Chapter 92: Ready To Pay Anything For Him….

Gasp—

The sound is raw, torn from a place deeper than my lungs. My eyes fly open, stinging, searching.

Bright.

Not the consuming, infinite black, but the hard, real brightness of bathroom tiles—and faint clouds of breath fogging the mirror as I struggled to breathe.

My breath saws in and out of my chest, uneven and frantic. My heart hammers against my ribs like a trapped bird, my whole body trembling with a violent, post-fall chill.

I look down.

Water. Clear, not black. A bathtub, not a void. I’m submerged, fully clothed, soaked through.

And I am not alone.

Two strong, gentle hands are holding me. Anchoring me.

I turn my head, the motion sluggish with shock.

Deniz is behind me in the water, cradling me against his chest. My back is pressed to the solid warmth of him, his legs bracketing mine.

His face, when I finally meet his eyes, is a portrait of pure, undiluted worry—brows drawn, lips parted, his dark gaze scanning mine with an intensity that feels like a lifeline.

I thought I’d never see this face again.

The thought is a sob waiting to happen. He opens his mouth.

“You’re awake. Are you o—”

I don’t let him finish. I twist in the water, a clumsy, desperate turn that sends water sloshing over the sides.

My arms fly around his neck, and I bury myself against him, clinging with a strength born of pure terror. My body won’t stop shaking.

“Zyren…”

His voice is a rumble against my ear, surprised, concerned.

“I thought,” I choke out, the words trembling, fractured, muffled against the skin of his neck.

“I thought I’d never see you again.”

His arms, hesitant for a fraction of a second, slowly come up to wrap around me. One hand finds the center of my back, pressing me closer.

The other rises to cradle the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my damp, silver hair.

“Did you have a nightmare?” he asks softly, his voice a low, steady vibration against my frantic one.

I just hold him tighter, my fingers clutching the fabric of his shirt.

The only sound is the soft, rhythmic tip… tip… tip of water dripping from the faucet, counting the seconds of my return to reality.

Was it a nightmare?

A memory?

A warning?

It felt too real. The blood. The darkness. Him. The cold, silver-eyed truth of Zyren Kael.

The drowning…

A full-body shudder wracks me.

Finally, I nod against his neck, a small, weak movement.

“Yes,” I whisper, my voice hoarse.

“A bad one.”

His hand continues its slow, soothing path up and down my spine.

“Your heart is racing,” he murmurs, his lips close to my ear. His touch is everything the dream was not—warm, solid, real.

“Don’t worry. You’re alright now. It was just a nightmare. You’re awake.”

He holds me like I’m something fragile, something shattered that he’s trying to piece back together with the quiet pressure of his embrace.

He’s trying to calm the earthquake inside me, his presence a steady counter-rhythm to my tremors.

I dig my face deeper into the curve of his neck, where his skin is warm and alive. My lips, my nose, press there, seeking his pulse, his scent, his proof of life.

A quiet, broken murmur escapes me, breathed directly onto his skin.

“Please… don’t leave me. I’m afr—”

“Zyren,” he interrupts gently, his hold firming.

“Relax. I’m here with you.”

His promise lingers between us, visible in the quiet fog of our breath.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

I let out a shaky breath I didn’t know I was holding. My lips rest against the column of his throat.

And there it is—his scent. Not blood, not darkness. Clean, fresh red rose. It wraps around me, seeps into my panicked lungs, and begins the slow, meticulous work of scouring the nightmare from my mind, my heart, my soul.

It doesn’t erase it. The ghost of that silver-eyed smile still flickers at the edges of my vision.

But here, anchored in his arms, in the water, in the light, Deniz’s scent becomes a blanket.

A shield.

A silent promise that here, with him, I am safe.

For now, that is enough.

For a long while, we stay like that. Motionless in the cooling water. My arms are locked around him, a desperate anchor. His embrace is my only shore.

Safe.

Real.

Deniz’s hand moves in slow, careful circles on my back, a silent language of comfort.

My lips, pressed to the chilled skin of his neck, form a word. A name.

“Deniz…”

“Hmm?” His response is a soft vibration against my cheek.

I push back just enough to break the seal of skin-on-skin, just enough to look into his eyes. The water ripples between us.

“How… how did I end up here? In the bathtub?”

His hand stills on my back. I see the memory flicker behind his dark eyes.

“I just remember you were beside me in bed,” I continue, my voice a low murmur of confusion. I look down at our distorted reflections in the water.

“My eyelids were so heavy… my body was burning… I don’t…”

Gently, he cups my face in his palms. I blink, startled by the touch.

His hands are usually so warm; now they’re cool from the water, a shocking, soothing contrast to my fever-remembered heat.

“When I woke up,” he says, his voice measured, each word chosen with care, “you were beside me. I thought you were still sleeping.”

A pause. The memory tightens his jaw. “But when I tried to wake you… you wouldn’t. And your skin… it was on fire. A high fever.”

His thumbs stroke my temples, a gentle counterpoint to the tension in his words.

“I tried cold patches. They did nothing. So… I brought you here. To cool you down.”

I stare at him, unblinking, trying to process it. The nightmare, the fever—two separate hells weaving together.

His eyes search mine, the worry deepening. He touches my temple again, his fingertips a careful probe.

“Thank God,” he breathes, the relief in his voice so profound it aches.

“Your fever… it’s broken.”

I have no words. No clever retort, no playful deflection.

The immensity of what he did—hauling my dead weight, sitting with me in this icy water in the dead of a snowy winter—swamps me.

He did this.

For me.

He studies my silence.

“Zyren…?”

I don’t answer. Instead, I move. I surge forward, wrapping my arms around him again, this time with a desperate, clinging tightness that makes him gasp softly.

“Zyren—” he starts, surprised.

“Just… for a little while more,” I whisper into the space between his shoulder and neck, my voice thick.

“Please.”

A beat of hesitation. Then, I feel it—the slow, yielding relaxation of his muscles. His arms come up to encircle me again, returning the embrace. It’s not as tight as mine, but it is solid. Real.

“Okay,” he murmurs, the word a sigh against my hair.

“But only a little while. If we stay, you’ll just get sick again.”

A soft, helpless smile touches my lips, unseen by him. I nod against his shoulder.

“Okay.”

I close my eyes, letting the last of the nightmare’s chill be leeched away by the cold water and his unwavering warmth.

In this moment, soaked and shivering in a bathtub, I have never felt more anchored.

More safe.

I am ready, I think, the vow clear and calm in the heart he just nursed back from the brink, to pay anything for this.

For him.

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