid.”
“Try me.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes. She opened her hand and let her claws slip through her skin. Not fully. Just enough that the air seemed to tremble around them.
Easton inhaled sharply but didn’t move.
“I’m not human,” she whispered. “I never was.”
She expected shock.
Fear.
Disgust.
But Easton only stared at her with something that broke her completely, softness.
“Elara,” he said quietly, “I don’t care what you are.”
His voice cracked.
“I care who you are.”
“I’m dangerous,” she whispered.
“So am I, in my own way. But I would never hurt you. Let me decide what I’m afraid of.”
She shut her eyes, tears falling freely.
“You’re not afraid?”
“I’m afraid of losing you,” he whispered.
And when he crossed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms, Elara knew that no matter how dangerous her world was, no matter how impossible this love felt, Easton Hale wasn’t going anywhere.
Easton had seen strange things before, shadows that moved too quickly, Elara’s eyes glowing faintly when she was afraid but nothing prepared him for the moment he stepped into her world fully for the first time.
Elara led him deep into the forest, her hand tight around his, her heartbeat racing. She had tried to warn him, but how do you explain magic to someone who has never believed in it? How do you tell the man you love that the laws of his world mean nothing here?
“Don’t let go,” she whispered.
“I won’t,” he promised.
As they crossed the boundary a thin shimmer in the air he hadn’t noticed until he walked through it, Easton felt the temperature drop, then rise, then crackle with an energy that prickled against his skin. The forest shifted. Trees grew taller, broader, older. The sky darkened into a violet twilight though the sun had just been shining moments before. Blue flames floated between branches like lanterns. Eyes glowing, curious, ancient, blinked from the shadows.
Easton stopped, breath stolen clean from his lungs.
“Elara… what is this?”
“My world,” she murmured. “The realm of my people.”
A large wolf, silver-gold and twice the size of any natural creature, stepped out from behind a tree. Its head dipped respectfully at Elara before turning to Easton. He should have been terrified. Yet, as the wolf approached, Easton instinctively stepped in front of her, protective despite being completely powerless.
The wolf paused… then bowed its head to him.
Elara s*ck*d in a breath. “They’re accepting you,” she whispered. “They’re welcoming you.”
Easton finally exhaled. “Then I’m staying,” he said softly. “Wherever you are, that’s where I belong.”
And for the first time, Elara believed he truly meant forever.
- Writer
