Athena\u00a0<\/p>\n
I look down at Tristan, and his eyes are starting to lose focus. The golden color is fading back to his normal brown, but there\u2019s something distant about them now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Something that\u2019s already leaving.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNow,\u201d Sarah says, her voice thick with tears. \u201cYou have to try now, before it\u2019s too late.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I move closer to the mattress, and Orion and Derek shift to give me room without letting go of Tristan completely. My hands are shaking so hard I can\u00a0<\/p>\n
barely control them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The gloves, I still have the stupid protective gloves on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With trembling fingers, I start to peel them off. The latex clings to my sweaty skin and makes soft snapping sounds as I pull it away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My hands look small and pale without the gloves, and I can see the faint lines of power running under my skin like blue lightning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how to do this,\u201d I whisper, and my voice breaks on the words.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, you do,\u201d Sarah says firmly. \u201cYou\u2019ve always known, you just have to trust yourself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
My bare hands hover over Tristan\u2019s chest, just inches from the wound that\u2019s still bleeding and killing him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The air between my palms and his skin feels charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His breathing is so slow now that I have to watch his chest carefully to see it rise and fall. And the falls are lasting longer than the rises, longer each\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHurry, Derek says quietly, but there\u2019s urgency in his voice that makes my heart race.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The moment my hands touch Tristan\u2019s chest, the power explodes through me like a dam bursting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s nothing like the gentle flow I was expecting, nothing like the controlled healing I imagined in my head.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is violent and consuming and completely beyond my control.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than I\u2019d felt when it drained life from Daxon or Seraphine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
2\u00a0<\/p>\n
It starts in my chest, a burning sensation that spreads through my arms and down into my hands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But instead of flowing out into Tristan like I want it to, it turns inward, pulling something from deep inside me and dragging it toward the surface.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The burning gets worse, spreading through my entire body like liquid fire. My bones feel like they\u2019re vibrating, and my skin tingles with electricity that makes every nerve ending scream.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I can feel my heart racing, pounding so hard it feels like it might burst out of my chest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
1\/2\u00a0<\/p>\n
17:52 Tue, Jan 13 GRM\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 216\u00a0<\/p>\n
My vision goes black around the edges, and I can feel myself falling even though I\u2019m still kneeling beside the mattress. The power is taking over wrapping around my consciousness like thick smoke, and I\u2019m losing myself in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Everything that makes me who I am, my thoughts and memories and personality, it\u2019s all being pushed aside to make room for this thing that\u2019s been\u00a0<\/p>\n
hiding inside me for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAthena, I hear Derek\u2019s voice from somewhere far away, but it sounds muffled and distant like he\u2019s speaking from underwater. \u201cWhat\u2019s happening?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I try to answer him, but my mouth won\u2019t work. My tongue feels thick and heavy, and my jaw is clenched so tight I can\u2019t pry it open.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The power is consuming everything, every thought and feeling and sensation, until there\u2019s nothing left but the overwhelming need to take.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To drain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To kill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s focused entirely on Tristan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I can feel it reaching into him through my hands, finding the places where his life force is strongest and latching onto them like a parasite.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His already weak heartbeat falters under the assault, and his breathing, which was already shallow, becomes almost nonexistent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The life force flowing from him into me is warm and bright and precious, and it makes the power inside me grow stronger. Hungrier. More desperate for\u00a0<\/p>\n
more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I try to scream, but no sound comes out. This isn\u2019t what I want, this isn\u2019t what I\u2019m trying to do. I\u2019m supposed to be saving him, not killing him\u00a0<\/p>\n
faster.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the power doesn\u2019t care what I want. It\u2019s been starved for so long, trapped and suppressed and feared, and now it\u2019s finally free. It\u2019s going to take everything it can get.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memories Drifted Into Soft Silence by Kyx Frost 216 Athena\u00a0 I look down at Tristan, and his eyes are starting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-second-gear-of-love-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}