Chapter 32
Piper
My apartment is finally quiet. It’s the day after Christmas, and the air still smells faintly of pine, cinnamon, and the lingering, dangerous magic Slade and I whipped up on the kitchen counter yesterday.
The chaos is gone, leaving behind only the sticky sweetness of too much sugar and the deep, humming contentment of a battle well fought.
I’m curled up on the sofa, buried under the giant fleece blanket Elle gave me, wearing Slade’s massive, soft Henley shirt that smells like pine and ancient leather. Newt, sensing the relaxed atmosphere, has decided my thigh is the optimal place to practice his kneading claws.
Slade is sprawled beside me, looking ridiculously comfortable and out of place all at once.
His thick black hair is slightly mussed, and his piercing, dark green eyes are focused—or pretending to be—on the television screen.
We’re watching a marathon of classic holiday reruns.
Right now, some fuzzy black-and-white scene is playing out, completely nonsensical but absolutely hilarious.
“I don’t understand why the mortal male keeps trying to convince the child that the mythical beast is real,” Slade murmurs, his voice a low, rough rumble.
“It’s about belief, and… consumerism,” I sigh, reaching up to run my fingers through the hair at his nape. My own hair, is a wild mess of curls. It’s probably sticking straight up, but at this point… I don’t care.
He leans into my touch, a purely instinctual response, and the sight of the demon lord melting over my petting never fails to make my stomach clench.
“Belief is a tool for manipulation,” he counters, but he laces his fingers with mine, pressing my hand to his neck. “This is better.”
Newt leaps onto Slade’s chest and immediately begins batting at the corner of the blanket, clearly bored with the lack of demonic activity.
Slade raises an eyebrow at the creature, a silent challenge passing between them, before he gently hooks his finger around the cat's collar and deposits him onto the floor.
“Go hunt a dust bunny,” he instructs.
The flickering light from the screen casts shadows across Slade’s face, highlighting the strong line of his jaw and the depth of those impossible green eyes.
He shifts, pulling me closer until my hip is pressed tight against his hard thigh.
The casual contact is anything but. The domestic calm cracks between us, like a dam about to burst.
He doesn’t look away from the TV, but his thumb begins tracing slow, deliberate circles into the soft skin of my inner thigh, just beneath the hem of his shirt.
My breath hitches. I know this game. The waiting, that slow, intense build up that's always worth it a million times over.
“You’re enjoying this film, aren’t you, little witch?” he asks, his voice smooth and deceptively mild.
“No,” I manage, my entire focus centering on the heat his touch is generating.
His hand stops, then his fingers curl slightly, finding the sensitive skin at my hip. He finally looks at me, his eyes suddenly depthless and focused entirely on possession. The soft light of the reruns on the TV makes the moment feel stolen and illicit.
“Tell me what you’d rather be doing,” he challenges, his thumb pressing lightly into my flesh, demanding an answer.
I bite my lip, leaning into his ear, my voice thick. “I’d rather you remind me who I belong to, Lord Athalar.”
That’s all the invitation he needs. The demon breaks containment, and I know it’s over for me.
Slade rolls onto me, pinning me to the cushions. The sound of the TV vanishes, and all that’s left is us.
He captures my mouth in a deep, consuming kiss, pushing me further into the yielding foam of the sofa. This isn’t the loving kiss from yesterday. No, this is a demand, rough and immediate. I cling to his shoulders, feeling the power in his grip, the absolute authority of his body over mine.
He tears his mouth away, stripping the borrowed shirt from my body and tossing it somewhere behind the sofa. The air in the room is suddenly hot. His hands are everywhere, rough and practiced, reminding me exactly what it means to be claimed by something ancient and powerful.
He yanks my leggings down, disposing of them quickly, his eyes never leaving mine. I see the hunger there, the need to take and control. He is already hard, a perfect, wicked ridge against my stomach.
“I own this view, witch,” he growls, his voice lower than a Ninth Realm threat. He braces his elbows on either side of my head, locking me in place.
I answer by bucking up against him, demanding release.
