Felicity's Beast World Apocalypse

"I’ve got you," Dimitri murmured against her hair, low, steady. "I’ve got you, sweetheart, breathe."

She was crying and laughing at the same time, awful hiccupping sounds that hurt her throat, and she didn’t even know which feeling was winning, whether this was grief or relief because it was both, it was so completely both. "He’s alive," she managed. "Dimitri, he’s alive, he was here, he stood right here!"

"I know." His hand smoothed down her spine, over and over. "I know, baby."

Damien said nothing at all. He simply held her from the other side, his claw-tipped hand curled with impossible gentleness around her shoulder, his forked tongue flicking once, quietly, like he was tasting the grief in the air and deciding what to do with it.

Then he rose, unfolding to his full height, and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head before he went.

"I’ll make you something warm," he said, voice low, already moving toward the door of her space like he knew exactly where her kitchen corner sat even though he’d barely been inside it.

Felicity pressed her face into Dimitri’s chest and let the note crumple further in her grip. "Why can he come here," she got out, muffled, "but he can’t just leave? Why can he reach me and not get out? Dimitri, what is happening to him? What is this Mist, is it hurting him, is he?"

Dimitri’s jaw tightened against her hair. She felt it more than saw it, the small shift of muscle, the breath he took before he answered. "I don’t know," he said, and it cost him something to say it plainly like that, she could tell, because Dimitri always wanted to be the one with the answer. "None of us know. That’s the truth of it, sweetheart. We’re going to have to find out—what the Mist actually is, how it holds him, whether there’s a way to pull him loose from our side instead of waiting for him to find one from his." His hand kept moving over her back, unhurried, grounding. "We’ll dig out info. Snow team and leaf team, we will find more info, whoever we need. We are not just sitting on this."

"But he’s alive," she said again, like saying it enough times might make the rest of it hurt less.

"He’s alive," Dimitri agreed, quiet, and pressed his mouth to her temple. "And he loves you enough to fight his way into your space just to leave you a damn note. That man is not giving up. Neither are we."

She laughed again, wet and broken, and let herself stay there, folded against him on the floor of her own hidden world, the paper with Lucan’s careful handwriting still crushed against her heart like she could hold onto him through it if she just didn’t let go.

He caught her before she could even finish falling, arms locked around hers, chest a giant wall for her to shake and break against. "I’ve got you," Dimitri said, his voice a low, steady rumble in her ear, gentling her by the roots. "Easy, little fox. Just breathe for me. That’s all. I’ve got you."

She was crying and laughing at the same time, throat scraped raw by the force of it, every helpless noise that left her body making her hate herself for being so lost. It was ugly. She was ugly like this, snot running, tears burning, jaw unhinging in a sob that made her whole skull ache. She didn’t know what feeling was winning, whether it was grief or relief or some new hybrid that left her skin too tight for her bones. "He’s a-alive," she got out, each syllable like biting glass. "Dimitri—he’s alive, he was here, he stood right here!"

"I know. I know, baby." Dimitri’s hand flattened over her spine and made slow, certain sweeps, from the nape of her neck to the base of her tail. When he said it, it sounded like an oath. Like there was no possible world in which he would ever let go. Her vision kept blacking out around the edges, her mind trying to run from the weight of the moment and finding no escape, only the arms around her and the floor suddenly hard beneath her knees.

She was held, pinned to the here and now by Dimitri, and—she realised in the next heartbeat—by Damien too. The anaconda’s body was heat and scale at her left, huge coils bracketed around her as if to shield off the rest of the world.

Damien didn’t say anything at all. He just pressed close, clawed hand finding her shoulder with a grasp so careful it felt ceremonial, tongue flicking once, catching the brine of her collapse on the air. He looked at her like the only thing that mattered was what she needed next. She sobbed again, hiccupping and unfixable, something opening so wide in her chest she thought it would swallow her whole. It was a panic attack, just like so many she’d had before the world ended, except with the dial turned up so far that all the fuses blew. Only this time, she wasn’t alone in it.

This time, people were fighting for her instead of abandoning her to it. Damien leaned in, his monstrous head ducking, and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. The heat of his mouth lingered, anchoring her to the floor, to the now, to the truth of Lucan’s words. Then he unspooled, rising up to his full, horror-movie height, and, after a final squeeze of her shoulder, moved toward the door of her kitchen corner like a man on a mission.

"I will make you something warm," he said, the syllables slow and deep, and she knew—without ever once having told him—that he was going to go make her tea. Felicity pressed her wet face into Dimitri’s pectoral, letting herself go boneless against his body.

She let the note in her hand crumple even further, paper wrinkling and digging into her palm, like she could absorb Lucan through skin and keep him alive if she just never let go. "Why can he come here?"

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!