Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
TWISTED HEARTS
Azariel
“He was my storm, and I was the lovesick fool who danced in his beautiful thunder.” – P
M orning crept in soft and slow, spilling gold across the cold marble floor like it belonged here. It didn’t. At least it didn’t before her. Now it does.
I blinked toward the window, realizing I’d forgotten to close the curtains. The sun was too bright for a room that had held so much darkness.
Her voice—husky, sweet, and etched into the very fabric of my bones—whispers through my mind, stirring things only she ever could. Things only she ever will.
I’m a grown man, one with more blood on his hands than in his veins, yet here I am—heart pounding like some love-struck kid.
I turned to the clock on the nightstand. It read seven thirty in the morning. I slept. Really slept. The whole night. After carrying Poe to her room, after the garden, after she looked at me like I was something worth staying for. Someone worth loving.
That vision still burned behind my eyes and it’s all I saw when I closed my eyes. Not the blood. Not the people I’ve killed. Not the dark. Not a fucking number.
Poe.
Her in that white silk dress, clinging to every perfect curve like it had been made just to fuck with my head. Her long blue hair poured over her shoulders like a wild river at midnight. She stood in the garden I had made just for her, surrounded by blue roses and towering statues, the night sky thick above her, and still… she was the only thing I saw. The most beautiful thing right there.
Fuck.
Years of only shadows. Years of craving her through a screen. Years of unsent letters. Now she’s under my roof. Breathing my air. Sleeping behind my walls. And I’m never letting her go. I’m not sure I could let her go, even if she begged me. I’d walk through fire, raze cities, reduce the world to ash at her feet if it made her smile. If she asked it of me…
But letting Poe go?
That’s the one thing I don’t think I’ll ever be capable of.
Not when she’s the only light I ever learned to love in all this darkness.
Love.
The very thought of it used to make my skin crawl and want to destroy anything that crossed my path.
But then she found me and everything changed.
Love didn’t hurt anymore.
How could it?
Not when love is her. Love is blue. Love is funny. Love is brilliant. Love is Poe.
I rose from bed slowly, the weight of what I felt for her pressing into my spine. Gray sweats hung low on my hips as I sat at the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, hands loose, steepled in front of me. My eyes dropped to my fingers—ink crawling up every single one but the ring finger.
That one, I left bare.
As I looked at it, I thought of her. And for the first time in too many years, my chest didn’t feel tight. I didn’t feel like I was drowning in my own skin. That pressure I used to carry like both a sword and a shield? The one that kept her away? It has vanished. Not numb. Not softened. It just vanished.
Because she’s here. Because she saw through me.
Last night, I slept like a fucking king. No ghosts in my mind. No demons in my heart. Just her sweet scent on my hands and the warmth of her still clinging to my skin.
I even dreamed.
Blue hair tangled in my fists. Plump pink lips that tasted like cherries and sin. Green eyes that saw too much and still didn’t look away. If sin had a body, it would curve like Poe’s—temptation wrapped in skin and soft smirks.
I never dream. Never. Not when I sleep. Not when I’m awake. I never got the chance to dream when the reality of this world was carved into my soul. There’s no room for dreams when monsters don’t hide under your bed…
They lived inside men like me.
But last night I did. It wasn’t dark, bloody or haunted. No. It was holy. It was something made of starlight and shadows, something far too good for someone like me to touch.
But I touched her anyway. I claimed her.
And now that I’ve had her, I won’t survive losing her.
Her words kissed my soul.
“I see you, Azariel. You’ve always been all I ever saw.”
Her voice still runs through me like the fire she lit in my chest—slow, steady, and very fucking hard to put out.
She never flinched. Never lied. Never backed down.
She saw the man. The quiet, cold bastard who made her feel like she wasn’t seen when in reality she was everything beautiful I saw. She saw the boy who learned to survive by becoming untouchable.
But that’s not all I was.
She hadn’t met the other half yet.
The part of me that didn’t dream.
The part that didn’t have nightmares because it was the nightmare in skin and bones.
The part that hungered for blood.
That destroyed to protect. That loved like a never-ending war—bloodied, brutal, and merciless.
The monster.
The beast in me.
The one that was born in silence and raised in darkness. Fed by violence. Shaped by cruelty. That beast doesn’t know how to love softly. It only knows how to possess. How to claim. How to guard what’s his with sharp teeth, blood-covered claws, and a fury that scorches everything that is a threat.