He smiles—a sharp, triumphant flash of white—and ignores my frantic movements. He runs a single finger down my folds, slow and agonizing, until he finds the wet, aching center of my need.
He doesn’t use his fingers the way I might, gentle and seeking pleasure. He uses them to claim. His hand clamps down, firm and dominating, pressing harder against my clit.
“You won’t rush me,” he dictates. “You’ll take exactly what I choose to give you, when I choose to give it. Nod for me, Piper. Show me you understand.”
I nod immediately, a frantic little jerk of my head, entirely submitting to his will. The dominance heightens the raw, immediate pleasure to an unbearable pitch. I’m panting already, salivating at the thought of what he’s about to do to me.
“Good girl,” he murmurs. And the praise? The control? It’s better than any foreplay.
He shifts, tearing open his own pants and kicking them aside. Then he’s over me, his weight settling against mine, his dark green eyes burning with desire. He positions himself, pressing his thick, throbbing length against my pussy.
Slade doesn't hesitate. He drives into me with a single, powerful thrust that steals the air from my lungs and forces a silent scream from my throat. My hands instantly fly to his back, gripping him tightly, accepting the full depth of his authority.
He starts moving, the pace slow and brutal, designed to push me to the edge of sensory overload without letting me cross it. He watches my face, watching the pleasure—and the absolute surrender—flash in my eyes.
“Are you mine, Piper?” he demands, his voice a vibrating threat near my ear.
“Yes,” I gasp, the word ripped from my chest.
He rewards me with a punishing, desperate series of thrusts, taking me higher and harder until the living room is filled with the sounds of our heavy breathing and the rhythmic creak of the old sofa.
I reach my climax in a blinding, silent rush, clawing his shoulders as my body arches high off the cushions.
Slade follows immediately, groaning my name as he buries himself in a final, heavy plunge.
We lay there, utterly spent, breathing each other in. The sounds of the fuzzy reruns play softly in the background, a ridiculous soundtrack to the passionate wreckage we’ve made of the living room. Newt has returned, settling on the ottoman, observing the proceedings with judgmental curiosity.
Slade presses a gentle kiss to my temple, the dark green in his eyes softened by a deep, satisfied warmth.
He finally rolls off me, pulling me tight against his side under the blanket, the cool air hitting our damp skin.
“That,” he says, his voice deep and rough, “is how you put Christmas to bed.”
I giggle and snuggle closer, resting my cheek against Slade’s chest, listening to the slow, deliberate rhythm of his breathing.
The room smells faintly of spent magic, pine wreaths, and the faint ghost of cinnamon that clings to my skin.
The credits roll across the TV in soft grayscale, but neither of us is paying attention anymore.
My body feels boneless, warm, thoroughly worshipped, and entirely ruined in the best way.
Slade’s fingers trace slow, lazy paths down my spine, the motions languid and assured. He kisses the top of my head, then my cheek, then the corner of my mouth, each kiss softer than the last—gentle, affectionate, almost unbearably intimate.
“Piper,” he murmurs, his voice still carrying the lazy gravel of afterglow, “you’re shivering. Are you cold?”
“I’m fine,” I breathe, nuzzling into him. “Just… melted.”
He chuckles quietly, a sound that rumbles through his chest like a warm tide. “You melt beautifully.”
For a long, blissful moment, the world is nothing but his warmth and the faint jingle of the Christmas-themed commercial playing in the background.
Eventually, he brushes a damp curl away from my cheek and presses another soft kiss there.
“Get dressed,” he murmurs.
I blink. “For what?”
“For air. For time that isn’t limited to couches with questionable structural integrity.” His smile curves wickedly. “And because if we stay here, I will not let you walk again tonight.”
Heat pools low in my belly again, but he sits up and helps me sit too, wrapping the fleece blanket around my shoulders before I can protest. Newt gives a disapproving chirp, as if we’re ruining his evening, then leaps onto the back of the sofa with a dramatic flick of his tail.
