Shatter: A Jonah Clemence x MC Romance (Ikemen Revolution)

14: Everything Means Nothing to Me Now

((Author-chan here: I'm just going to say it right now. I both adore and am annoyed by Levie, and I'm frustrated at the fact that I can't decide which I feel more lol.)

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(Alices' P.O.V)

Into the afternoon, Levie carted me through the Forbidden Forest on horseback, using my broken wrist as a means to chain me to him and negate resistance. Despite the sure-fact that Levie was guaranteed wanted by the entire country now, it didn't make sense that we weren't just teleporting back and forth to our destination to evade capture.

But I had a headache. The pain from my injury was slowly scaling up my arm, through my shoulder and to my head. I didn't dare ask Levie for any relief. I wanted to question his motives...but worried maybe that would be a mistake as well.

I was truly a prisoner now. And with an injury like this, clearly the ability to only use one hand to even attempt to rouse a fuss was the perfect insurance for him. One move and he could easily break my other wrist too.

So ofcourse, I would only succumb to him now, even if all I wanted to do was run off.

"Why not...just teleport...?" We hadn't spoken for a while, but with him holding me around the middle to keep me sidelong across the horse, I had no other option but to make some sort of small talk.

My wrist was abnormally swollen and ached like a terrible toothache. I felt my neck and shoulders tensing with the pressure of the pain.

And every inch of suffering showed through the rasping tone of my voice.

"Hmm?" I had come to understand that Levie was entirely able to turn off his empathy whenever he wanted. He looked down at me, entirely ignoring my torment as if it wasn't even happening.

"Oh - Hah, we can't just teleport everywhere, Alice. How silly." The joyful chide in his voice just irked me more. He was talking as if he had absolutely nothing to worry about.

How terrible. His personality had truly learned to only think and act to benefit himself.

Castell lightly bucked the sides of the horse to coax him to run a little faster.

"I mean..I guess I could teleport there, but I'm sure I'd invite another major war on my hands if I did." He lightly leaned down his forehead and nudged mine with his, causing me to suddenly jump in recoil at the gesture.

Our eyes met, and he titled his head at me.

"How's your wrist?"

I grit my teeth and turned angrily away from him.

"Extremely painful." I snapped.

He hadn't moved to let go of the reins this entire ride, but I was surprised when, for the first time, he let go with his left hand and rose his fingers to touch my injury -

I growled. "Don't you dare-"

But he did it anyway. He nudged the side of my head with his forehead again.

"It's okay. If you don't resist, I won't hurt you again." His voice was soft now, calm and soothing, almost as if the threatening version of him was something I'd completely dreamt up.

The immediate touch was painful, but overall, his goal wasn't to cause me more suffering -

It was to aid my pain. Because although I could repel his Magic, he wasn't actually trying to heal me. Instead, he pressed his hand against my wrist, which was surprisingly cold to the touch.

He was using his own Magic to make his hand cold, therefore using his fingers like an ice pack to calm the swelling.

My heart felt torn as I watched his fingers lightly rest against my swollen skin. There was that guilt again - the fact that he was helping me because he was lonesome, even though originally, he'd hurt me in order to keep me with him.