Chapter 16 #2
Which meant I couldn’t stop thinking about why he was offering it here.
Aunt Mabel turned to me. “Do you remember the winter your mother tried to leave?”
I stiffened.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “I remember you telling me.”
She shook her head. “No. I mean, do you remember her that winter? The way she moved through rooms?”
A flash rose in my mind: my mother in a wool coat at the top of the stairs, staring out the front window as if waiting for someone who never came. Her hand resting on the banister, fingers tight, knuckles pale. Her voice too measured at dinner, like she was reading from a script.
“Yes,” I admitted.
Cassian’s gaze stayed on me, unreadable.
“She wasn’t unhappy,” Aunt Mabel continued. “She was awake. For the first time in a long time.”
The words sank deep.
I glanced at Cassian again. His expression didn’t change, but something about him sharpened—attention tightening, like he’d just heard a piece of truth he respected.
“What was his name?” I asked suddenly.
Aunt Mabel blinked once. “Which name?”
“The man,” I said. “The one she almost left with.”
Aunt Mabel’s gaze flicked to Cassian, then back to me.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” she said gently.
My pulse spiked. “Why?”
“Because you’ll turn it into an equation,” she replied. “You’ll try to solve your mother instead of accepting she was human.”
“I’m not trying to solve her,” I lied.
Cassian’s eyes moved over my face like he could see the lie settle into place.
Aunt Mabel softened. “Lia,” she said quietly, “your mother doesn’t need to be forgiven. She needs to be understood.”
“And what about me?” I asked, throat tight.
Aunt Mabel held my gaze. “You need to stop punishing yourself for wanting.”
The words hit hard.
Because I had.
I had built a life around being the woman who didn’t need, didn’t crave, didn’t slip. The one who stayed on message. The one who fought for the right causes, said the right things, stayed safe enough to be respected.
And yet here I was, sitting at this table with a hunter across from me, heat pooled low in my body, a hunger I could no longer pretend wasn’t mine.
Cassian’s voice cut through the moment, low and steady.
“She’s not punishing herself,” he said.
Aunt Mabel’s brows lifted. “Oh?”
“She’s challenging herself,” he continued, eyes on me.
My pulse jumped.
Aunt Mabel’s mouth curved. “That’s one way to frame it.”
Cassian didn’t look away. “It’s accurate.”
I swallowed, suddenly aware of how exposed I felt beneath the gaze of two people who seemed to see straight through my carefully managed exterior.
Aunt Mabel stood then. “Dessert,” she announced. “Because this table is starting to feel like a therapy session and I refuse to play that role without sugar.”
She disappeared into the kitchen.
I exhaled slowly, grateful for the break, then realized the break meant something else, too.
It meant Cassian and I were alone at the table.
The room felt smaller without my aunt’s voice filling it.
Cassian watched me for a moment, expression calm.
“You didn’t ask her his name,” he said.
I stared at my plate. “I noticed.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I lifted my gaze. “Because I don’t want to make this about him.”
His eyes darkened slightly, interest flickering.
“And what do you want this to be about?”
The question tightened something inside me.
“Me,” I said quietly. “For once.”
Cassian’s gaze held mine, steady and intent.
“Good,” he said.
The word landed like a seal.
Aunt Mabel returned with dessert—apple crisp bubbling in a ceramic dish, vanilla ice cream already melting at the edges.
She set it down with a satisfied hum. “Now,” she said brightly, “eat, and behave.”
Cassian’s mouth twitched. “Yes, ma’am.”
I shot him a look. “Don’t encourage her.”
He looked at me like he found it amusing that I thought I could control anything happening in this house.
We ate dessert. The sugar softened the edges of the conversation, but the tension didn’t leave. It sat beneath everything, coiled and warm.
Aunt Mabel asked Cassian what he did for work.
He paused.
I felt him choose his words.
“Security,” he said.
Aunt Mabel gave him a look. “That’s also vague.”
“It’s accurate,” he replied.
She smiled like she’d just won something. “I like you,” she said, then added, “in a cautious way.”
Cassian nodded once. “That’s fair.”
After dessert, Aunt Mabel began clearing plates with brisk efficiency.
“I’ll do that,” I said, standing.
She waved me off. “Sit. You’re a guest.”
I blinked. “I’m your niece.”
“And you’re a guest,” she repeated firmly. “Your mother always tried to earn love through usefulness. I won’t have you repeating that habit in my house.”
The words stung because they were true.
I sat slowly.
Cassian’s gaze flicked to me, then back to Aunt Mabel, as if filing the sentence away.
Aunt Mabel finished clearing and disappeared into the kitchen again.
Cassian stood.
“I’ll help,” he said.
Aunt Mabel’s voice carried back, amused. “I didn’t invite you here to do dishes.”
“I’m not doing dishes,” Cassian replied. “I’m preventing her from doing them.”
I froze.
Heat slid through me—part embarrassment, part something else entirely.
Aunt Mabel laughed softly. “Fine. Dry.”
I watched him go into the kitchen, broad shoulders filling the doorway. The sight of him in that space—hands in dishwater, standing in a kitchen that had always belonged to women—did something strange to me.
He looked wrong there.
And somehow, terrifyingly, he also looked right.
I rose and followed, leaning in the doorway.
Aunt Mabel handed him a towel. “Don’t break anything,” she said.
Cassian took it. “No, ma’am.”
He began drying plates, movements economical, careful. Aunt Mabel washed. The two of them moved with a surprising rhythm, like they’d done this before.
And that, more than anything, made my chest tighten.
Aunt Mabel looked at me over her shoulder. “Go sit,” she said.
“I am sitting,” I lied.
“Lia,” she warned.
I sighed and retreated to the living room, where the fireplace crackled softly. The room felt warmer, softer, but my thoughts stayed in the kitchen, following the sound of water and low voices.
When Cassian finally returned, his sleeves rolled up slightly, hair a little messier than before, I felt heat flicker under my skin.
Aunt Mabel followed, drying her hands on a towel.
“All right,” she said. “I’m going to bed early. The two of you can take your tension elsewhere.”
“Mabel,” I protested.
She pointed at me. “Don’t.”
Then she looked at Cassian. “And you,” she added, “don’t ruin her.”
Cassian’s gaze didn’t flinch.
“I won’t,” he said simply.
Aunt Mabel studied him for a long moment, then nodded once, satisfied.
“Goodbye and goodnight,” she said, and disappeared down the hallway. “I’m glad you came.”
The house settled into silence.
Cassian turned to me.
The firelight painted him in warm shadows, making him look even more like the thing I had asked for—danger wrapped in calm.
“You’re quiet again,” he said.
I swallowed.
“I’m listening,” I replied.
“To what?”
I held his gaze.
“To what happens next.”
A slow, almost imperceptible shift moved through his expression—interest sharpening into something heavier.
He stepped closer, closing the distance until I could feel the heat of him again, the steady gravity that always made my body aware before my mind caught up.
“Then listen closely,” he said, voice low.
My pulse hammered.
“Yes?”
He leaned in, his mouth near my ear, his breath warm.
“You’re still choosing,” he murmured. “And I’m here.”
The words slid under my skin like a promise I couldn’t pretend not to want.
I didn’t move away.
I didn’t speak.
I simply stood there, in my aunt’s living room, in the aftermath of dinner and truth, feeling the hunter’s presence settle around me again.
Willing.
And somehow, more awake than I’d ever been.