Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
The moment we step into the first store I know I’ve made a mistake. The fluorescent lights feel like interrogation lamps. The racks of clothes smell like fabric softener and stale perfume, a world away from the iron and smoke I’m used to.
She moves through it like a queen walking a battlefield, fingers sifting, eyes hunting.
Lillien is in her element, tipping hangers with the sort of concentration I usually reserve for ripping a man in half.
She flips through fabric and color with an intensity I respect and a patience I do not possess.
I follow behind her, carrying the bags as they pile up.
They get heavier by the minute. Money means nothing to us.
It’s easy to make, easier to take, and easier still to spend.
But patience is not something you can buy.
It’s something you either have or you don’t.
I don’t. I shift the weight of the bags and try not to grind my teeth.
“How much longer, Hellcat?” I grunt as she shoves another bag into my arms.
She grins over her shoulder, eyes bright and dangerous. “Are you tired, big guy?”
“No,” I mutter, settling the burden across my forearms. “Just questioning my life choices.”
She giggles, a sound too small and too human for my liking.
It would be cute if I were not already wound tight enough to snap.
Still, I let her move through the ordinary.
She needs it. Normal feels like a medicine I do not trust, but still she drinks it.
She may be a demon now, but she is still a young woman who loves shopping, and that thought is ridiculous enough to make something in me soften.
But then she starts in on me.
First, it’s the bikinis. She steps out of the dressing room twirling in a tiny red two-piece that looks like it was designed to start wars. She watches me, eyebrow cocked, the smirk on her face saying she knows exactly what she is doing.
“Too much?” she asks, hands trailing down her hips.
I want to break noses. My claws itch in my fingers. A low growl rattles my ribs before I can stop it. My golden eyes sweep the store, counting the men who dare glance. I want to gouge them out one by one. Feed them their tongues. Mark the lot of them so they remember what hunger looks like.
She’s mine. She doesn’t know it yet, but she will.
“Change.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it, closer to a warning than a request.
She pouts, shifting her weight on one hip. “But I thought you liked red.”
I do. I fucking do. But not wrapped around her like a ribbon, not when it invites every mortal bastard here to imagine she’s theirs to unwrap. She knows exactly what she’s doing.
Next it’s lingerie. Black lace that clings to her the way sin clings to a wanted woman's skin. She steps out in strappy, sheer things that leave little to the imagination and everything to question. She walks slow, deliberate, fingers exploring the lines of her body.
“So?” she asks, spinning. “What do you think?”
The scent of her arousal hits me and it is like throwing oil on a fire. Power hums along her skin, a thin ripple of heat that crawls up and down my spine. She’s glowing with hunger. Lights overhead blink. One of the clerks glances nervously our way, the poor bastard sensing we are a storm.
She’s focused on me. She’s feeding from attention and she’s using me for it. It lights her up and ruins me.
“Lillien,” I growl, voice low like gravel.
She smiles a smile that could be a knife. “Yes?”
I step closer, close enough that my breath fans the hollow of her throat. My hand tightens the straps of the bags. “If you don’t stop teasing me, I’ll rip that off you right here, in front of everyone.”
Her breath catches in a small, wicked hitch. For a second I expect her to push harder. Instead she brushes her fingers along the front of my shirt, a touch so small and so precise it feels like a dare. “What’s stopping you?” she whispers, mischief dripping off every word.
My restraint is a miracle of will. I grip her wrist, stilling the hand, feeling the warmth under her skin like a hot brand. “Careful, Hellcat,” I say, but the warning tastes weak in my mouth when the rest of me is on fire.
She smirks and surrenders to practicality. “Fine, fine. I’ll buy it and save it for later.” She turns and disappears back into the dressing room, leaving me with the weight of the bags and the echo of her small, perfect smile.
I step out into the air to clear my head, the automatic doors whispering closed behind me. I dig my phone from my pocket and call Cassiel, because sometimes even a furnace needs a vent.
He answers on the third ring. “Bastion,” he says, voice guarded like a blade sheathed. “How is Lillien?”
“She’s fine,” I say. “But she’s not settled.” I keep my eyes on the street, scanning, always watching. “Deimos find anything yet?”
“We’re getting close,” Cassiel says. The word is clipped, heavy with the kind of hope that is usually flanked by dread.
“She’s slipping into her power fast.” My hands ache with the fictional toll of her teasing. “Her hunger’s getting stronger. She’s teasing, pushing—feeding already without even trying.”
Cassiel’s answer is a soft, resigned murmur. “She’s a succubus. It’s what they do.”
“She’s ours,” I snap, the word more command than statement. “She needs all of us.”
“I know,” Cassiel says. He does not make promises he cannot keep. The silence between us is the kind that maps the places we cannot speak.
I hang up before goodbye because there is no small talk in the middle of this. The phone slides into my pocket. I take a breath and the air tastes of ozone and something worse.
When I go back inside she is at the counter, signing the receipt, paying for her purchases with a wrist flick that betrays nothing. She meets my eyes with a smirk that is pure provocation, a little flare tucked behind a softer look. She knows I am wound tight. She likes it. God help me.
We are wrapping the trip up when her phone buzzes in her hand. She looks at the screen, and the smirk drops away as if someone has cut a thread.
“Lillien?” I ask, watching her closely.
She stares at the phone. It keeps ringing until she silences it. “My mother,” she says quietly. “She calls every week.”
The way she says it is small and perfect and full of a weight I cannot lighten.
I see it in the way her shoulders tense, in the forced mask she pulls across her face.
She’s water and smoke, trying to hold form.
I have watched her grow into something hard and hungry, but this is a place that still leaves her exposed.
For the first time since I met her she looks small. Not weak—never that. But like a thing clutching at a reminder that home exists and might no longer mean anything. It bothers me more than it should. I want to make it better and I know I cannot.
“You ready to go home?” I ask, because words are things I trade when I cannot trade better.
She breathes, steadying herself. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
She moves forward like she’s shedding the weight of a whole life for a moment.
I fall into step beside her, the silk and lace and scent and small conquests still clinging to the air between us.
No matter how she tries to bury it, the grief is there.
The hunger does not leave. The way she looks at the phone tells me more than her words ever could.
When her fingers graze my hand, the contact is quick, accidental, but it burns. Not quite the bond. Not yet. Something waking beneath the skin, sharp and bright as the edge of a blade.
I don’t say a word. I don’t have to. The truth of it sits heavy in my chest—I would kill for that pulse. I would destroy worlds for the heat it leaves behind. The thought startles me; it feels young, reckless, unguarded. The kind of feeling I should have grown out of centuries ago.
We turn down an alleyway choked in shadow, far from mortal eyes. Trash bins, damp brick, the metallic scent of rain. She looks at me expectantly, and I drag my palm through the air. The portal tears open in a low growl of gold light. The world bends inward, hungry.
“After you,” I murmur, voice rougher than I intend.
She smirks, stepping through, haloed by the shimmer. For a moment, the light paints her red—blood and glory—and I follow her in, the alley collapsing to silence behind us.
The world reshapes around us, but the weight in my chest doesn’t lift. This isn’t over. Not her grief. Not her hunger. Not us. Whatever it is between us, it’s coming. It’s just waiting for the right moment to burn.