Chapter 343: Shock

CHAPTER 344

KATYA POV

Pain shot through my wrist. A startled gasp escaped me before I could stop it. My entire body jerked.

His hand, Romeo’s hand was wrapped around my wrist with terrifying strength. His eyes were still closed.

He hadn’t woken. Another strained breath left him.

“…Please…” The word came out hoarse, barely audible, as though it had been dragged from somewhere impossibly far away.

My pulse hammered against my ribs. He was still asleep. He had to be. Otherwise, otherwise why would he still be saying that? I swallowed, instinctively trying to ease my hand backwards.

Nothing. His fingers only tightened. A sharp sting shot through my wrist. I sucked in a quiet breath.

“Ow…” The sound barely escaped my lips. He didn’t react.

“…Please…” Another whisper. His grip tightened again. My eyes widened. That actually hurt. I pulled a little harder this time, careful not to make too much noise.

Nothing. It was like trying to pull free from iron. Panic fluttered uneasily inside my chest.

Okay, Okay, I need to think. He was dreaming. He didn’t know what he was doing.

If I just, I twisted my wrist gently, trying to slip free instead of pulling directly against him. It only made his fingers clamp down harder.

Pain bloomed all the way up my arm. My breathing quickened.

This was exactly why I shouldn’t have come in here. Stupid. Why had I opened the door? Why hadn’t I minded my own business? I knew better.

I knew Romeo Salvatore’s world wasn’t somewhere I should wander into.

Yet here I was, Standing beside his bed in the middle of the night with him crushing my wrist while completely unconscious.

Brilliant, Katya. Absolutely brilliant. I squeezed my eyes shut before trying again.

“Please…” His voice cracked. The broken sound stole the irritation from my thoughts.

He sounded Lost, completely lost. I looked back at his face. His brow remained tightly furrowed. Sweat glistened across his forehead.

His breathing had become even harsher. He still hadn’t opened his eyes. I bit my lower lip.

Maybe, Maybe if I called his name. No. What if startling him made everything worse?

Maybe I should…Before the thought could finish, his body went rigid. Every muscle beneath the sheets tightened at once.

A cold chill rushed down my spine. Something had changed. The room suddenly felt impossibly still.

Even the breeze drifting through the balcony doors seemed to disappear. My heartbeat pounded louder.

“…Romeo?” The name left my mouth as little more than a whisper. His eyelids flew open.

Grey eyes. Wide, Sharp and Empty. They looked straight through me. Not at me. Through me.

There wasn’t a flicker of recognition inside them. Before I could react he moved fast.

Far too fast. The force of it knocked the breath from my lungs. One moment I was standing beside the bed. The next I was falling. The mattress sank beneath my back.

A startled cry caught somewhere in my throat before it could escape. The world lurched. His grip released my wrist only to seize me elsewhere.

A heavy weight pressed down over me. The air rushed from my lungs. I stared upward in complete shock.

Romeo was above me. One knee dug into the mattress beside my hip while one hand pinned my shoulder against the bed.

The other My breath caught. His hand had closed around my neck. Not crushing. Not yet. But firm enough that every instinct inside me screamed.

My entire body froze. I couldn’t even think. Those grey eyes remained fixed on me.

Cold. Focused. Completely unfamiliar. There was nothing of the Romeo I knew inside them.

No irritation. No arrogance. No calculated amusement. Nothing. Only the terrifying alertness of someone who had awakened somewhere entirely different from reality.

I instinctively grabbed at his wrist with both hands. My fingers trembled violently. He didn’t seem to notice. Or perhaps He wasn’t seeing me at all.

His breathing remained rough. Uneven. Every muscle in his body stayed impossibly tense, like he were bracing for a danger only he could see.

My own heartbeat thundered so loudly I could barely hear anything else. My mouth had gone completely dry. Every instinct screamed at me to fight.

To push him away. To scream for help. But something about the look in his eyes stopped me.

He wasn’t looking at me. Not really. It was as though he was staring straight through me, trapped somewhere I couldn’t see.

A nightmare. He was still inside it.

My fingers remained wrapped around his wrist, though I wasn’t even sure whether I was trying to pull him away anymore. His hand stayed against my neck.

My pulse fluttered wildly beneath his palm. “It… it’s okay.” The words came out so quietly I barely heard them myself. I swallowed carefully with my trembling voice.

“It’s okay…” His expression didn’t change. His breathing remained harsh, every inhale uneven against the silence filling the room. I couldn’t look away from him.

Moonlight slipped through the gap in the curtains from my room, falling across half his face. It caught the scar that stretched near his left eye, throwing its uneven edges into soft relief.

I’d noticed it before. Of course I had. It was impossible not to when he had been unconscious from that bullet.

That scar made him seem Human. Not the untouchable man everyone feared. Just Someone who had once been hurt.

My chest tightened. “It’s okay,” I whispered again, a little steadier this time.

“You…” I hesitated, what was I saying? “…you’re safe.”.I didn’t even know if they were true.

They simply felt like the right thing to say. Something shifted. So slight I almost imagined it.

The rigid line of his shoulders loosened. Only a fraction. His breathing hitched.

Those cold grey eyes remained locked on mine, but the emptiness inside them seemed to… flicker. Like someone surfacing from very deep water.

Confusion. It appeared so briefly I almost missed it. His brow drew together. His gaze searched my face. Actually searched it this time.

Not through me.

At me.

His grip around my neck didn’t disappear. But it stopped tightening. The silence stretched. His lips parted. No sound came at first. Then, almost inaudibly…

“…Katya?” The whisper was hoarse. Disbelieving. As though he couldn’t quite trust what he was seeing.

I forgot to breathe.

Recognition. It was finally there. His eyes widened ever so slightly.

They dropped. Following the line of my shoulder. To My neck then his hand. He simply stared, as if his mind couldn’t understand why it was there.

Then everything changed. The colour drained from his face. His fingers released me so abruptly that I actually flinched.

His hand flew back as though he’d been burned.

He stared at it for a long, silent second.

Then back at me. Neither of us spoke. The room seemed to hold its breath with us.

I remained exactly where I was, my heart still racing violently beneath my ribs.

My hand instinctively rose to my neck, fingertips brushing the place where his had been only moments earlier.

Our eyes met again. This time… There was no nightmare in his.

Only shock.

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