Chapter 15 - Cora
Cora caught the smell of coffee as soon as she walked out of her bedroom. It wasn’t the comforting, “wake up to a perfect morning” aroma—it was burnt, bitter, and distinctly overdone. She paused at the edge of the hallway, crossing her arms as her gaze landed on Grayson.
He stood in the kitchen, his shoulders tense, staring down at the coffee maker as though sheer willpower could fix whatever disaster he’d created. His shirt clung to him in places, and his hair was mussed enough to make her suspect he hadn’t been to bed at all.
“You know, coffee doesn’t usually require brute force,” she said, leaning against the doorframe.
Grayson glanced up, startled, but quickly masked it. “You’re one to talk. Last time you tried this, the microwave almost caught fire.”
She ignored the jab, stepping closer. “Late night?”
“Something like that.” He scrubbed a hand down his face, and the shadows under his eyes made him look even more exhausted than usual. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Cora gave him a once-over, noting the tight set of his jaw and the faint lines that deepened when he frowned. “You look like you’ve been wrestling bears.”
“Close enough.”
She rolled her eyes and moved past him toward the stove. “You’re hopeless.”
“What are you doing?” he asked, frowning as she began pulling ingredients from the fridge.
“Making breakfast,” she replied, cracking eggs into a bowl. “You need it more than I do. Sit.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sit,” she repeated, her tone leaving no room for argument. “And don’t you dare try to tell me you’re not hungry. I’ve seen the way you inhale food when you think no one’s watching.”
Grayson hesitated, clearly debating whether to argue, but eventually, he sighed and sat down at the table. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I know,” she said, whisking the eggs with quick, practiced motions. “That’s why I’m doing it. You look like you’re about to keel over.”
She could feel his eyes on her as she moved around the kitchen, the weight of his attention pressing against her back. Normally, she’d find it annoying—or unnerving—but today, it felt…different. Softer, somehow.
“You don’t have to take care of me,” he said after a moment.
“Maybe I want to,” she countered, flipping a slice of bread onto the skillet for toast. “Ever think of that?”
He didn’t respond, but the silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it felt strangely intimate, like they were sharing something unspoken.
When she finally set a plate in front of him, she gave him a pointed look. “Eat.”
Grayson picked up his fork and took a bite, and Cora smirked when she saw his shoulders relax ever so slightly.
“Good?” she asked, sitting across from him with her own plate.
“Better than what I was going to make,” he admitted.
“That’s not saying much.”
His lips twitched, but he didn’t argue. They ate in relative silence for a while, the clink of utensils and the faint sizzle of the stove the only sounds. Cora kept stealing glances at him, watching as the tension in his posture slowly ebbed away.
“Why do you do it?” she asked suddenly, setting her fork down.
Grayson looked up, his brow furrowing. “Do what?”
“Push yourself so hard,” she said, gesturing toward him. “You’re always working, always on edge. You act like the whole world’s going to fall apart if you stop for two seconds.”
“It might,” he said simply.
“That’s not an answer.”
He leaned back in his chair, his expression guarded. “It’s my job.”
“No, it’s more than that,” she pressed. “You don’t just do your job, Grayson. You go above and beyond, to the point where it’s…honestly kind of insane.”
“I have my reasons.”
“Care to share?”
He hesitated, and for a moment, she thought he might actually open up. But then he shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Grayson sighed, running a hand through his hair. “There are people depending on me. People I’ve let down before. I’m not making that mistake again.”
Cora frowned, tilting her head. “What do you mean, ‘let down?’ You mean Emily?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, his tone final.
“It matters to me,” she said quietly.
His gaze flicked to hers, and something in his expression softened. He looked at her like he wanted to say something, but the words never came. Instead, he shook his head again and looked away.
“You’re impossible,” she muttered, picking up her fork again.
“So I’ve been told.”
They lapsed into silence once more, but Cora’s mind was racing.
She didn’t know what to make of Grayson sometimes—how he could be so infuriatingly closed off yet so fiercely protective.
How he could make her feel like she was the only thing that mattered, even when he insisted he didn’t want to be tied to her.
“Can I ask you something?” she said after a while.
