I Was Keeping Her Alive While Her Fiancé Tried to Destroy Me Chapter 09

I Was Keeping Her Alive While Her Fiancé Tried to Destroy Me Chapter 09

Clara’s grandfather gripped the bedrail.

“You can save her? But the totems are gone. The spiritual guru said once they were destroyed, we’d lose her. Permanently.”

I kept my voice dead level.

“Mr. Bennett, I’ve never done this before. But it’s our only shot.”

Leo grabbed my arm, then dropped to his knees.

“Julian, please. Save her. Whatever you need, just name it. I owe you my life.”

I hauled him back to his feet. Through the glass of the isolation ward, Clara lay perfectly still. No color. No breath. Fading fast.

I almost smiled.

“You don’t owe me anything. I’m doing this because I want to.”

Something in my face gave it away. Clara’s grandfather froze.

“Julian… this ritual. What does it cost you? You’re barely standing. You need to recover first.”

I shook my head.

“Sir, every second we waste is a second she doesn’t have. There’s no time.”

“I made my choice.”

“Just one thing. If I don’t make it out of there… take care of my mom.”

“She’s all I have left.”

Leo didn’t hesitate.

“Julian, I swear to God. Your mom is my family now. Anyone who touches her answers to me. That’s a promise.”

“That’s all I needed to hear.”

I walked into the isolation ward and ripped the curtains shut behind me.

Preston’s voice bled through the glass.

“What the hell is he doing in there alone with her?! She can’t move. She can’t even defend herself! He’s going to—”

Clara’s grandfather cut him off with two words.

“Gag him.”

Leo’s voice was dead cold.

“He put her in that bed. I’ll deal with him. Personally.”

“Julian’s in there right now, risking his life for her. If anyone belongs next to my sister, it’s him.”

I tuned it all out.

Inside the ward, I propped Clara up. I sat facing her, lacing our fingers together.

I drove a sterilized scalpel straight into my chest.

The spiritual guru in my dream had told me where the extra piece lived. It was anchored to my heart.

To save Clara, I had to pierce my own heart and perform the binding ritual he’d taught me—a blood tie to permanently fuse my piece of the soul to hers.

If it worked, her aura would stabilize. She’d wake up.

Normally, I didn’t feel pain, and my body healed too fast. A blade through the heart wouldn’t kill me on the spot. The wound would close within minutes.

But Preston’s injection had changed everything.

The blade in my chest felt like a thousand white-hot needles. The agony went so deep it didn’t feel physical anymore. It was tearing at my very soul.

Cold sweat drenched my clothes. The blood drained from my face.

And that was only the beginning.

The totem was gone. The only way to keep her alive now was to violently rip the extra piece completely free from my own aura and fuse it with hers permanently.

That meant driving the blade deeper into my heart seven times. Once every thirty minutes.

Not one second early, not one second late.

One mistake, and she’d die.

After the seventh strike, the piece would be fully transferred. And without it, my heart would heal like an ordinary person’s.

And an ordinary person with a blade through their heart doesn’t heal at all. They just die.