Chapter 20 Elliot
Two weeks later, I wake to the smell of coffee and the sound of snow falling outside the window.
The cottage is warm, the fire already crackling in the hearth. Pale morning light filters through the curtains, painting the room in soft greys and golds. I stretch under the blankets, feeling the pleasant ache of muscles that have finally learned to relax.
Jace isn't beside me. His side of the bed is cool, which means he's been up for a while.
I find him in the kitchen, standing at the stove, spatula in hand. He's wearing a soft grey sweater I bought him from the village market last week, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His feet are bare on the wooden floor.
He looks almost domestic. Almost normal.
It still catches me off guard sometimes, seeing him like this. The Reaper, the weapon, the man who killed two hundred and seventeen people without feeling anything at all—standing in a kitchen making eggs like it's the most natural thing in the world.
"You're staring," he says without turning around.
"You're making breakfast."
"I make breakfast every morning."
"I know. I'm still not used to it."
He glances over his shoulder, and there's something in his expression that might be amusement. Or fondness. I'm learning to read the subtle shifts in his face, the tiny movements that communicate what his words often don't.
"Sit," he says. "It's almost ready."
I slide onto one of the stools at the counter and wrap my hands around the mug of coffee he's already poured for me. It's exactly the way I like it—strong, a little sugar, no milk. He remembers everything. Files it away in that vast internal archive he maintains.
I used to find that unsettling. Now it just feels like being known. He smirks as he dishes up our plates and serves them before taking a seat.
“Smells amazing.”
“Same as always, babe, nothing new.”
My eyes roll and he chuckles. “Yeah, but it’s almost like I can smell the love.”
“Yeha, Yeah. Eat your food like a good boy.”
I reach across the counter and take his hand. His fingers curl around mine, automatic now, a gesture that's become as natural as breathing.
"Thank you," I say.
"Eat your breakfast."
I laugh, and the sound surprises me. It still does, sometimes. The ability to laugh, to feel light, to exist in a moment without waiting for it to shatter.
I eat.
After breakfast, we walk.
The path behind the cottage leads up into the mountains, winding through pine forest and across frozen streams. The snow is deep, but Jace cleared a trail yesterday, and we follow it now, breath misting in the cold air.
He walks beside me, close enough that our shoulders brush. He's always close now. Always within reach. I don't think he does it consciously anymore, it's become instinct, this need to keep me in his orbit.
I don't mind. I have the same need.
"What are you thinking about?" I ask.
"You."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I have." He stops walking, turns to face me.
The forest is silent around us, muffled by snow, and in this moment it feels like we're the only two people in the world.
"I spent thirty years learning to think about missions, objectives, outcomes.
Now I think about you. About whether you're warm enough.
Whether you slept well. Whether that shadow in your eyes means you're remembering something bad or just tired. "
My throat tightens. "Jace."
"I don't know how to be a person," he continues. "I don't know if I'll ever be one. But I know how to be yours.”
I step forward, press my face into his chest, feel his arms come around me. He's warm despite the cold, solid and real.
"It's enough for me," I say against his sweater.
We stand there for a long time, holding each other in the snow.
The afternoon passes slowly.
Jace reads by the fire, a novel I recommended, something about spies and double-crosses that made me think of him. I curl up on the other end of the couch, sketchbook in my lap, trying to capture the way the light falls across his face.
I've started drawing again. It's something I used to do, before—in my spare time in the cells, in between the auctions, before Moore, before my life became a series of survivals rather than experiences. Jace found a set of pencils in the village and brought them home without comment.
I haven't shown him any of the sketches yet. Most of them are of him.
"You're staring again," he says without looking up from his book.
"I'm drawing."
"You're drawing me."
"Maybe."
He does look up then, and there's a warmth in his eyes that makes my chest ache.
"Can I see?"
I hesitate. The sketches feel private, somehow. Intimate in a way that even sex isn't. They're evidence of how I see him, not the weapon, not the Reaper, but the man underneath. The one who makes me breakfast and clears snow from paths and holds me in the dark when the nightmares come.
But he asked. And I'm learning that giving him pieces of myself isn't losing them… it's sharing them.
I hand over the sketchbook.
He studies the pages in silence. His face doesn't change, but I watch his throat move as he swallows. His fingers trace the edge of one drawing—him asleep, face soft and unguarded in a way he never is when awake.
"Is this how you see me?" he asks.
"Yes."
"I look..."
"Human," I finish. "You look human."
He closes the sketchbook carefully, sets it on the table beside him. Then he reaches for me, pulls me across the couch and into his lap.
"I don't deserve you," he says.
"Probably not." I wrap my arms around his neck. "But you're stuck with me anyway."
"That sounds like a threat."
"It's a promise."
He kisses me then, deep and thorough, and I melt into him the way I always do.
Later, in the bedroom, I take my time.
I undress him slowly, piece by piece, pressing kisses to each inch of skin I reveal. He lets me, standing patient and still, his hands gentle on my shoulders.