She’s seen the man.
But the beast?
She still has to choose him, too.
Because I can’t separate them. One breathes because of the other. And both live because of her.
And when she finally sees everything I am—every bloody, brutal part—I don’t know if she’ll stay.
Or if she’ll run from it.
Poe wasn’t raised in madness.
The ugliness of this world didn’t sink its claws into her the way it did me.
And as long as there’s blood in my veins and breath in my lungs—it never will.
I smiled at the memory of her in my arms, looking at me as if I held all the secrets of her heart. I smiled like a man already madly in love with the fire he knows will burn him alive someday.
She cracked something open in me last night. Something I buried deep within so no one could ever find it.
It wasn’t weakness— although she’s my only one.
It was a spark of the man I never thought it was possible to be. The man my mother swore to me I would find when love took over my heart.
The man who could believe in a love that transcends death and the boy who swore he’d never offer his heart to anyone.
Poe did that without even trying.
And there she was.
In my arms with a blue rose tucked behind her ear, barefoot, glowing like the moonlight she was carved from. My name stitched into her bones. She didn’t say how she felt. She didn’t need to.
I wonder if she was up?
I’m the one who gets up first and make her food but today I overslept. Shit.
I grabbed my phone. Notifications flooded the screen— missed calls, various messages from my family, and updates from my businesses. I ignored all of it and went straight to the security app. The cameras lit up one by one. Rooms, corridors, kitchen, garden and lastly the ballroom. I leaned forward, watching the chaos unfold like every year before this one.
A small staff moved through the grand hall, weaving silently around one another as they hung decorations in every corner.
Blue and black ribbons trailed along the staircases and doorways. Blue roses were arranged with precise care, overflowing from sleek black vases and cascading in dramatic pools across the marble floor. Above them, chandeliers floated toward the high, arched ceiling, their crystals catching the pale sunlight across the cold stone walls.
All of this, for a celebration I never asked for. I never did.
I couldn’t care less about my birthday. It was just another day to me. I’d never celebrated it before my parents found me, so I learned early on that it wasn’t anything special. In fact, I hated it. The day I was brought into this world—I hated it.
But my mother… she insisted on it. Every year. A grand celebration, a reminder of my existence. It made her happy, and so, I endured it.
The decorations, the guests, the smiles—none of it mattered to me. But it mattered to her. It made her happy. And that was enough for me to stand through the charade. For her, I’d pretend to enjoy it.
But today... I forgot what day it was. I’ve been so consumed by Poe that it slipped my mind. Now, in truth today is not the actual day of my birth. Today is the day my mother found me and brought me into her world. She chose this day as my birthday and we’ve celebrated since. My real birthday is in a few days. That one I don’t celebrate. At all.
I was about to put down the phone and go in search of Poe when I saw her.
She was standing right in the middle of the chaos in the ballroom, laughing at something one of the workers said. I brought the phone closer to my face to see her more closely.
She twirled a ribbon between her fingers, soft blue against her skin, and my stomach twisted.
I watched her tilt her head, biting her lip, half shy as she answered something. Then she laughed again, covering her mouth. And the man she was speaking to—he smiled like she’d just handed him the sun.
I clenched my jaw so tight I felt it crack.
Jealousy.
Burning under my ribs like wildfire.
I didn’t like the way she looked so comfortable as if they knew each other. I didn’t like the way he was looking at her. I didn’t like that he made her laugh. Like he had any right.
She was mine.
I knew exactly what he was seeing—the most stunning creature he would ever encounter in his miserable life.
She looked breathtakingly stunning this morning. A beige, skin-tight skirt that hugged her curves like it was painted on. It draped down to her ankles, leaving nothing to the imagination. And the way it showcased those mouthwatering curves? Fuck. She paired it with a plain white shirt tied just right at the front, like she knew what it was doing to every inch of my control.
Her feet were bare in cream sandals, and her hair was pulled into a simple ponytail that somehow made her plump, perfect ass look like it belonged in a sculpture. She hadn’t even bothered with makeup—and it didn’t matter. She was stunning without it.
And then… then I heard her laugh again.
I could feel my teeth clenching, my hands turning into fists. I didn’t even realize I was on my feet until I tossed my phone aside. No time for careful dressing—just grabbed a black shirt, dark pants, and a seething fury crawling under my skin.
