My mother, Elizabeth Wright, in all her quiet certainty, used to tell me that I must've been divinely protected. Because unlike most children my age, I had never been injured.
Not once.
Not when I slipped from the monkey bars at the park as a toddler, landing hard enough that it should have knocked the breath out of me. Not during PE, when a dodgeball had been hurled straight at me with far too much force. Not even when I joined the girls' lacrosse team in Sixth Form, where bruises and sprains were practically a rite of passage.
Nothing.
And not because I was particularly careful either. I just...never got hurt. No broken bones, no sprains, not even a twisted ankle.
My mother called it a miracle, but my father call, ever the pragmatist, called it luck. They had me later in life, he liked to say, so perhaps the heavens had decided to make things easier on them. An "easy" child.
They were the religious sort, my parents.
I think, in some quiet way, that was what led me into healthcare. Because I thought, if I had been given some strange, inexplicable protection, then maybe it shouldn't be kept.
Maybe I could use it to help others.
Maybe—
The thought slipped before I could hold onto it.
Because whatever strange protection I thought I had...it was gone.
Pain came in waves now. Dull, distant at first, like something happening to someone else. Then sharper. Closer. Real. The way it pulsed through me, dragging me back into my body whether I wanted it or not.
So this is what it felt like to be breakable.
A breath trembled out of me uneven, fragile.
"Elena..."
It was Marcus's voice.
He sounded close, so close I could feel it against my ear, low and unsteady in a way I had never heard before.
Something brushed against my temple. His hand, I think. Warm and grounding, before he spoke again. Not in English, but in words that no longer belonged in this lifetime. Latin.
The way it flowed softly, like a gentle caress. Ancient, slipping past my understanding but not past my senses. For some reason, I could feel them more than I could hear them. Each syllable settling deep inside my bones, down to my very soul, resonating somewhere beneath the pain, beneath the fear.
Like a prayer.
I didn't need to understand the words to know what they meant. The way his voice faltered ever so slightly between them. The way his hand held mine, steady and careful, as if I were something precious he was afraid of losing.
Something in my chest tightened.
He was praying for me.
My fingers twitched weakly against him, the smallest response I could manage but it took everything I had, despite the pain throbbing in my body.
"Marcus?" I breathed, my voice barely more than a whisper.
The moment my eyes fluttered open, he was there. Broad and unmoving, carved out of shadow. But as my vision slowly cleared, he came into focus, standing over me like something unreal...something that didn't quite belong to this world.
His dark eyes found mine instantly.
And the look in them...it wasn't just concern.
It was something deeper. Rawer. As if he had been holding himself together by nothing more than the hope that I would wake.
For a moment, I could only stare.
I wanted to reach for him. To trace the lines of his beautiful face, making sure he was real. Run my fingers over his hair, down the sharp edge of his jaw, to the hollow of his throat where his pulse beat steady and alive.
But I didn't.
"Elena," he said, the name leaving him like it had been dragged from somewhere deep within. His voice rough, tight with something barely contained. "I have been waiting for you to open your eyes."
A faint breath escaped me, something soft, almost disbelieving.
"Where am I?"
His gaze flickered, as if the answer itself displeased him. His jaw tightening before he forced himself to speak again.
"You are in...what they call a hospital," he said, the word unfamiliar on his tongue. "The same kind of place i awoke in. Only—" he exhaled slowly, grounding himself, "—in a different town."
I watched him as he spoke.
Even now, he stood too rigid. Too controlled, as though this place was a battlefield he had yet to understand.
His fingers were wrapped around mine, firm and steady, as if letting go wasn't something he was willing to risk again.
My thumb shifted weakly against his skin, enough for him to tighten his hold in response.
"Never do that again," he said it like it wasn't a request.
But a command.
"Do what?" I murmured, my voice still fragile, barely holding together.
"Sacrifice yourself to me." He leaned closer, his voice dropping, rough with something unsteady beneath it. His hand came up to my face, brushing gently along my cheek, so careful it almost hurt more than the wound itself. "The blow was meant for me. I have endured worse. I know how to carry pain."
His thumb paused just beneath my eye, his gaze locking onto mine.
"You do not."
"I was shot..." I whispered, the words sounding distant even to me, as if they belonged to someone else.
And then it all came rushing back. Garrick, Pippa, the blade at her throat. The gun...
"What about—" I started, panic tightening in my chest.
"Everyone is safe," he cut in immediately, his tone firm but softer now, as though he could feel the strain it took for me to speak. "Phillippa is unharmed, save for a minor cut. Her father is with her."
A brief pause.
His jaw tightened slightly before he continued.
"Garrick...has been taken. Held by your authorities. For now."
For now.
The words lingered, unfinished, carrying something darker beneath them. But I barely held onto it, because he was still here. Touching me like I might disappear if he didn't.
"Why did you do that?" he asked.
My gaze drifted back to him, tracing the lines of his face. The tension he still hadn't released, the restrained stretched too thin, like it might snap if pushed any further.
My chest ached.
"Why did you protect me?" he pressed, his voice lower now, quieter, but no less intense. "What possessed you to do so?"
For a moment, I couldn't answer.
Because I didn't know how to. The truth sat somewhere deeper than words. Somewhere instinctive, unguarded...dangerous.
My fingers shifted slightly against his, the faintest movement.
"Marcus..." I breathed, my voice soft, unsteady.
The name lingered between us, quieter than it should have been, heavier than I intended. But his gaze didn't waver. If anything, it deepened. Searching as though there was something in me he was trying to understand...or perhaps something he was afraid to.
"You were going to get shot," I continued, barely above a whisper. "I didn't think."
It sounded simple when I said it like that, but we both know it wasn't. Because it hadn't felt like a choice. And that was what frightened me the most.
"Then why..." he started—
But the door burst open.
The sharp sound cut clean through the moment, tearing it apart before it could become anything more.
"Elena!"
It was my mother's voice, panic-stricken and breathless.
Footsteps rushed in, hurried, uneven. My father close behind her.
"You can't possibly believe—"
Her words stopped abruptly when she saw us.
No, him.
Marcus standing far too close to me, his hand wrapped around mine like a lover instead of a friend. Like he had every right to be here, with me.
My mother let out a sharp, startled gasp, her eyes widening as they moved between us. Trying and failing, to make sense of what she was seeing.
Which is great, really, because I knew, from this moment on that nothing was going to ever be simple between us anymore.