Chapter 11: The Ghost of a Touch(Caspian’s Point of View)

She stepped away.

She stepped away.

The moment her fingers left my skin, I felt it—the loss.

Sharp and visceral, like a wound I had not expected to be cut with.

Like a hunger I had not realized I was feeding.

I should have been relieved.

I should have left.

But I stood there—rooted in place, fists loosening at my sides, breath uneven as I stared at her back.

She was ignoring me.

Dismissing me as though I were nothing.

As though I had not come here at all, as though she had not just reached inside my ribs and wrapped herself around something I did not wish to name.

I had never known such a thing before.

To be acknowledged—touched—only to be cast aside.

As if I had no power at all.

As if I were hers to toy with.

I should have despised it.

I did despise it.

And yet—

I wanted her to turn back.

To say something.

To look at me.

But she did not.

She simply stood there, gazing out into the night, utterly unconcerned. As though my presence had already been forgotten.

And I—

I did not know what to do with that.

With this burning, wretched thing clawing at my chest.

With the way my body still felt like it remembered her touch.

I swallowed, forcing myself to still, to school my features into something resembling composure.

She would not win.

Not tonight.

Not like this.

And so—I left.

I turned sharply on my heel, jaw clenched, hands flexing at my sides as I strode from the terrace.

But as I walked away—

I did not feel victorious.

I did not feel whole.

I felt like a man who had stepped too close to a flame and had left a part of himself behind in the embers.

And for the first time in my life—

I was not sure I wanted it back.