Kazimir #3
And just like that, the lounge belonged to us.
Devon was still standing at the spot where Axiom had melted away, arms folded tight over her chest. Her eyes were on the floor, but her jaw was set, ready for anything.
I took a measured breath, trying to still the aftershocks of anger and adrenaline. “You should not have approached the hellhound.”
Devon’s lips quirked, almost a smile, but not quite. “You should not have summoned him.”
Touché. I paced a slow circle around the edge of the dais, hands clasped behind my back, a habit from centuries of dealing with subordinates who required demonstration of both power and control. “Axiom responds only to orders. He is a weapon, not a pet.”
“He didn’t seem interested in hurting me,” she said, voice soft. “Maybe you don’t know your own weapons as well as you think.”
I laughed—a short, cold burst that surprised us both. “No one in my recollection has ever walked up to a hellhound and lived. You’re either very brave or very stupid.”
She met my gaze then, and I felt the old wall inside me splinter. “Well, I’m not stupid,” she said.
I stopped pacing. Let the silence stretch between us, weighted with everything we didn’t say. “You misunderstood what you saw,” I said, my voice lowering to its true register. “The woman—Rosa—she is not a rival. She is not even a friend. She touched me without permission. That is unacceptable.”
“Unacceptable enough to kill her?” Devon asked, and there was real curiosity, not accusation, in her tone.
I considered the question. “No. But when I saw you hurt, when I saw you suffer because of her… I had not felt that kind of anger in a long time.”
She nodded, as if this was just another fact to file away. “So you set a hellhound on her to make the point.”
“She will survive,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure. “And she will never repeat the mistake.”
Devon looked down, picked at a non-existent piece of lint on her pants. “I’ve had a lot of people try to hurt me. I’m used to it. What I’m not used to is anyone caring enough to get mad on my behalf.”
There was no self-pity in her voice, only the blunt truth of a life measured in disappointments. I wanted to cross the room, to take her hand or smooth the hair from her face, but I didn’t trust myself not to lose composure if I closed the distance.
Instead, I said, “I felt like you’d been harmed enough in your life, and I would never be the cause of adding more pain.” It came out rawer than intended, scraped from a place inside me I thought I’d bricked up decades ago.
She snorted. “Yeah, but if someone dies because you’re trying to protect me, that kind of counts as pain too, you know?”
This time, I did smile. “You are impossible.”
“I get that too,” she said, and there it was again—the faintest shadow of a laugh, something shy and new.
I eased myself onto the throne and gestured for her to join me. “Sit with me. Please.”
Devon eyed the throne like it might bite, but she climbed the two steps and perched on my lap. She felt right; her legs draped to the side, hands together. Stronger than she realized.
I studied her in the hush, letting the moment settle. “I meant what I said earlier. No one—no human, no witch, not even a vampire—has ever calmed a hellhound before. Even Axiom knows you are different.”
Devon flushed, color rising in her cheeks. It was the kind of blush I’d seen described in poetry but never observed in real time, and it made her seem impossibly young. “I just talked to him,” she said, self-conscious. “He listened.”
“There are beings in this world who command obedience. And then there are those who inspire loyalty. The second is far rarer.” I wanted her to see herself as I did: singular, extraordinary, a force the universe had never anticipated.
She looked away, uncomfortable with the attention. “Why did you clear the room?” she asked. “Worried I’d embarrass you more?”
“Hardly,” I said. “I wanted you to see Obsidian the way it really is. Without the posturing.”
She considered this. “So what’s it really about? The club. The performances. The rules.”
“Obsidian is territory,” I said. “It’s a treaty ground, a vice market, a place where debts are paid and secrets are currency. But underneath, it’s about containment. Every power in the city wants something—blood, magic, money, influence. I keep the balance.”
She nodded, taking it in. “You like control.”
“Control is all that stands between peace and war,” I said, then hesitated. “But sometimes… sometimes control is just another kind of prison.”
She glanced at me, sidelong. “You feel like a prisoner?”
I wanted to lie, but the words wouldn’t come. “Not until recently.”
Devon smiled—small, but genuine. “You’re not what I expected.”
“And you are everything I never dared hope for,” I said before I could stop myself.
Her eyes widened, but instead of shrinking away, she reached out and placed her hand over mine. “I don’t know what’s happening—what I’m feeling.”
I covered her hand with my other, thumb stroking the delicate bones beneath. “It’s alright. Just allow yourself to feel everything.”