Surrendered To The Lord Of Sin-Chapter 35: Unfinished

The healer’s hands slowed, then stilled for just a moment as the words landed heavily in the chamber. For a while, silence soaked the room, wrapping itself around them.

She exhaled through her nose, "Of course it was," Her fingers resumed their work, more deliberate now, weaving counter-sigils into the air. Pale light threaded between her hands, sinking into the girl’s skin like breath returning to drowned lungs. "You don’t bring someone to me like this unless the damage crawls deeper than flesh."

Vaeron didn’t reply to her sarcasm. Those eyes never left the woman lying on the stone table who looked worse by the second.

The unnatural pallor of her skin bordered on chalk-white, and her lips tinged a sickly violet beneath the cracks. Those same lips that had all together, not long ago, pursed in fear or rage at his presence, parted around sighs he had drawn from her, now lay still and bloodless. Bruises from vertigo stained the flawless white. Scratches from trees and nature marred her with violence.

Sweat beaded along her brow and throat, yet her body remained cold as the dead. The faint rise and fall of her chest stuttered in a shallow and uneven pace. He couldn’t have her passing out from lack of oxygen. She had to stay with him.

The healer clicked her tongue softly, "Her breathing’s unstable. The magic’s still gripping her heart," Her voice left no room for doubt when she informed the creature who looked ready to burn down the small cottage by looks alone.

Vaeron gritted his teeth. He hadn’t found the balls to delve into the reasons why he didn’t leave the wolf Princess to die. Why didn’t he let her suffer in pain and agony until her last breath? Why was he behaving this way? All he could focus on was her survival. Then he could get out of here. Then he could unleash the fire inside him.

Finally, "Fix it," he said.

It wasn’t a demand. It was a certainty, and she shot him a sharp look. "You don’t command me, Sin,"

Hazel eyes flicked to her at last in their usual cold, bottomless, and terrifyingly ancient. If she wasn’t someone he needed, he would’ve burned her to ashes, and let the gust of air take the remnants. "I didn’t ask,"

Something in his tone made her pause. Not fear - she’d long since burned that out of herself - but recognition. Had she not had a huge debt to pay, she wouldn’t have been a slave to this Lucifer’s Incarnate, and she turned back to the table with a sigh.

Not like she had any options but to obey.

Pressing gently at the hollow of the girl’s throat, "She’s been marked," She said after a moment, as though reciting words from whatever she served. Dark veins pulsed faintly beneath the skin, then receded as the sigils bit deeper. "Not a binding, I mean, not fully. More like... contamination. Black magic doesn’t just wound but persuades. Her body was too fragile to handle the amount that was forced into her," she said.

His jaw tightened as he listened. The image of her susceptibility at the forest - once pristine skin glowing in the sunshine and long hair flowing like black silk appeared pale, almost dead, and played on a loop inside his head.

Everything he’d been prepared for - every argument, every hardship he’d been drilled to expect - hadn’t prepared him for the complication that was his little wolf. How could he understand and keep his bearings when the bloody woman had more personalities than a Picasso painting?

Sometimes naïve. Sometimes stubborn. Smart, fearful, proud, gullible. And above all, evolving. And rapidly. She remained adamant to death when it was peacefully offered a hand. Bravery or stupidity, he couldn’t tell, and he couldn’t imagine what worse could have happened if he hadn’t arrived on time.

The healer pulled away, "Thankfully, she fought it. That much is obvious. Most would’ve shattered under this kind of exposure, and she didn’t let it settle," she added at the end.

A flicker - dangerously close to something like pride - passed through him before he crushed it down. Typical of her, he thought. "How long?" he asked instead.

"That depends on how willing she is to live, and how quickly you pulled her out," She replied.

A pause settled between them, filled only by the crackle of the hearth and the faint hum of magic. Vaeron looked at the woman again who looked a bit better than before. He doubted someone like her would desire to live after today’s encounter, but it wasn’t her choice to make.

"I’d need some privacy," She said, gesturing to her thick garment as a sign to undress the girl. "I need to be guaranteed she hadn’t suffered more than what I see,"

"There are far more important things to take care of. Having me here should be the least of your worries, Eldris," he deadpanned with utmost seriousness. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Eldris glared at the creature for a fleeting moment, before returning her attention to the girl. Had it not been any normal days, she would’ve referred to him as a pervert. She’d lived long enough to understand how stubborn the creature was, and unrelenting in the things he wanted.

But not anyone. She’d never witnessed the cold Lord being so... protective over any living being.

She began unpacking vials from her satchel, crushing dried herbs between her fingers, and sprinkling them over the girl’s chest after getting rid of the cloak. Thankfully, the dress was a bit revealing, granting her the space she needed to check and perform the ritual. The bitter grounding scent sharpened the air as she murmured under her breath.