My cat, as usual, was hot on my heels, probably wondering what the hell I was about to do now.
Her laugh hit me before I even reached the hall. It was soft, sweet, and—God help me—dangerous.
I stormed down the stairs, barely even aware of my steps, until I reached the ballroom entrance. I froze in place.
There she was.
Spinning in place, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkling with mischief, with a piece of ribbon tied around her wrist like some kind of playful, deadly temptation. The idiot worker beside her was grinning like a fool, looking at her like she was the sun and the stars combined.
And then, she saw me.
For a split second, she froze—like she didn’t know whether to laugh, hug me or run.
And then that damn spark lit her beautiful face.
She grinned, and I felt the sting of jealousy shoot through me like acid once again. The little tease…
“Don’t even,” she said with a teasing smile. “I’m not interested in anyone else, just a heartless, handsome devil.” She wiggled her eyebrows making her look like a cartoon.
Fuck.
I crossed my arms. “You’re lucky you’re so fucking cute,” I muttered, my own smile breaking through despite myself.
“Yeah, yeah,” she teased, spinning a single rose in her hand. “Keep telling yourself that while you’re green with jealousy.”
“Who gave you that? Him?” I look behind me where the asshole now was blowing balloons.
“Lucas.”
I breathed through my nose and tried to control the anger that was rising. I gently took the rose from her and threw it with all the others that were atop a table.
“Hey, that was mine.” She pouted but the twinkling in her green eyes told me she was playing with me.
“You have thousands of roses outside in the garden. Those are yours.” I grumbled.
I watched how her eyes softened. Yeah, fuck. I’m obsessed with this woman.
She stepped closer so I could smell her sweet perfume and the natural scent of her skin. I inhale her like I need her to breathe.
“I know. Thank you.” Pink filled her cheeks. She looked shy and as much as I love the side of her that gives me lip, her sweet and shy side that doesn’t come out often makes me wild. “You look adorable when you’re jealous, you know. I like it.”
I stepped closer, arms folded. “You like fucking with my head?”
Her lips twitched. “Maybe a little. You know Lucas there told me I reminded him of a famous model.”
I clenched my teeth.
Did he now? I cracked my knuckles, the need to pound his face took over.
Poe tilted her head, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Azariel.”
I didn’t answer.
Fuck, I was jealous.
I’m jealous of my own damn cat when he gets pet by her.
“You are,” she whispered with a small smile, stepping toward me like she was taming a wild animal. “Your eye’s twitching. It only does that when you’re mad.”
So she noticed…
“Keep talking.” I grinned.
Her lashes fluttered and her smile grew. So pretty. “Or what?”
The little tease loved fucking with me.
I took one more step. Closer now. I could feel the heat from her skin. Smell the vanilla shampoo in her hair. My hand slid up, fingers curling under her jaw as I tilted her chin toward me.
“You want to find out?” I murmured.
She swallowed. Her eyes flicked down to my mouth and back as she bit her lip sensually. “M-maybe.”
“Careful, baby,” I said, voice dark and quiet. “You play with fire, you’ll get burned.”
She lifted her chin. “Then burn me.”
God help me.
Burned her, I did.
I crushed my mouth to hers.
She gasped into the kiss—shocked, soft, and then hungry. Her hands gripped my naked arms, pulling me closer like she couldn’t stand even an inch between us. I kissed her deep, like it was the only language I knew. With this kiss, I give her all of me. Everything good and bad. Pretty and ugly. It’s all hers.
And she kissed me back like she’d waited a thousand years for it.
When I finally pulled back, I stayed close. Our foreheads touched, breath mingling, hearts pounding.
Her lips were kiss-swollen, her eyes dazed and glowing. “So,” she whispered, trying not to smile. “You were jealous.”
I let out a breath that sounded too much like a growl. “I don’t fucking share.”
Poe grinned, that sweet sass glimmering through again. “Lucky for you... I wasn’t offering.”
I stared at her, wanting— no, needing more of her.
“Spend the day with me today,” I whispered.
Her smile softened. “Try to stop me.”
But then she frowned, looking me over. “Put a shirt on first.”
I couldn’t help but grin wickedly. “Now who’s jealous?”
“Shut up,” she mumbled, but her tone was playful.
And then I did. I shut her up with my mouth, and with every sweet kiss she gave me back, she stole a little more of my heart, claiming everything I had left and making it all hers.