Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 178

Chapter 178

Meadow’s chest tightened. Because she remembered. She remembered how frightened she had been then. How uncertain. How

strange their beginning was. How impossible it all felt. And yet she had wanted him. Truly. Not out of pity. Not out of fear. Not

because she had nowhere else to go. She wanted him because something in her saw him before he believed anybody still could.

“You said you wanted me, and my still and frozen heart started beating again. I was hopeful. For the first time in a long time, was

hopeful,” Ethan said.

He held her hand tighter as he said it, searching her eyes as if he needed her to understand the depth of that truth. Meadow say it.

Felt it. It made her cry harder because hope was exactly why this hurt so much now. Hope had made them soft with each other.

Hope had made their strange beginning become something real and tender and beautiful. And now the same hope was asking him to

lie in an ambulance and risk not waking up the same man. Or at all.

“I love you too much not to risk everything to be your perfect man,” Ethan said.

She shook her head immediately at the phrase. He saw it and kept going anyway because he needed her to hear all of it.

“It breaks my heart when I can’t carry you. It hurts me when I can’t shift and bond with you. It hurts when I can’t play with you as I should, and it hurts me when I can’t make love to you the way I want. I am not doing this for the pack. I want to be a proper husband and a father. I will not forgive myself if I do not try, Meadow. I could not be happy knowing something could be done, and I

ignored it. I am willing to risk everything, Meadow. I just need you to support me,” Ethan said.

By then her tears were falling freely. There was no holding them back anymore. Because she understood him. That was the cruelest part. She understood why he wanted this. Understood why it mattered to him in a place deeper than pride. He wanted a life with

her. Not the wounded half-life he had been forced into. A real life. Walking. Holding. Shifting. Playing with their future children.

Protecting his home. Loving her without his body standing between desire and action like a locked gate.

And yet understanding him did not make her fear smaller.

“I love you too much to let you risk it all,” Meadow said through the link.

The words left her in a wave of pain so strong Ethan felt it. It startled him. That was unusual. But he felt it. Meadow’s pain moved

through him almost physically, enough that his heart reacted to it. It was not only the link. It was love too. His body knew when

hers was hurting even before his mind finished processing it.

“I can’t, Ethan. You are everything to me. The only man that looked at me. The only man that has cared for me and loved me. The

only man that stands up for me time and time again. The only man that makes me forget my worries and disability,” Meadow said

through the link.

Every word she sent him was stripped raw. There was no room for pride in a confession like that. No room for self-protection.

Meadow was telling him exactly what he was to her, and Ethan felt the weight of it in his chest with terrifying force.

“Before you, I had no future, Ethan. It was bleak, and then this happened, and we both embraced it. However it started, it became

something beautiful. I am happy with you right now, just the way you are,” Meadow said through the link.

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Chapter 178

That truth wrecked him because she meant it. Meadow was not some woman settling for him because she had no better offer. She

was happy. Truly happy with him as he was now. Broken body and all. That should have comforted him. Instead it made the risk feel

heavier because now he knew exactly how much he stood to destroy if this went wrong.

“I will support you, but I won’t let you kill yourself. If you die, I won’t have the strength to carry on. No one is ever going to fill

your shoes, Ethan. It will never be the same for me. So before you throw caution to the wind and risk it all, I need you to think of

me, my heart and ask yourself if it is worth it,” Meadow said through the link.

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Underwater: The Silent Luna