Slade stands, retrieving our strewn clothing with casual efficiency. When he hands me my leggings, he brushes a kiss against my knuckles—tender and reverent—before stepping back to pull on his own shirt.
“Come on,” he says, offering his hand. “There’s a place I want to take you.”
I lace my fingers with his, still feeling the phantom of his touch everywhere he claimed me. We dress slowly, stealing kisses between buttons, the quiet kind that taste like promises rather than hunger.
Ten minutes later, we step out into the crisp winter air, the snow still fresh from the afternoon flurries.
The street glows with soft holiday lights—warm gold, red, and evergreen, twinkling along rooftops and lampposts.
Slade slips an arm around my waist, pulling me snug against his side as he guides me down the sidewalk.
“Where are we going?” I ask, leaning into his warmth.
“To dinner,” he answers. “Somewhere quiet. Somewhere I can watch you glow without interruption.”
“I’m not glowing.”
He stops walking. The streetlamp above us casts a halo over the snow. He tilts my chin up with a single finger, his eyes drifting slowly over my face, my lips, the faint flush still coloring my neck.
“You’re radiant,” he says softly. “You always are. But tonight… it’s different.”
I open my mouth to argue, and… instead, I choose to feel the words in my chest, hot and aching. I tuck myself into him, letting him lead us through the soft winter evening, past frozen storefronts and twinkling trees. The world feels gentle for once—like the universe is exhaling with us.
We arrive at a tiny Chinese restaurant tucked between two older brick buildings, the kind with red lanterns in the window and a hand-painted sign that flickers between OPEN and OPN because the light’s been dying since 1998.
Warm air rushes out as soon as Slade opens the door, carrying the mouthwatering scent of ginger, garlic, sesame oil, and something fried and glorious.
Slade watches me step inside, but his gaze is already drifting toward the illuminated menu wall like a man approaching a holy relic.
“This is your guilty pleasure, isn’t it?” I murmur.
His eyes darken in a way that is both sheepish and unrepentant. “No one must ever know,” he says solemnly, guiding me in with a hand at the small of my back. “I have a reputation to consider.”
I grin at his foolishness.
We’re seated in a corner booth—intimate, candle lit by a small electric tea lights shoved into a frosted glass holder that pretends it’s fancier than it is. Slade sits beside me instead of across from me, thigh brushing mine, his arm draped behind me as if it belongs there permanently.
The warmth between us is quiet, content—like a soft exhale after too many days of tension.
The waiter arrives with chilled water and a basket of hot, crackling scallion pancakes. Slade tears one open with reverence, steam rising. He dips a piece into the soy-ginger sauce, then lifts it to my lips.
“You’re spoiling me,” I tease, accepting the bite.
“You deserve spoiling,” he replies simply. “You deserve more than you know.”
I choke back the sudden tears, smiling sweetly and divert the conversation to another topic.
We talk about nothing and everything. Newt’s criminal tendencies. Elle’s dramatic retelling of their childhood. Rhea’s ironclad ability to hex people without technically hexing people. The Yule Ball and how my dress nearly made Slade combust.
He listens like each word I say is part of some ancient instruction manual meant only for him. He asks questions, and tucks each answer away like a treasure.
Dinner arrives—Spicy beef noodles for me, Mongolian chicken for him, and an order of crab rangoons that he absolutely did not share evenly. Dessert is sesame balls filled with molten red-bean sweetness, eaten between slow smiles and soft, teasing kisses.
By the time we step back out into the night, my heart feels full in a way that terrifies me and soothes me at the same time.
Snow drifts lazily through the air—soft, delicate flakes melting instantly on Slade’s coat. He wraps his arm around me, pulling me flush against his side as we stroll home through the glowing street.
There’s no rush.
No fear.
Just us—a witch wrapped in winter layers. And the demon lord who worships her quietly, fiercely, without apology.
As we walk, hand in hand under drifting flakes and twinkling lights, I feel it settle deep inside me. This is magic too. Not the dangerous kind. Not the cursed kind. The gentle, quiet… forever kind.
A magic I didn’t know I needed, and one I don’t ever want to lose.