Chapter 137

Chapter 137: Chapter 137

Lysander’s pov

Around midnight, a storm started.

It hammered against the glass walls of the master bedroom like handfuls of thrown gravel.

Thunder rattled the heavy teak beams overhead every few minutes, the low, gut-rumbling vibration vibrating right through the mattress and into my bones.

Drake was beside me, fast asleep. One of his massive, heavy arms was draped over my waist, pinning me securely against his chest. His body was a furnace, radiating that steady heat that usually quieted my brain within minutes.

Tonight, it didn’t do a damn thing.

I lay stared up at the dark ceiling, my eyes wide and dry, listening to the chaotic symphony of the wind howling down the cliff face.

Every time lightning flashed, the entire room illuminated in a violent, blinding burst of white light, casting long, razor-sharp shadows across the floorboards before plunging us back into pitch black.

My heart was doing that frantic, uneven fluttering again.

You’re fine, I told myself, staring at the ceiling beam directly above my head. It’s just a thunderstorm. The cameras were empty. The sensors were empty. You are losing your mind, and you just need to close your eyes and sleep.

I tried to take a deep, slow breath, pulling Drake’s familiar scent of rain and sandalwood deep into my lungs.

Then a jagged bolt of lightning split the sky right over the ridge.

The flash lit up the outer terrace for less than a second. A sharp, brilliant strobe of blue-white light.

And in that split second, I saw him.

I stopped breathing. My entire body locked up, the blood draining out of my face so fast my head spun.

Outside, on the rain-slicked stone of the private terrace, less than twenty feet from our bed, a man was standing in the downpour.

He didn’t have an umbrella. He didn’t have a hood. The torrential rain was soaking straight through his dark leather jacket, plastering his messy dark hair to his forehead.

He was staring directly through the glass, his face shadowed, his body completely still amidst the roaring storm.

Gideon.

My brain short-circuited. The room went dark again, plunging the terrace back into blackness, but the image was seared onto the inside of my eyelids like a hot iron.

It’s a hallucination, the logical voice in my head screamed, shrill and terrified. You checked the logs! He’s not real! You’re seeing things again!

Another flash of lightning tore through the clouds, illuminating the courtyard.

He was still there.

He took a single, slow step forward. The rain splashed off the shoulders of his jacket. I could see the sharp, pale line of his jaw, the dark, hollow sockets of his eyes locked onto mine. He raised one pale, scarred hand, pressing his palm flat against the wet exterior of the glass wall.

Right where I had leaned my head the night before.

A high, strangled whimper broke from my throat.

I shoved Drake’s heavy arm off my waist and scrambled backward across the bed.

"Lysander—?" Drake’s voice rasped out, instantly thick with alarm as he sat up, but I was already off the mattress.

My feet slapped hard against the cold hardwood. I sprinted across the room, my hands flying out toward the heavy brass latch of the sliding glass terrace doors.

"Lysander, wait!" Drake roared, his voice dropping into a booming, terrifying Sovereign register, the sound of his feet hitting the floor echoing behind me.

I threw my weight against the handle, disengaging the heavy lock with a loud, mechanical click, and shoved the massive glass panel open.

A wall of freezing wind and horizontal rain slammed into my face, knocking the air straight out of my lungs.

The storm roared into the bedroom, soaking my clothes in seconds, whipping my wet hair into my eyes. The cold was brutal, biting deep into my skin, but I didn’t feel it.

I stumbled out onto the slick, wet stone of the terrace, my bare feet slipping on the water.

"Gideon!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, the sound torn away almost instantly by the howling wind. "Gideon!"

The rain stung my eyes, blinding me as I wiped my wet fringe out of my face, spinning around on the open stone deck.

"I know you’re here!" I sobbed, my voice cracking, raw and hysterical. I clutched my arms around my chest, my body shaking violently as the rain drenched me to the bone. "Stop doing this to me! Stop it! Gideon!"

Lightning flashed across the valley, illuminating the entire cliffside in a blinding, violet glare.

The terrace was completely empty.

There was no man in a leather jacket. No footsteps on the wet stone. No dark figure standing by the glass either.

"No..." I whispered, my voice breaking into a ragged, pathetic sob. I dropped to my knees on the freezing, rain-soaked stone, my hands slapping into a puddle. "No, no, please... please, God, no..."

Huge, heavy hands suddenly clamped under my arms, hoisting me off the slick ground with terrifying, effortless strength.

Drake pulled me violently back into his chest, slamming the heavy glass door shut behind us with a booming thud that cut off the worst of the howling wind. He locked the latch with a flick of his wrist, turning us around in the dim, warm light of the bedroom.

"What are you doing?!" Drake growled.

He was dripping wet, his dark hair plastered to his neck, his crimson eyes glowing with a terrifying, wild fury as he looked down at me. "Are you out of your mind?! You opened the perimeter seal in the middle of a storm!"

I couldn’t answer him.

My teeth were clicking together so hard my jaw burned. I was trembling uncontrollably, soaked to the skin, my fingers clutching uselessly at the front of his wet shirt as tears mingled with the rainwater running down my face.

"He was there," I choked out, my voice a ruined, breathless rasp. I couldn’t breathe. My chest was heaving in short, shallow gasps as hyperventilation took over. "Drake... he was standing... he was right there on the stone..."

Drake froze. The anger in his face instantly vanished, replaced by a sudden, chilling stillness that was ten times worse.

His red eyes searched my face, scanning the raw, unhinged panic in my eyes, the way I was shivering, the absolute hysteria breaking through every seam of my posture.

"Who?" Drake asked softly, his voice dropping into a low, terrifyingly calm register. "Who was standing out there, Lysander?"

I looked at him, and the words finally spilled out, the dark, ugly truth I had been trying so hard to bury.

"Gideon," I sobbed, my head dropping against his chest as my knees completely gave out beneath me. "Gideon was on the terrace, Drake. He was staring at me through the glass."

Drake caught my full weight before I hit the floor, lifting me into his arms and wrapping his massive frame around me. But as he held me tight against his racing heart, I felt the heavy, suffocating silence that fell over him.

He didn’t ask if I was sure. He didn’t look out the window.

He just held me in the warm, quiet room while the storm raged outside, his hand resting heavily on the back of my neck.

And in his silence, I heard the brutal, undeniable truth he was too gentle to say out loud:

Gideon has been dead for months and I was completely, utterly insane.