Chapter 35 Lucian
Lucian
My fingers work the last stubborn tangles from my hair, and my shirt is still clinging to damp skin from the shower. I’m halfway down the stairs when I notice the house is too quiet. I don’t hear the hum from the TV, or clatter from the kitchen where Celeste usually is.
“LUCIAN!”
The scream of my name on her mouth spears terror right through my chest. The world narrows to a bright, thin line, and my stomach drops so hard I forget the remaining steps.
Fuck the stairs. I fling myself over the railing, the world a blur of wood and light, my foot finds the floor in a hard thud, and thankfully, I have the wherewithal to keep my prosthetic from taking any of the impact.
My heart pounds in my ears, as every thought collapses into one blunt order: protect her.
I hit the foyer, and the front door gapes open ahead; the porch light casts a small halo in the dark.
Night air slaps my face, and for a beat, the yard is a smear of shadow.
Headlights cut off behind my SUV, a new black SUV idles where it shouldn’t be.
The memory of her attack is a live wire under my skin, and I will not let anything like that happen again.
Then I see her, barreling toward me like she is trying to close the distance between fear and safety with her own two feet.
She doesn’t slow as she throws herself at me, and I step back to catch the momentum, planting my feet so we don’t topple over. Her fingers dig into my shirt, and I notice she’s shaking. For a beat, I’m keyed for violence, as I see the driver’s side door open and a man climbs out of the SUV.
The stranger is unremarkable at first glance.
He’s average in every sense of the word.
Average height, average build, jeans, and a plain jacket.
He looks like a man your eyes would slide past in a grocery store aisle.
The only thing that catches is his bright ginger hair, almost copper in the late light, impossible to miss against the muted street.
“Yo—sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, putting his hands up in surrender. “You here to show us the house?”
Before I can answer, the passenger door opens, and another person steps out. She’s small, with a waterfall of copper-bright hair similar to the man she’s with.
None of that matters. My pulse is still a live wire from Celeste’s scream.
“I’m not showing you our house,” I tell the newcomers. “You need to leave.”
He lifts his hands like he’s trying to calm a spooked animal. “Hey, man, we’re not here to start anything.” He jerks a thumb toward the woman. “My sister rented this house sight unseen. I told her it was a bad idea, but when do sisters ever listen to their big brothers? Amirite?”
The woman shoots him a look sharp enough to cut before turning back toward the SUV. She says something we can’t hear from the porch, but the way her brother rolls his eyes, I know it wasn’t directed at us.
She leans inside and grabs something. A moment later, she straightens, clutching a manila folder to her chest as she walks back toward us. Her steps are cautious but more annoyed than anything. I stay tense, but I move forward to meet her halfway.
The woman steps forward and hands me the folder. Her cold fingers brushing mine. “Here. This is my lease agreement, the confirmation email—everything.”
I take it from her, even though every instinct in me is still braced for the wrong kind of surprise. I flip it open with my thumb, my eyes scanning the front page. The houses on this street all look like they were stamped out of the same mold, so the photo doesn’t help. But the address does.
122 Willow Way.
The number lands like a small, ridiculous relief. I tap it with my finger; touching something concrete feels safer than trusting my head. “Our place is 112, you’re looking for 122. You’re a few houses down.”
She groans, throwing her head back like she’s appealing to the sky for mercy.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Sean. You transposed the numbers.
Classic Sean for you. He likes to blame anything he can on his little sister.
That’s part of the reason I am getting away from that madhouse.
” She mutters something that sounds like a prayer for patience, then sighs.
“Guess that explains why you two look ready to fight us off with pitchforks.”
Her brother rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed. “Yeah, sorry for barging in. We’ll move along before the big guy decides to snap us in half. My bad about the address. Let’s go, Daphne.”
I don’t answer. Saying anything feels unnecessary; my jaw ticks instead, a small, involuntary warning that’s apparently persuasive enough. Part of me wants to walk them down the street myself, make sure they actually get to their rental, but I don’t volunteer.
