Chapter 135

Chapter 135: Chapter 135

Lysander’s pov

I was losing my mind, and the electric blue glow of the terminal screen was here to prove it.

It was three in the afternoon, and the estate was dead quiet. Drake had left two hours ago for an emergency briefing at central command, leaving me alone with three house guards and the suffocating silence of our new home.

Every small sound made me jump out of my skin.

My fingers flew across the glass interface, typing in the administrator override code I’d memorized weeks ago when Drake was setting up the house network.

The screen flickered, shifting from the main security dashboard to the raw surveillance archives. Rows of high-definition camera feeds lined up in neat, dark grids: the front driveway, the courtyard, the perimeter wall, the north terrace, and the dense tree line stretching down into the valley.

I leaned closer, my breath fogging the corner of the monitor.

"Show me last night," I whispered to the empty room, my voice thin and hollow. "Timestamp 01:50 to 02:15. North tree line."

The system hummed, pulling up the high-resolution infrared logs from the exact window of time when I’d stood at the bedroom window, staring into the mist.

I dragged the playback slider back to 01:58.

On the screen, the night was rendered in sharp shades of grey, white, and neon green. The tall pines swayed slowly in the mountain wind, their heavy branches cutting through the thick fog drifting across the grass.

The thermal sensors picked up small heat signatures, a stray rabbit darting through the underbrush, the warm pulse of a night owl perched on a low branch, the deep, steady hum of the perimeter ward glowing like a line of fire along the property boundary.

I scrubbed forward frame by frame. 02:01. 02:02. 02:03.

Nothing.

I zoomed in on the exact spot where the fog had parted, the patch of muddy ground right beneath the twin pines, two hundred yards below our bedroom window.

The screen showed only dark grass and wet earth. No thermal signature. No distortion in the infrared field. No silhouette of a man standing in a dark jacket, staring up at the house.

"No," I muttered, my fingers digging into the edge of the sleek desk until my knuckles turned white. "No, no, no. He was right there. I saw him."

I dragged the footage back, playing it at half speed.

02:04. 02:05. 02:06.

The camera showed me sitting on the window sill on the third floor, a pale, glowing figure wrapped in a sheet, staring down into the darkness. On the feed, I looked like a ghost haunting my own house. Then Drake appeared, his towering, heat-bright form stepping out of the shadows to wrap around me and pull me away from the glass.

Down in the trees, where I had sworn Gideon was standing, the night remained completely empty.

I switched feeds, pulling up the footage from The Master’s Mark, the art shop in town. My access extended to the village council network, and it took me less than thirty seconds to bypass the shop’s local camera feed from yesterday afternoon.

I watched myself standing in the third aisle, holding the bottle of walnut ink. I watched my body suddenly freeze. I watched the terror seize my frame as I stared into the dark glass bottle in my hand.

Then I watched myself spin around, drop the ink, and scramble backward in pure, unadulterated panic, knocking sketchbooks off the shelves.

The aisle behind me was empty.

On the high-angle security camera mounted near the ceiling, there was no man in a leather jacket. No figure lurking between the canvas racks. No shadow ducking out of frame. I was entirely alone in that aisle, reacting to thin air like a lunatic fighting a phantom.

A cold, sickening wave of nausea rolled through my stomach, settling heavy and sour in my gut.

I backed away from the desk, my hands trembling so violently I had to press them against my thighs to stop the shaking.

There’s nothing there.

The words echoed in my head, loud and damning, over and over again.

The cameras don’t lie. The thermal sensors don’t lie. The wards didn’t trigger.

I pulled my knees up against my chest, sitting back in the leather chair, staring at the glowing screens as tears of pure frustration and terror burned the back of my eyes.

My own fractured, broken brain was eating itself alive.

The trauma of the last few months, the attacks, the violence, the endless weight of my dormant hybrid instincts trying to force their way to the surface was finally breaking my sanity.

My mind was taking the darkest, most terrifying memory from my past, my possessive, toxic stepbrother, who had died and projecting him into the world like a vivid, living nightmare.

I buried my face in my hands, letting out a jagged, broken breath that shuddered through my whole body.

Gideon is dead, I reminded myself fiercely, my fingernails digging into my scalp as I squeezed my eyes shut. You watched him die. You smelled his blood. He’s gone. He’s in the dirt.

If I told Drake now, what would happen?

He would look at these exact same security logs. He would see that the estate wards were untouched, that the town cameras showed nothing, that I was screaming at empty aisles and staring into empty fog.

He would realize that his new mate, the hybrid he had built a private sanctuary for, was losing his grip on reality.

He would look at me not with love, but with pity. He would double the guards, keep me medicated, or lock me away in the estate for my own protection, watching me slide deeper into madness.

I couldn’t bear that. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing concern curdle into disappointment in his eyes.

A soft chime sounded from the main entrance downstairs, signaling that the drive gates were opening. Drake was back.

I panicked, quickly tapping the terminal screen to wipe my search history, closing out the security archives and restoring the system to its default monitor screen. I stood up too fast, my head spinning, my knees feeling like soft wax beneath my weight.

I took three deep, steadying breaths, smoothing down the front of my sweater, forcing my face into a calm, placid mask before stepping out of the study.

As I reached the top of the floating stone staircase, Drake was stepping into the main foyer below. He looked immaculate and towering in his dark coat, shaking the light mountain rain from his shoulders.

The moment he crossed the threshold, his head tilted up, his glowing red eyes locking straight onto mine with that sharp, unyielding intensity that always made my heart skip.

"Lysander," he called out softly, his deep voice carrying through the quiet house. "You’re up."

"Hey," I forced my voice to sound light, easy, and warm as I walked down the steps to meet him. "How was the briefing?"

Drake reached out as soon as I hit the bottom step, his broad hand wrapping around the back of my waist to pull me flush against him. He leaned down, pressing a slow, heavy kiss against my temple, his senses instantly taking me in.

His brow pulled tight for a fraction of a second, his thumb tracing the sharp line of my hip through my clothes.

"You’re tense," Drake noted quietly, his voice dropping into a low, watchful register. "Your heart is beating too fast."

"I was just... working in the studio," I lied, wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my face into the warm, rain-scented fabric of his coat, hiding my eyes from him. "Trying a new technique. It got a little frustrating, that’s all."

Drake held me tight, his hand stroking slowly up my spine, but his silence was heavy, filled with a quiet, dangerous intuition that told me he knew I was holding something back.

I closed my eyes, clinging to him like a lifeline in a storm, terrified of the dark, silent void creeping up inside my own head.