#Chapter 110: Aflame

DEREK I stayed in the grotto long after she was gone. The trees didn’t move. The water barely rippled. The only sound was my own ragged breathing and the distant echo of paws crashing through underbrush. I can’t. That’s all she’d said. Just those two words, strangled and breaking, before she shifted and ran. No explanation. No warning. One second, I was holding her like she was mine again, like the past and the pain had burned away under moonlight—and the next, she was gone. My hands were still half-outstretched, empty and shaking. My heart pounded like it didn’t know what to do without her. I sat back slowly, lowering myself onto the cool moss-covered stone, not caring that I was still bare. The wind moved over my skin like a ghost. Her scent lingered in the clearing—salt, wildflower, heat. But the space between us had cracked wide open again. And this time, I didn’t even understand why. I’d thought we’d turned a corner. That something in her had finally softened. Th