Daphne gives a small, sheepish wave as she climbs back into the SUV. “No hard feelings, huh?”
Celeste hugs the bag tighter to her chest like a shield. “It’s fine. Really.”
The SUV crunches down the driveway, gravel popping under the tires, then disappears around a bend in the street. The silence that follows feels too big, as if the world exhaled and left us standing in the lingering tension.
I finally turn toward her. My eyes sweep over her automatically, cataloging every detail, from her breathing, her grip on the bag, to the way her shoulders are still too tight. My hand finds her arm, warm and grounding, because I need the contact as much as she does. “You good?”
She nods, but her pulse is still fluttering under her skin like a trapped bird. “Yeah. Just…didn’t expect company.”
The next question comes out sharper than I meant for it to. “Why were you out here at night without telling me?”
She looks small under the porch light, cheeks flushed, eyes avoiding mine for a beat.
“I—” She fumbles, then reaches behind her and sheepishly lifts a canvas tote.
She opens it, and I see a stack of paperbacks.
“I left some books in my car. I went to grab them. I didn’t think—I didn’t want to bother you while you were in the shower. ”
The explanation is ridiculous and ordinary and should be harmless. It should be nothing. But the fresh memory of her scream is still a live wire in my ribs, and ordinary things feel dangerous tonight.
Her fingers twist the tote strap like she’s trying to make the apology physical. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”
My voice softens before I can stop it. “Please, just tell me next time.” I pull her a little closer, my palm settling at the small of her back because contact is a language we both understand. “Okay?”
She nods, eyes wet at the edges but steady. “Okay.”
I guide her back toward the house, not letting go until the door closes behind us and we’re alone again.
* * *
Sunlight threads through the blinds in lazy ribbons.
Celeste is a warm, steady weight against my chest; one hand is tucked under my collarbone, the other tracing idle circles on my ribs, as if she’s mapping me.
The world is small and soft in this perfect moment.
This type of day makes everything else feel negotiable.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table. Celeste reaches for it, thumb swiping the lock, and a ridiculous photo fills the screen—me and Orion in one of those staged, over-earnest JCPenney poses, arms wrapped around each other like a bad prom picture.
She quirks an eyebrow and hands me the phone. “Uh, do you have something to tell me?”
I let the image hang between us, ridiculous and impossible to explain in a sentence. “I’ll tell you about that picture when we have more time,” I say, because the picture has a long backstory.
“Hey, Lucy,” Orion’s voice is smug through the speaker. “How’s Sir Sassafrass doing? Does he miss me yet?”
“No. He’s more concerned about his cape; he’s refusing to take it off,” I tell him. “It keeps getting stuck on things. You need to get him something more practical.”
Orion lets out a delighted cackle, like he’s proud of the chaos he engineered. “Oh man, he’s committed. As Sir Sass’s fairy godfather, I accept responsibility. I’ll get him a wardrobe including little tunics, maybe a jaunty beret. He deserves options.”
“Since when are you his fairy godfather?” I ask, the image in my head is absurd, and I feel like brain bleach should be an option.
“I appointed myself. It’s a role, and you need to know I take it very seriously.
Also, I did not expect him to actually like the clothes,” he pauses and clears his throat.
“So anyway… Morgan told me I need to talk to you about why my feelings were hurt.” It sounds like he’s covering the speaker on his phone as he asks his girlfriend if he worded that right.
“Look, I’m not mad that you and Celeste are together.
I tried to push you two together, Lucy. I thought you’d be good together.
I wanted that. I wanted… I wanted to see you laugh and experience happiness again.
To have something that wasn’t just… pain.
“When we were in Shadow Grove last time, I noticed how you two were around each other. I wanted you to have that kind of happiness again. I wanted to force you two to work together because I wanted you around people who didn’t pity you.
