21. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
Julian
I used to watch her.
Even after the bond began to unravel, when the mark on my forearm dimmed from gold to ash, I kept reaching. Every breath she took echoed inside me. Her grief throbbed like a phantom limb. I’d hear her whisper my name, so faint it felt like a dream. But the bond doesn’t hum anymore. It doesn’t burn. It flickers now, like the final breath of something sacred.
The mark remains. Faint and quiet—a memory carved into skin. My soulmate’s mark. But it no longer connects us. She’s gone.
And I’m left powerless. Disgraced. Still immortal, but nothing like the creature I once was.
My power is gone. My blood is silent. The shadows refuse me. Fire won’t rise. Everything that once defined me—magic, rage, control—has gone still. Dormant. I can’t shift. Can’t conjure. Can’t feel anything but the cold.
They locked me in this house for protection, they said. Truthfully, it was to protect the name. The Duvain legacy can’t be seen bleeding. If anyone in Hell knew what I’d become, they’d circle like vultures.
So I rot here. Alone.
Some days I scream until my throat gives out. Her name is always first. Other days, I make no sound. I sit in the solarium, surrounded by the flowers she once touched. They wilt now, no matter how I tend them. Even the garden remembers.
I trace the mark like it still belongs to her. Even though it doesn’t. Not anymore. But I can’t let go.
They visit. The ones who used to define my world.
Owen arrives first. Always first. Quiet, like he knows words can’t touch what I’ve lost. He stares at the mark like he’s willing it back to life. But it stays cold.
Seth fills the silence with fury, politics, plans. Lucas leaves food. Damian watches me like he’s waiting for a version of me that’s long gone. Caleb reads poetry meant to stir something inside me, but it doesn’t. Adrian screams, calls me a coward. My mother rages against the dust in the halls. My father nods once, stoic, like dignity will keep this house standing.
Selene stays the longest. She brings tea, her quiet presence, and a warmth I don’t deserve. I never speak. She never asks.
They come because they have to. Because appearances matter in Hell. Because weakness isn’t allowed. They visit the ghost of who I was, say words they no longer believe, and leave.
And I stay.
A prisoner in a house without fire. A shadow in a body that forgot how to burn. I lost her. And with her, I lost everything.
Hell was never the punishment. Losing her was.
I finish the last chug of whiskey. I’m officially out. The bottle is empty, the silence too loud, and my eternity stretches out like a punishment without end. But this isn’t just my sentence. It’s hers too. Ophelia is immortal now, bound to the deal I made and the cost I paid. None of us—not even the Infernal Council—know what to do with that. The loom of fate is unraveling. Threads slip loose one by one, everything falling apart before we can catch it.
I push off the couch, unsteady from too many nights of nothing. Suddenly, I see it.
A flicker. Smoke curling at the edges of the room. A shift in the air, like something remembered how to burn again.
And suddenly, she’s there. Not an angel. Not a savior. A wound in the shape of a woman.
Ophelia. But not the one I remember. This isn’t the woman I danced with in darkness and firelight. She looks like something death forgot to finish.
Her eyes are sunken, ringed in exhaustion. Her hair hangs limp, tangled and dull. Her skin is pale, bruised in places, stretched too tight across bones that barely hold her together. She’s so thin it hurts to look at her.
Her arms are wrapped in haphazard bandages, but not enough to hide the damage. Deep cuts. Jagged scars. Burns. I catch a glimpse of her ribs—something carved there in desperation, in rage or sorrow or both. Above her heart, the mark. Mine. Still glowing faintly, barely clinging to her skin. The flesh around it is red and raw. Like she tried to rip it out.
She doesn’t speak, just stands there, shaking, more ghost than girl. And for the first time in months, the silence doesn’t feel like mine anymore. It feels like hers.
I get up and go straight to her.
I don’t even think. My body moves before my mind can catch up—like she’s gravity and I’ve been drifting too long without an anchor.
But when I stop in front of her, it hits me. The bruises. The scars. The way she’s barely holding herself up. The mark on her chest that still glows, flickering like a dying star.
And I realize—I don’t know what this is. A dream. A punishment. A reckoning.
She's here, but I don’t know how. This isn't how this happens. The mark flares to life and I see her. More importantly, I feel her. I feel power flood within in me. I know what this is. My abilities are back. And there is only one way that could happen.
