Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
We walk in a silence that is something kinder than awkward. It is the kind of quiet that gives her space to fold herself around whatever just happened. I do not fill it with empty reassurances or the sort of hollow comfort that makes things worse.
She needs room to think. So, I give it to her.
The night air bites my face, but she barely feels it.
Her fingers twist at the hem of Deimos’s oversized shirt the way someone grips a rope in a storm.
It is a small, human thing and it tells me more than any words could.
I do not prod. If she wants to speak she will.
If not, I will carry the silence for her.
At her dorm her roommate freezes like a rabbit seeing a hawk. Technically, I am exactly that. She takes one look at my size, my tattoos, the way a demon wears menace like a second skin, and bolts. Bag slung over her shoulder, she leaves so fast the door slams like a punctuation.
“Well,” Lillien murmurs, amused. “That was dramatic.”
I chuckle, stepping in after her. “You have that effect on people?”
She shrugs, pulling a small duffel bag from her closet. “More like you do.”
She packs slow and precise. A few clothes, a phone, a laptop, a handful of sentimental things that look older than their owner. Nothing extravagant, nothing excessive. The movements are final in a way that makes my gut tighten.
She sits on the bed and the shoulders that had been braced for a fight drop a fraction. The weight of it settles into her bones.
I kneel down so I can see her properly. Not to beg, not to apologize, none of that. Just to be on the same plane. “How you holding up, Hellcat?” I ask, trying for the light that sometimes works and failing in all the right ways.
She doesn’t meet my gaze. “I’m fine.”
I bark out a laugh.
Her eyes flick up, slightly annoyed, but also amused. “What?”
“Just funny, is all,” I muse. “You really think you can lie to me?”
She huffs, rolling her eyes. “I’m… processing.”
“At least that’s more honest.”
She looks at the window, at the dark outside, and I let the room breathe for a moment. Then, quiet and sudden, she asks the thing I never wanted to hear.
“Does Cassiel hate me?”
The question lands hard, not because it is absurd but because she truly believes it might be true. I study her face. “Hate you?” I repeat, because the word tastes wrong with his name.
She nods. “He wouldn’t even look at me.”
“Cassiel is complicated in the way ragged things are complicated. He runs on reason and the calculus of survival, not on tidy emotion. Hate isn’t in his wheelhouse,” I tell her.
I mean it. He is a fortress made of poorly spoken grief and awkward mercy. He would never hate her. He might make choices she cannot forgive. He might speak in ways that cut. He might balk at the softness she brings. But hate is foreign to him.
She presses the point. “He wanted to give me away.”
“He’s pragmatic,” I say. “He thinks in options and outcomes. Sometimes he sacrifices what is tender to keep the rest breathing.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. Just the truth.” It is not enough. I can see that in the tightness around her mouth. I watch her fingers toy with the fabric of her bag, her mind clearly still turning over thoughts she doesn’t know how to voice.
“He doesn’t hate you, Lillien.” My voice drops lower. Rougher. “He never could.”
“Why was he cast out?”
I shrug, because some stories are his to tell. “Ask him,” I say. It is the honest answer. He deserves to say his own darkness out loud when he wants to.
My phone buzzes and Deimos’s name flashes on the screen. “I know where we’re going next,” I tell her, slipping the phone away. “Come on. We’ll get you somewhere safe tonight. Tomorrow we’ll buy you new clothes.”
She arches a brow. “You’re going shopping with me?”
“Hell no,” I say with a grin. “I’m only going as your hot body guard and sugar demon.” She snorts and the small sound loosens something inside me. I reach for her hand because it feels like the right and stupid thing to do.
The second our skin touches the air changes. Not a whisper but a roar. A pulse runs through me like molten iron. Her fingers are small and warmer than I expected, and the shock is physical. It is not the bond. Not yet. It is the first, terrible graze of something that could burn bright and long.
The want to protect hardens into something more dangerous. I do not say it aloud. I do not need to. I would kill for that small, soft thing in my palm, even if I do not understand why the idea makes me feel suddenly young and reckless.
I pull, a small tug of power, and the world swallows us. Darkness folds like a curtain and we step through into light.
The apartment is a blade of luxury cut into the night. Floor-to-ceiling windows show a city smeared in gold. Leather couches sit like dark sentries. A bar glints in the corner. The place smells of old money and new patience. It is the sort of safe people buy when they want to feel untouchable.
She inhales slowly and for the first time since we left the house I see her exhale. I let go of her hand but the warmth remains.
“Welcome to your new home,” I say, voice low and easy. The phrase is a promise and a warning.
For now.