Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 137: Close Encounter

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Seven: Close Encounter

Everything grew deafening.

Ella's breath caught as a weightless feeling smashed into her stomach, and a gale of wind unlike any other wrapped around her body in a cyclone of force. Her hair and the folds of her gown were blasted towards the sky, and she screamed in momentary terror.

Then she couldn't breathe.

The ballroom immediately vanished and millions of images began to flash around them. Adariel wailed into her dress as everything spun, tightening his hold around her, but Ella remained still, feeling as if the wind spiraling around her were sucking the air right out of her lungs.

The hand on her throat and Adariel's body were the only constants she could feel through the sense of dizzying vertigo overtaking her. They anchored her weight, but truthfully, the sight of the masked creature in front of her was the only thing that told her what was up or down.

His fist tightened, squeezing her throat, and she tried to swallow but couldn't.

Her eyes snapped shut and she prepared herself to die, growing lightheaded, feeling as if she would black out from lack of air and the agony in her leg, but she wouldn't let go of Adariel until the end. If this man wanted to take Xaphile's little brother, he would have to pry the little boy from her cold, dead hands.

She fought to jerk backwards, but he dragged her forward by the throat, and his other arm came around both of them.

Ella flinched when she was unexpectedly enfolded by two dark wings. He didn't remove his hand, but the wind did die down slightly, and she felt momentarily confused since she was finding herself able to breathe easier.

Soon the wind vanished and darkness fell down upon them.

When her white hair cascaded back down around her shoulders and her skirt billowed around her ankles, finally falling still, Ella shivered in place, leg burning and aching. Behind her Adariel was weeping freely, clinging to her back.

She braced his leg a little better, but the movement made him flinch, making her wince as well.

"Sorry," she whispered, forgetting about the hand on her shoulder.

"I... I want my big brother!" Adariel finally bawled. "I just want Xaphile!"

The hand holding her neck instantly jerked back as if scalded, and she looked up in confusion and fear when the faery stepped back.

He stood there, tail lashing back and forth, fur fluffed out in agitation and a low growl filled the air from behind the mask, deep and threatening.

Ella blinked, staring at his scarred body more closely, at the ebony wings, and again... she had the strangest sensation that something about him was familiar, but she quickly snapped out of it and didn't let herself get swept up by that feeling.

After what she'd heard, and what she'd just witnessed, she had no idea what was going to happen next, because if this was the Terrace... his goal was to kill her.

She shook her head, trying to see past the tears stinging her eyes.

"W-well? What are you waiting for?" she finally asked in a shaken tone, watching warily as his left ear flicked; even that, somehow, was familiar for some reason. "A-aren't you going to... kill me?"

"Kill you?!" Adariel shrieked, tightening his hold. "NO! RUN!"

The faery instantly lifted his hand and tried to take a step forward, but Ella hopped backwards.