"What did you do?" I ask in complete disbelief.
She doesn't say anything, but she does raise a brow. Like I should know. Like I should have an idea. The worst part is I do know. Maybe too well. She made a deal.
"What were the terms?"
"A fair trade. My soul for yours," she responds. Finally I get her to say something, but it's not what I want to hear.
The silence that follows is brutal. I feel it crush down on my chest like stone.
“I gave my soul so you could live,” I breathe, stepping forward. My hands are shaking now, fists clenched to keep from falling apart. “So you could breathe again. So you could stay.”
She laughs—sharp and wrecked. The kind of sound that doesn’t belong in her mouth.
“I couldn’t breathe, Julian,” she spits. “I couldn’t fucking breathe without you.”
Her hands fly to her chest, tearing at the fabric like she wants to rip the pain out physically. Her sleeves fall, and I see the damage. Deep, brutal, intentional. Not cries for help. Not hesitation. These were meant to end her.
My stomach twists.
“You call that living?” I ask, voice rising. “You call this surviving?”
“It was hell,” she screams. “Every day. Every second. Waking up and not knowing how to keep going. Talking to the walls, Julian. Whispering your name into the dark like it was a prayer no one ever planned to answer.”
She staggers back a step, like the weight of it all is finally too much. Her knees buckle, but she doesn’t fall. She’s trembling, breath ragged, eyes too wild. “You saved me,” she snarls. “And I died anyway. Just slower.”
She rips the bandage off her forearm—where the skin still bleeds—and holds it out like proof. “This is what I became without you. A ghost. A fucking corpse that kept waking up.”
“You were supposed to live,” I whisper, the words tearing out of me. “You were supposed to forget me. Move on. Heal.”
“I don’t want to heal!” she shrieks. “I want you. I wanted us. And if I couldn’t have that, I didn’t want anything.”
Her chest heaves. Her mouth opens, but no words come. Just that broken, strangled sound of someone who’s finally run out of grief to scream.
“You gave up your soul to save me,” she breathes, her eyes burning like she’s daring me to flinch from the truth. “And I gave up mine to bring you back.”
“We’re both fools,” I say, closing the distance. “Because I’d do it again. Every time. Even knowing how it ends.”
“I wouldn’t change a thing,” she whispers. “Except maybe how long it took us to say it.”
My fingers find the mark on her chest and the second I touch her, it detonates.
The bond doesn’t just reform. It erupts. It scorches. Crawling up my arm like wildfire through dry earth. Her spine arches with a choked sound as it tears across her chest, carving my soul back into her skin.
The air fractures. Like fate itself just snapped back into alignment.
She exhales and in the space between breath and regret, her fingers seize the front of my shirt. The fabric bunches under her grip as she yanks me forward, crashing her mouth into mine like she’s trying to erase the distance in one violent pull.
Her teeth catch my bottom lip. Her nails dig into my shoulders. And when her lips part, it’s on a broken sound that shatters between us. A sob. A gasp. A plea. I don’t know which—but I take it. Swallow it like it’s the only thing tethering me to the surface.
She tastes like salt and blood and something I haven’t had in months—hope.
Her hands thread into my hair, tugging me closer, like she’s afraid I’ll vanish again if she lets go. And I kiss her like I’m anchoring her to this moment—my mouth bruising against hers, my fingers trembling where they clutch her waist.
She moves against me like someone drowning. Like touch is oxygen. Like if she presses close enough, we can undo every minute we spent apart.
And maybe we can. Because right now—I don’t know where her pain ends and mine begins.
“I hate you,” she gasps against my mouth.
“I know,” I rasp. “I love you too.”
I shove her back against the wall, hard enough to make her gasp, and claim her lips again. She kisses like she’s punishing me. I kiss her like I’m owning what’s always been mine.
“You’re shaking,” I growl into her throat, dragging my mouth along the fragile curve. Her pulse hammers under my tongue. “Still trying to pretend you’re not mine?”
Her breath catches.
“You are,” I say, slow and brutal. “Every fucking inch of you.” I slide my hand beneath her shirt, fingers curling against her ribcage, and drag it upward until the fabric is gone, flung somewhere behind us. I don’t rush. I watch her. Watch how her breath hitches when I trace my thumb under the swell of her breast, circling her nipple until she whimpers.