There were old words layered with power, and the markings etched into the stone table flared brighter. Eldris continued; seconds turned into minutes, leaving the creature’s patience teetering on the edge.

The chamber was alive with the echo of strange words. Beads of sweat formed against the woman’s forehead as she chanted, drawing something dark from the unconscious girl whose face was etched in restraint.

Vaeron’s eyes darkened as he absorbed the scenario. He’d known Eldris ever since she was a child, and trusted her ability more than anyone else. However, this was the first time he’d witnessed her struggle to get things right.

Something flickered inside his chest, taking him aback for a moment. It was brief and unmistakably real, leaving him dumbfounded.

What was that?

Before he had the chance to unravel the mystery, she gasped. It was small. Weak. But it was there, and Eldris’s eyes fluttered open.

Vaeron moved before he realized it. Coming to stand an inch away from the table, he observed the girl whose chest rose more fully this time. Her breathing evened, still shallow, but no longer faltering. Color bled faintly back into her lips, and into her face, making her seem asleep, not dead.

But that didn’t mean the terror marred against her features fully disappeared. They lingered by the twitch in her unopened lids and the slight movement of her lips. The sight of her struck him, causing his fist to curl at his sides.

Eldris let out a slow breath, eventually breaking the silence. "There," She muttered, barely breathing. "The worst of it contained,"

"Will she live?" he asked, closing the distance completely. The weight of that question caused the rage brewing inside him to double, masked in his dark gaze.

Eldris glanced up at him then, really looked at him, but the sight almost terrified her. It still did. "Yes," she said after a beat. "But survival isn’t the same as untouched. Whatever was used on her tried to unravel her from the inside out. I can stop the decay. I can’t pretend it won’t leave scars,"

The word landed heavier than any curse. Vaeron straightened as the tension coiling inside him shifted. It didn’t ease - never easing - but it changed shape.

He couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d suffered alone. He couldn’t begin to imagine why that bothered him. He already knew the answer would feed something inside him that was better left starving.

Cold dissipated into the frost in his chest, turning those eyes colder and eyes darker in what was neither rage nor darkness. Something worse. "That’s acceptable,"

"She’ll need days," Eldris continued, covering the girl with a thick woolen blanket warmed by magic. "Maybe longer. Her body needs it. When she wakes, she’ll be weak. Disoriented. And confused, if I had to guess,"

His gaze dropped to the girl once more, to the steadying rise and fall of her chest. The tension in his shoulders eased by the barest degree and a ghost of something like amusement flickered across Vaeron’s face.

But it was far colder than amusement. It held no warmth, nor levity, but a sharp, cruel edge. The heat inside him demanded release, and the longer he stared at her broken stillness, the stronger the itch became. It clawed at the inside of his chest, scraped along his thoughts where a feverish pressure begged for violence.

Hot scorching rage boiled through him, warping his senses, gnawing at the brittle structure of his sanity. He was not meant to feel this. Creatures like him were forged beyond such frailties, beyond attachment, beyond fury born of fear. And yet it burned all the same.

Why her? Why did the sight of her closed eyes - no longer meeting his with quiet defiance or exhausted trust - unmake him so thoroughly? Why did the memory of their color, of the way they had watched him without flinching even while suffering, strike deeper than any blade? Why did the memory of her warmth, of her lips softened by breath and want and anger, twist now into something feral and unbearable when faced with their lifeless hue?

The unanswered questions spiraled, tearing through him until the rage threatened to spill outward, and disperse him entirely if he looked at her one moment longer. The longer he stared at her, the more the itch became stronger.

He needed to leave. Now.

Finally, "No one else comes near her," he warned.

She snorted softly before saying, "You don’t have to threaten me. This chamber doesn’t let harm in, not while I’m breathing," She said. "I’ll keep her breathing steady. Try not to bring me another corpse." She muttered the last part.

"No promises,"

Before she could retort, the shadows swallowed him whole. The chamber shuddered as the space folded in on itself, and then he was gone, leaving behind only the low crackle of fire, the steady rhythm of breath, and a woman who, for the first time since the forest, was no longer dying.

As soon as he left, the chamber felt empty and abandoned once more. Eldris looked down at the sleeping girl and her brows furrowed deeply.

She walked towards the stone table. Her fingers traced the lines of her face carefully, as though reminiscing about the outline cracked in a painless grip, before retreating.

The power she felt from her... She thought. It wasn’t like any she’d seen or witnessed throughout her existence.

One couldn’t tell whether her expression was good or bad, but it carried the weight of obscurity. "Who are you?" she whispered at last, staring at that delicate face where beneath, lay a power far greater than all kinds.