Chapter 271

---- Chapter 271 This place was relatively safe, just outside Valanthea , with streets full of Valanthean and Valantian faces. As Giselle's face rolled toward the entrance to the small town, she spotted a group of police officers in Valanthea uniforms at the roadside. Standing at the very front was a man she knew all too well, staring straight in her direction. It was Donovan. The sight of that almost unreal face made her heart lurch violently. Her speed dropped, slower and slower, as she struggled to believe what she was seeing, to believe this was real.

Her eyes burned, her chest tightened, and a rush of heat and ache swelled inside her. Donovan, recognizing the face that had haunted him night and day for months, froze in place. For several long seconds, his mind went blank. Then, as if something inside him snapped, he suddenly bolted toward her. She slammed on the brakes just as he reached the car. He wrenched open the door, and for a moment, all he could see was her. Giselle was battered, clothes torn, smeared with mud and blood. His eyes turned red, his head spinning.

The officers hurried up as well, speaking gently, telling her she would be taken home immediately and had nothing to ---- fear. Giselle's tears welled over. She was terrified this was just an illusion, a dream born of exhaustion, some final flash of consciousness before she died. She feared that if she blinked, she'd be back in that dark, blood-soaked building, or surrounded again by the shadowy forest. Through her tear-blurred vision, Donovan was already reaching in to help her out of the car. Before she could react, he scooped her up in his arms and strode toward the ambulance.

In the past two hours, he had flown in on a private jet from another location, pulled strings to get border police involved, and arranged for an ambulance to meet them. He had even stepped beyond Valanthea's border to reach her sooner, unwilling to wait for her to arrive at the official crossing. The terrain was tricky, and it was the middle of the night. There had been no way to get directly to her. Every minute of waiting had been torture, the fear of losing her again gnawing at him. He had mobilized every possible resource, all standing by for her arrival.

Once she was in the ambulance, medics moved quickly, changing her clothes, examining her, and disinfecting her wounds. When a police officer started to ask questions for a report, Donovan stopped them. "Let her rest. Don't ask her anything right now." ---- Right now, he couldn't care less about what had happened to her during those two missing months. All that mattered was that she was alive, whole, and standing here with every limb intact. He kept staring at her, drinking in every detail of her face, afraid that if he so much as blinked, she would vanish again.

It felt almost like meeting her for the first time. Giselle shifted under the weight of his gaze, murmured a faint "thank you," and closed her eyes. After a day and night of running for her life, after staring death in the face more than once, her body finally gave in. Leaning against the ambulance bed, she drank some water, took fluids, and ate alittle. In the warm, safe hum of the vehicle , rocked by the steady motion, her eyes drifted shut, and she fell asleep within minutes.