“You’ve been starving,” I murmur, dragging my hand lower. “Haven’t you?”
She nods, barely. “Julian—”
Her name feels like prayer on my tongue, but I don’t say it. I drop to my knees instead.
I press my mouth to her stomach, her hips, her thighs. I taste her skin like it's the only tether to life I have left. I grip her legs and pull her to the edge of the bed, stripping her bare—slow, reverent, but with the kind of hunger that leaves no space for hesitation.
I spread her open and groan when I see her.
Wet. Swollen. Mine.
She jerks at the first touch of my tongue. My name breaks from her lips like she’s choking on it. I grip her thighs tighter, holding her in place as I drag my mouth up her slit, circling her clit with deliberate, unrelenting pressure.
“Oh—god—Julian—”
Her hips buck. She tries to run. I don’t let her. “You’re going to cum on my mouth,” I growl. “You’re going to scream for me. Now.”
And she does. And when I finally pull back, her entire body is trembling, wrecked and open, chest rising in shattered gasps. But I’m not done.
I strip off what’s left between us and push her back on the mattress, sliding between her thighs with a snarl that’s barely human. My cock presses against her entrance, thick and hard, and she arches up to meet me.
“Please,” she whispers. “I need—”
I thrust into her in one long, brutal stroke. Her scream is my name. Tight. Hot. Perfect. I feel everything.
I take her like I’m staking a claim—every thrust hard enough to remind her who she belongs to. I grab her wrists and pin them above her head, hips slamming into hers again and again, skin on skin, sweat and moans and breathless curses.
“You’re mine,” I snarl into her mouth.
“Yours,” she cries. “Only yours.”
Her walls clench around me and I lose it. My rhythm shatters. My mouth finds hers in a final, desperate kiss as we fall apart together—louder, rougher, more broken than anything I’ve ever known.
I carry her to the couch. Her body melts into the cushions, one leg draped over mine, her head resting against my chest. The fire crackles beside us, casting low light across her skin. Her mark pulses steady now—bright and sure, like it never left.
She looks up at me. “I think I’m supposed to take my place at the Loom.”
I nod slowly, brushing a hand down her hair. “It always belonged to you. Even before you knew.”
Her fingers find the center of my palm, tracing slow circles like she’s still grounding herself. “And you?”
“I go back to work,” I say, voice low. “The Council can’t hide me forever. I have debts to settle. Power to reclaim.”
“You’ll be different now,” she murmurs, watching me carefully.
“I already am.” I meet her eyes. “But I’ll be stronger for it. And so will you.”
She leans forward, mouth brushing my jaw. “We’ll do it together?”
“Always you,” I promise, my voice breaking just a little. “Always us. No more giving pieces of ourselves away.”
We dress in silence—not heavy or awkward, but reverent. Like something sacred has been rewritten between us. Her movements are smooth now, deliberate. Gone is the fragility that once lived in her frame. Her eyes, when they meet mine, are bright with clarity and strength. Not the kind she had before—but something new. Something earned.
When I reach for her hand, she takes it without hesitation. No words pass between us as we leave. None are needed.
The Council doesn’t summon us. They don’t need to. The moment our bond reformed, the Loom stirred awake, sending a pulse through the old veins of Hell that only the ancient would understand. And they felt it. They knew.
We walk together through the deepest corridors of the underworld—past the Vaults, beyond the Throne Hall, through the roots of Hell where even shadows are afraid to linger. At the very end, the doors wait.
Obsidian. Towering. Carved with old runes too deep for translation. They do not open for me.
But for her they part like breath, slow and thunderous.
The room beyond is nothing but darkness to my eyes. I see walls carved in black stone. An altar of sorts. And in the center, what I know must be the Loom. I can't see it—not truly. Not without her eyes, without her power. Without what she was always meant to become.
But I feel it. Ophelia steps inside alone.
She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t flinch. She walks with the kind of certainty you don’t learn—you remember. Like her feet already knew the way. I stay at the threshold, because this isn’t my place. This part belongs to her.
She moves toward what I cannot see, guided by a pull older than memory. When she kneels, it is not submission—it is arrival. And I let her go, into the dark, into the silence, into what was always hers.