?Chapter 661:

    After a brief pause, she reached for the handle and slowly pushed the door open.

    The study was filled with quiet light. Tall shelves lined the walls, and beyond the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, the sea churned restlessly. Waves crashed against the shore in the distance, and birds drifted inzy arcs across the sky.

    Cole stood still in front of the window, hands tucked into his pockets, eyes locked on the ocean. His shoulders were stiff. There was something lonely in the way he stood—something lost.

    Without saying a word, Elliana crossed the room and wrapped her arms around his waist. She leaned forward, resting her head gently against his back.

    Cole stood tall, his figure cast in pale light from the window, every inch the brooding, handsome man he was. Behind him, Elliana, delicate and graceful, rested against him like the final piece in a long-lost puzzle. Together, they looked like something out of a dream—two souls woven into one frame, wrapped in aching silence.

    Cole didn’t turn around. Instead, he let her arms stay wrapped tightly around his waist, grounding him. His voice, when it came, was rough and low. “Elliana, don’t try to convince me,” he murmured. “I won’t take the Elysian Elixir. My decision is final.”

    Elliana didn’t loosen her hold. Her voice, though soft, was edged with pain. “So you want me to just stand by and watch you spiral again? To see you lost in another episode of Psychephrenia—maybe hurting yourself or even me?” Her breath hitched. “Do you really want our story to end in tragedy?”

    Cole’s lips parted, but no sound came. Her words struck too close, too deep. For once, he didn’t have an answer.

    Elliana felt it—the grief radiating from him.

    After a long, still moment, Cole nced downward and covered her hands with his, gripping them tightly. His fingers trembled. “I’m sorry, Elliana,” he whispered, his voice cracking.

    He meant it. He was sorry for falling so deeply for her, for dragging her into the shadows of his world, for making her love someone as broken as him. In his eyes, he didn’t deserve any of it.

    Though Cole didn’t say another word, Elliana could hear everything he was too afraid to voice. She tightened her arms around him. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” she whispered. “You didn’t drag me into anything. I fell for you the moment I saw you.”

    Her words sank into his chest like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, filling him with a warmth he hadn’t known he craved. His chest rose sharply. For a moment, he stood still, overwhelmed.

    Then, suddenly, Cole turned—eyes zing with emotion—and pulled her into his arms. Without hesitation, he kissed her. It was a kiss born of desperation and longing, of pain, love, and everything that had gone unspoken between them.

    The kiss was fierce and tender all at once, as though he was trying to memorize the taste of her, hold onto the warmth before it all slipped away.

    How he wished… If only he weren’t sick. If only their time wasn’t borrowed. If only fate had been kinder. Then maybe they could have had forever. But destiny was cruel. And crueler still was the love that had to fight against it.

    Elliana, breathless and trembling, stood on her toes to meet him fully, her hands clutching his shirt as she kissed him back with everything she had.

    Their lips moved in sync, hearts colliding like waves on the rocks, wild and aching and alive. Tears welled up in her eyes, and when they spilled, she wasn’t alone. Cole’s tears met hers mid-kiss, salty and raw, mingling between their lips. They cried and kissed and held each other as though they could merge into one, and that might somehow protect them from the ticking clock of what came next.

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