Aiden's POV
The yellow glare of my headlights sliced uselessly into the dark, reflecting off endless, identical miles of empty asphalt.
No one spoke. Not for a very long time.
My hands were clamped so tightly around the steering wheel that my knuckles had gone completely white. Every thirty seconds, my eyes darted upward to the rearview mirror, half-expecting to see those skeletal, violet-eyed nightmares bursting out from the treeline behind us. They never did. But the paranoia stayed locked in my chest, refusing to let me catch my breath.
I glanced at the glowing digital clock on the dash. 12:47 a.m.
It felt like 4:00 in the morning. My shoulders were stiff, my neck throbbed from tension, and the sharp, metallic smell of Kael's blood was still clinging to the fabric of my jacket.
Beside me, Kael sat unnaturally still.
He hadn't made a single sound since I'd practically shoved him into the passenger seat. He hadn't gritted his teeth, he hadn't winced, and he certainly hadn't brought up the agonizing gashes across his back or the dark poison pulsing toward his heart. He just leaned his head against the headrest, staring silently out at the dark trees whipping past.
Watching the night. Or maybe... feeling something I couldn't.
In the back seat, Arith wasn't sleeping either. She was slumped against the door, her silver eyes repeatedly shifting from the empty highway to the back of Kael's head, her brow furrowed in a quiet, heavy frown.
Seeing her worried made my stomach twist into knots. Arith was ancient. She was powerful. If she was rattled, then I wasn't just overreacting—we were in genuine, terrible danger.
Unable to handle the oppressive silence for another second, I took my right hand off the wheel, reaching across the center console until my fingers brushed against Kael's.
He didn't pull away. He looked down at our hands, then slowly lifted his head to meet my eyes. Without saying a word, he turned his palm upward and laced his long, elegant fingers through mine.
I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding, a faint smile touching my lips.
He returned it—a small, tired tilt of his mouth, but real enough to warm the cold air in the car.
"Better?" he asked softly, his voice low and raspy.
"A little," I admitted.
"Good."
That was all. He squeezed my fingers, and I held on tight, letting the steady warmth of his skin steady my frayed nerves.
Nearly an hour passed before the rhythm of Kael's breathing shifted.
It wasn't sudden. Just... heavier. Shallow and forced, as if every lungful of air took a deliberate, exhausting effort.
"You sleeping?" I murmured, chancing a quick glance sideways.
"No."
"You look like you're about to pass out."
"I am simply... trying to ignore my own ribcage."
My heart dropped into my stomach. I instantly eased my foot off the gas pedal, the engine pitch dropping. "Kael..."
"I am fine, Aiden."
"Don't," I snapped gently, shaking my head. "Don't do that. You promised back at the clearing."
He went quiet. For a second, I thought he was going to shut down again.
Then, he let out a low, shaky exhale. "I can feel my core," he admitted softly, his eyes staring at the dark dash. "It is... calling to me. Much stronger now."
"That's good, right? That means we're getting closer."
"It is good," he agreed, before looking down at our joined hands. "Except the curse in my chest can feel it, too."
A sharp chill crawled straight up my spine. "What do you mean?"
"The closer we get to my core... the harder the dark magic reacts. It grows heavier with every mile."
I swallowed against the dry lump in my throat. "How bad is it?"
He didn't answer right away. He stared out the window, his chest rising and falling in tight, labored hitches.
"It feels," he whispered softly, "as though an invisible hand is slowly tightening its grip around my heart. Squeezing a little harder every minute."
A heavy, sickening helplessness washed over me. I wanted to scream at the sky, wanted to pull the car over and tear the dark magic out of him with my bare hands. But I couldn't. I was just a human driving a beat-up sedan through the dark.
So I just squeezed his hand as hard as I safely could without crushing his fingers. "I'm sorry."
Kael looked over at me, genuinely bewildered. "For what?"
"I don't know," I laughed weakly, a tear pricking the corner of my eye. "I just... God, I hate seeing you like this."
His sharp expression softened into something so breathtakingly tender it made my throat ache.
"You look at me as though you wish you could take half of this pain onto your own shoulders," he murmured.