I thought if I could get you laughing, if I could get Celeste back in your orbit—maybe you’d find the part of you that used to be okay.
When Celeste told me Jamie’s wife was pregnant, I thought this could be the chance.
Celeste will need a bodyguard, and maybe it’ll be the nudge you need.
I wanted to fix what the accident took, and this seemed like the best way to do it.
But you kept your relationship with my sister from me.
I would’ve been happy for you. I wanted to be the asshole who teased you about dating my little sister. ”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and the words are small but honest. “We kept it quiet at first because we didn’t want to make things weird between the three of us if things didn’t work out.
I know you don’t want to hear this, but at first it wasn’t serious between us.
We had just decided to start seeing each other when the accident happened, but after that, everything changed.
When we were forced back together, our old feelings came back.
This time, we decided it wasn’t casual, and we decided to move forward for real.
We didn’t mean to shut you out. That’s a shitty reason to keep you out, and I’m sorry.
If it makes you feel any better, we had only made that decision the night before, and I wasn’t about to text you about it. ”
“Thank you, I needed to hear that. I needed to know you weren’t hiding it because you didn’t trust me. I get why you were careful. Apology accepted, maybe,” Orion says, the old smugness threading back through his voice.
Celeste reaches for the coffee table to pick up the new Kindle I got for her, then sets it on my chest, and starts reading. The ordinary domesticity of it makes the moment feel less fragile and more real.
Orion’s voice pulls me from watching his sister read on my chest. “There’s another reason I called, it wasn’t just to gloat about Sir Sass’s new outfit. We traced a handful of IPs related to the ads, all of which come out of Ashburn, Virginia.”
My brow furrows. “Ashburn?”
“Yeah.” He sounds careful, like he’s still trying to decipher the data in front of him.
“The person didn’t stay in one place; there are multiple different internet cafés, sometimes a library, where this person placed the ads through.
They are always in some variation of hats and hoods, and they always pay in cash.
The footage is trash, so there’s nothing clean we can run. ”
I grit my teeth. “So they’re careful. Great.”
“They’re also obsessive,” Orion says. “Which is what I’m worried about. You don’t go to that much trouble unless you’re fixated on someone.”
I glance down at Celeste’s Kindle and see a suggestive phrasing that makes my mouth twitch despite the briefing. I glance down: a sentence about “tender restraint” and “slow, deliberate binding.”
My voice goes tight. “Orion—can we park the forensics? I’ll give you a call about the Ashburn stuff later.”
“Uh—sure?” he says, confusion lacing his tone. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, keeping my tone light. “Talk soon.”
I disconnect the call and toss the phone back on the table.
I look up at Celeste. She’s on her side, staring at the Kindle balanced on my chest, hair falling over one eye, that smirk already forming. “What are you reading?”
She lifts it like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “A very kinky novella,” she says, eyes bright.
“Kinky?” I ask, the way she says it makes my mouth go dry.
“Mm-hmm.” She rolls toward me, hair spilling gold across the pillow. “It’s funny, but the sex is very kinky and very specific. It all starts when some riggers meet at a yoyo competition.”
Her smirk deepens, equal parts wicked and soft, and something in me tightens. She’s sprawled across my chest, she’s wearing my shirt, and her bare legs are crossed at the ankle.
Heat wakes low and dangerous. “Is it… something you want to try?” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to be. “I don’t want to assume. Not after everything.”
She meets me without blinking. “We can halfway try it; there are two men and a woman. I think I’m ready, I trust you, and I’ll try anything once with you.”
Those words are a fuse. My head fills with images, and my body answers before my brain can file the consequences. I swallow, need an anchor. “So… what’s happening in the book right now?”
Her lips curl in challenge and invitation braided together. “You really want to know?”
“Yeah. Because whatever it is in that book… I’m about to give you as much of the real version as I can.”
She laughs, and the sound is a match struck in the dark. The tension between us hums, electric and inevitable.