Merisa slowly drew back her hand, the sting of the strike still fresh on her palm. She stared at it for a heartbeat, trembling faintly, unable to believe what she had just done. Five long years she had imagined this meeting, countless times replaying the scene in her mind If he was alive how she would embrace him, how she would scold him softly, or how she would simply stand in silence, grateful he was alive.
But this?
Her first touch after half a decade being a slap? Out of everything, this was the one scenario she had never dared to imagine.
Her chest tightened painfully.
"Why did you do this?" she asked at last, her voice measured, her face acting to be calm, though she was struggling to control herself. Outside, however Inside, her heart was a furnace of anger and grief. Her eyes, no matter how much she tried to steady them, kept flicking to the dark pearl pulsing faintly in his forehead. That pearl of his bloodline esscense.