Grayson raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to anyway.”
She rolled her eyes. “What would you be doing right now if none of this had happened? If there was no bond, no auction, no Theodore?”
He seemed to consider her question for a moment, his gaze distant. “Probably still chasing down people like him. It’s what I’ve always done.”
“Even if it meant giving up everything else?”
He met her eyes, and she saw a flicker of something vulnerable beneath his usually stoic exterior for the first time. “Some things are worth giving up.”
Her chest tightened at the weight of his words, and she looked away, focusing on the last bite of her toast. “That’s a depressing answer.”
“Reality usually is.”
Cora set her fork down and leaned back in her chair, studying him. “Do you ever wish you’d chosen differently?”
“Every day,” he admitted, his voice low.
The honesty in his tone took her by surprise, and she didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected him to answer at all, let alone with such raw truth.
“What about you?” he asked, breaking the silence. “Do you wish things had gone differently?”
Cora caught herself fiddling with the edge of her plate and forced her hands to still. The weight of Grayson’s question lingered in the air, and for once, she didn’t try to brush it off. If he could be honest, maybe she owed him the same.
“I didn’t want it,” she admitted finally, her voice quieter now. “Leading the coven. It was never about ability. I could’ve done it. Hell, I probably would’ve been good at it, but…it’s not what I wanted.”
Grayson set down his fork, his attention fixed entirely on her. “Why not?”
“Because it wasn’t my choice,” she said, a flicker of frustration rising with the words.
“From the moment I was old enough to understand what leadership meant, my parents made it clear that it was expected of me. Not asked—expected. There was never any room for discussion, no moment where they said, ‘What do you want, Cora?’”
Her voice tightened, and she pushed her plate aside.
“The coven meant well, I guess. They thought they were giving me this incredible legacy, this gift. But all I ever saw was the responsibility. The constant weight of being everything to everyone. Always making decisions for the good of the group, even if it meant losing pieces of myself.”
Grayson’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t interrupt. He just listened, his expression steady, making her feel like it was okay to keep going.
“I didn’t want to spend my life pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
Pretending that every rule and tradition was sacred when all I wanted was to figure out who I was without all that hanging over me.
” She sighed, raking a hand through her hair.
“And when I told them I didn’t want it, you’d think I’d set the whole coven on fire.
They said I was being selfish and reckless.
That I was turning my back on my family, maybe they were right. ”
“They weren’t,” Grayson said firmly.
Her gaze snapped to his. “How can you say that? You didn’t know them. You didn’t know me back then.”
“I don’t have to. I know what it feels like to be backed into a corner, to have people expect you to give up your whole life for something they think is more important than you. Choosing yourself… That’s not selfish, Cora. That’s survival.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It’s not,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean they were right. Wanting something for yourself doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you human.”
She shook her head, and a bitter laugh escaped her lips. “It didn’t feel very human when I left. I thought I’d feel free, but mostly, I just felt…lost.”
“And now?”
“Now,” she said, staring at the table, “I don’t know. Some days, I feel like I made the right choice. Other days, I wonder if I ran away from something I could’ve fixed.”
Grayson leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “You didn’t run away. You made a choice. There’s a difference.”
The simplicity of his statement hit her harder than she expected. She hadn’t thought about it that way before—as a choice, not an escape. But hearing him say it, with that unwavering certainty, made it somehow feel true.
“I guess. It’s just hard, you know? Feeling like no matter what I do, I’m always going to let someone down.”
“You can’t please everyone,” he said, his tone blunt but not unkind. “Trust me. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work.”
She smiled faintly. “You don’t strike me as the people-pleasing type.”
“I’m not,” he admitted. “But I know what it’s like to carry the weight of expectations. And I know how much it sucks when those expectations don’t leave any room for you to just…exist.”
Her stomach flipped at the way he said it as if he understood her in a way no one else ever had. “You’re not as much of a hard-ass as you like to pretend, are you?”
“Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my reputation.”
The unexpected humor made her laugh, and for the first time in what felt like forever, it wasn’t forced. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Good. Because I think I’m starting to like this version of you. The one who lets her guard down every once in a while.”