Chapter 30: Save me 1
ÉTIENNE
Sleep had started to drag me under when I heard it.
A whisper. It was faint enough that I might have imagined it if the voice hadn’t carved itself into my bones years ago.
Help me, Étienne.
My eyes snapped open. Sweat covered my skin in a cold film, making the sheets cling to my chest. The room suddenly felt too warm, as if all the air had been sucked out and replaced with something heavier.
I don’t want to die.
Her voice had come again. It was clearer this time. Though it did not even come as actual words, but through the bond I’d been trying to ignore since the moment I’d slammed the door between us.
The second my consciousness fully grounded itself in the present, her fear hit me like a physical blow. It poured through the bond in waves so intense my breath caught. This wasn’t the terror from earlier when I’d stripped her down and left her crying on the floor. This was something else entirely. Something primal and bone-deep, tasting like death itself.
I sat up so fast the room spun. My hands gripped the edge of the mattress while I tried to process what I was feeling through the connection between us.
What the fuck was wrong with me? Why did I care so much?
She deserved to be terrified. The thought formed automatically, a defense mechanism I’d built over years of planning this revenge. Whatever nightmare had crawled into her head while she slept alone in my room was her problem. Not mine. I didn’t care what demons haunted her thoughts or what guilt kept her awake at night.
She deserved every second of that fear.
The bond pulsed again. The terror intensified until it felt like my own chest was being crushed. Like invisible hands had wrapped around my throat and started squeezing.
My eyes went to Séverine’s side of the bed. It was strangely empty. The bathroom door showed a crack of light underneath, and I could hear water running inside. She must have woken up while I was sleeping.
Margaux’s fear spiked higher. The sensation that flooded through me made every muscle in my body lock up. It didn’t feel like a nightmare anymore. It felt like... It felt like...
The fear of death?
Something was wrong.
I was on my feet before the thought fully formed. My bare feet hit the cold floor and I started toward the door. Logic tried to intervene. Tried to remind me that I wanted her to suffer. That her pain was the whole point of this marriage.
But this did not feel like pain. This was terror so absolute it made even my hands shake.
The bathroom door swung open and Séverine stepped out, her eyes widening when she saw me. "What’s wrong?"
I couldn’t answer. Words had abandoned me completely. Time felt like it was splitting apart, each second stretching too long while also moving too fast. My wolf clawed at my insides, demanding I move faster.
I ripped her bedroom door open. The lock tore free from the frame with a crack of splintering wood. The doorknob came off in my hand. I dropped it without looking and sprinted into the hallway.
My feet pounded against marble floors. The distance to my room felt impossible. Like the hallway had stretched while I wasn’t looking, adding extra yards between me and wherever Margaux was.
The door to my quarters stood closed as it was locked from the inside.
I didn’t slow down. My shoulder hit the wood at full speed. The hinges screamed in protest and as a result, the metal bent and the wood cracked. The door gave way completely on the second hit, swinging inward so violently it slammed against the wall.
My eyes scanned the room in half a second. The bed sat empty. The sheets were undisturbed except for where she’d clearly sat on the edge at some point. The clothes Prim must have probably broight her at my behest lay folded on it neatly.
But there was no sign of Margaux.
The bond pulsed again. It was weaker now. Like whatever was happening had drained most of the fight out of her.
"Margo!" I screamed. But no repsonse came either.
Soap hit my nose first. Then water. That made me think of the bathroom.
I crossed the room in three strides. The bathroom door stood half open. Light spilled through the gap, painting a stripe across the bedroom floor.
I shoved the door the rest of the way open and froze.
Margaux lay submerged in the tub. Completely still as her hair floated around her face in dark tendrils that moved with currents I couldn’t see. No bubbles rose from her mouth or nose. No signs of struggle disturbed the water’s surface.
She wasn’t... She was not moving.
My body reacted before my brain caught up. I lunged forward and plunged my hands into the water. It was still warm which told me it had just been recently filled. My fingers found her shoulders and I hauled her up and out, the water cascading off her naked body as I lifted her clear.
She was dead weight in my arms. Her head lolled back, exposing the pale column of her throat. I carried her out of the tub and dropped to my knees on the bathroom floor, laying her down on the cold tile.
My ear pressed against her chest. The position was awkward with how I’d laid her but I didn’t care. I listened for the sound of her heartbeat.
It came. It was faint and irregular. Like her heart couldn’t decide if it wanted to keep beating.
My finger went to her mouth. There was no breath. Her lips had started to turn blue at the edges.
She wasn’t breathing.
The realization hit me like a freight train. All the air left my lungs in a rush that left me gasping. My hands moved on autopilot, tilting her head back to open her airway. Two fingers went under her jaw. I positioned myself over her and sealed my mouth over hers.
The first rescue breath went in. Her chest rose slightly. But it was not enough.
So I tried again. I breathed into her like I could force life back into her body through sheer determination.
"Breathe, Margo." The words came out ragged and desperate between breaths. "Breathe!"
Her chest barely moved. I shifted my position and laced my fingers together, placing the heel of my palm against her sternum. I did... I was not even sure... with how crazy my thoughts were moving but it could not have been less than thirty compressions.
One. Two. Three. I counted in my head while my arms pumped. Her ribs flexed under the pressure. Delicate bones that might crack if I pushed too hard.
I didn’t care. Better broken ribs than dead.
Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
Then I heard sometging from outside the room. Footsteps pounded in the hallway. Séverine’s voice called my name but I couldn’t process the words. All my focus had narrowed to the girl under my hands and the way her chest still refused to rise on its own.
Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.
I tilted her head back again and gave two more breaths. Her lips were cold against mine. Wrong. Everything about this was wrong.
"What the hell happened?"
Séverine’s voice came from somewhere behind me. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t take my eyes off Margaux’s face as I started compressions again.
"Call the healers." The command came out sharp and certain despite the panic clawing at my throat.
Silence stretched for half a second too long.
"Séverine, go!" The words tore out of me in a roar that made the walls shake.