"In a heartbeat," I said without hesitation. "You know I would."
Kael didn't argue. He raised our intertwined hands and gently pressed the back of my knuckles against his lips, resting them there for a long, quiet second.
The electric shock of his breath against my skin caught me so completely off guard that my hands twitched, sending the car drifting slightly over the yellow line.
"Eyes on the road, Romeo," Arith's dry voice piped up from the back seat.
Heat instantly flooded my face, hot and furious. "Right! Jesus—sorry."
Kael let out a soft, faint chuckle, looking entirely too pleased with himself. "You are terribly easy to disarm."
"Oh, shut up. You almost made us hit a guardrail."
"A risk I am willing to take."
By three in the morning, the adrenaline finally wore out, leaving behind a leaden, crushing weight in my skull.
A massive yawn split my jaws. Then another. My eyes burned, flickering shut for two seconds at a time before I snapped my head up, the white lane markers blurring into a single, dizzying stream.
"Pull over," Arith's voice was firm, cutting through the hum of the tires.
"I'm fine," I muttered, blinking hard against the blurriness. "I can drive."
"Aiden, no," she leaned forward between the front seats, her eyes sharp. "You just drifted onto the shoulder. You are falling asleep at the wheel."
"I can make it another hour. Just one more hour."
"You said that an hour ago."
I bit my lip, suppressing a frustrated groan because I knew she was right. I reached up to rub my face, but the movement made the world spin for a dizzying moment.
"Damn it," I muttered.
Kael turned his head toward me, his golden eyes filled with quiet, absolute authority. "You've done enough tonight, Aiden."
"I just wanted to put more distance between us and those things—"
"And I want you alive," Kael interrupted softly, his voice leaving no room for debate. "Please."
That single, quiet word completely dismantled my stubbornness.
I let out a long breath and sighed. "Fine. Next exit."
We pulled into a run-down roadside joint twenty minutes later.
A flickering neon sign buzzed weakly in the damp morning air: BLUE HORIZON MOTEL. Half the neon letters were dead, leaving only BLUE HORIZON glowing in faint, sickly pink.
The cracked asphalt lot held only three other vehicles—a battered farm pickup, a covered motorcycle, and a faded delivery van. I carefully navigated into a spot near the end of the unit and turned off the engine.
The sudden, absolute silence in the car was deafening.
For a long moment, nobody moved. The hum of the road still vibrated in my ears.
"We made it," I breathed out, resting my forehead against the steering wheel.
"Barely," Arith muttered, stretching her arms with a weary pop of her joints.
Kael unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle. But the second his boots hit the gravel and he tried to stand, his legs completely gave out under him.
"Kael!"
I threw my door open, scrambling around the front of the car just in time to catch him under the arms before his knees hit the dirt. His body was burning hot, heavy and trembling against mine.
"I have it..." he gritted out, trying to push himself up against the car door. "I can stand..."
"Shut up," I said gently, wrapping my arm firmly around his waist and pulling his uninjured arm over my shoulder to take most of his weight. "You're not walking a single step by yourself."
He looked down at me, his face pale, sweat dampening the dark hair clinging to his forehead. He opened his mouth to argue, but seeing the stubborn glare on my face, he stopped.
Slowly, his shoulders dropped, and he let himself lean heavily against me.
"Very well," he murmured quietly.
I couldn't help the small, triumphant smile that tugged at my lips. "Look at that. You're actually letting me help. Progress."
He rolled his eyes, though the faint twitch of his lips betrayed him. "Do not become insufferable, Aiden. Arrogance is my role."
"Too late. You handed it over."
Supporting his weight, we slowly dragged our feet toward the dimly lit reception office, with Arith quietly trailing behind us to keep watch on the surrounding shadows.
Above the distant treeline, the dark sky was finally beginning to soften into pale shades of gray and bruised purple. A solitary bird chirped somewhere in the pines.
Morning was here. We had survived the dark.
But as I felt the terrifying heat of the curse radiating through Kael's clothes, I knew the hardest part of this journey wasn't behind us—it was waiting just down the road.