"We don't have to," he says. "If you're tired—"
"I want to." I look up at him, fingers paused on the button of his pants. "I want you. Not because I need to forget something, or prove something, or reclaim something. Just because I want to be close to you."
His breath catches. It's a small sound, barely a rasp against his lips, but I've learned to hear the things he doesn't say.
"Okay," he murmurs. "Whatever you want."
I finish undressing him, then let him do the same to me. We stand together in the lamplight, bare and vulnerable, and it doesn't feel scary anymore. It just feels right.
We move to the bed.
He lays me down like I'm precious, something worth being careful with. His mouth traces a path from my jaw to my collarbone, slow and deliberate, tasting each inch of skin like he's memorizing me all over again. I arch into his touch, fingers threading through his hair.
"I love you," I tell him. I've said it a hundred times now, but it still feels new every time.
"I love you too." He lifts his head, meets my eyes.
I pull him down and kiss him.
His hands explore my body with familiar confidence, touching all the places he's learned make me gasp and shiver. My nipples, rolled between his fingers until I'm squirming. The sensitive skin of my inner thighs, stroked until I'm spreading my legs wider, wordlessly begging.
"Tell me what you want," he murmurs against my throat.
"You. Inside me. I want to feel you."
He reaches for the giant bottle of lube we keep in the nightstand now—another marker of domesticity, of building a life together. His fingers are slick and warm as they press inside me, one, then two, stretching me open with patient care.
"More," I breathe.
He adds a third finger, curling them just right, and I cry out as pleasure sparks through me. He knows my body so well now. Knows exactly how to take me apart.
"Ready?" he asks.
"Yes. Please."
He withdraws his fingers, slicks himself, and positions between my thighs. I wrap my legs around his waist as he pushes inside, slow and steady, filling me inch by inch until he's buried completely.
We both still, breathing together, adjusting to the sensation.
"Okay?" he asks.
"Perfect."
He starts to move, and the pleasure builds in slow waves. Not the desperate, frantic need of our earlier encounters—this is something softer. Something that takes its time.
His thrusts are deep and measured, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in. Each stroke brushes my prostate, sending ripples of pleasure through my entire body. I cling to him, nails raking down his back, lost in the rhythm we've built.
"You feel so good," he groans against my ear. "So perfect. You’re taking me so good. Such a good job for me.”
"Fuuuuck," I manage. "Stop or I’m going to cum."
The words push him harder, faster. His hand finds my cock, stroking in time with his thrusts, and the dual sensation is overwhelming. I'm climbing toward the edge, pleasure coiling tighter with every movement.
"Close," I warn him.
"Me too. Come with me. Let me feel you."
I let go.
The orgasm, when it comes, rolls through me like a tide—warm and overwhelming and endless. I cry out his name, clenching around him, spilling over his hand and my own stomach. He follows moments later, burying himself deep and pulsing inside me with a sound that's almost reverent.
We lie tangled together afterward, sweaty and satisfied and utterly at peace. He's still inside me, softening slowly, and neither of us makes any move to separate.
"Stay," I whisper against his chest. "Not just tonight. Not just until it's safe. Stay forever."
"Forever is a long time."
"I know." I tilt my head up to look at him. "I'm okay with that. Are you?"
He's quiet for a moment. I watch him process, calculate, run through scenarios the way he always does.
Then he smiles. It's small and rare and entirely real.
"Yes," he says. "I'm okay with that."
I wake in the middle of the night to find him watching me.
The moon is bright through the window, painting everything silver. His eyes are luminous in the darkness, fixed on my face with an intensity that would have terrified me once.
Now it just makes me feel seen.
"Can't sleep?" I murmur.
"I was counting."
"Counting what?"
"The ways you've changed me." His voice is soft, barely a whisper. "The things I feel now that I didn't feel before. The spaces inside me that you've filled."
"That sounds like a lot of counting."
"It is." He reaches out, traces a finger down my cheek. "I'm up to four hundred and six."
I laugh, soft and sleepy. "That's very specific."
"I'm a specific person."
"I know." I catch his hand, press a kiss to his palm. "I love that about you."
We settle back into each other, my head on his chest, his arm around my shoulders. The cottage is quiet around us. The fire has burned down to embers. Outside, the world is dark and cold and full of dangers we haven't finished facing.
But in here, there's warmth. There's safety. There's something I never thought I'd have.
"Jace?"
"Mm?"
" Webb, the tribunal, Protocol Omega, all of it—we ‘re going to win, right?"
"Yes." His arm tightens around me. "We are."
I close my eyes and let sleep take me.
The war is still out there. The Silent is still watching. The secrets in Moore's archive are still waiting to be uncovered, and somewhere, Webb is plotting revenge from his hiding spot.
But tonight, none of that matters.
Tonight, there's just us.
Two broken people who found each other in the dark and built something new from the wreckage.
It's not a fairy tale. We're not healed. The scars we carry will never fully fade. Memories will always be there.
But memories don’t hurt when there is a monster in the dark holding you as you fall asleep.