Chapter 21 The Ring
Raze stands over the stove like he’s neutralizing a live bomb instead of preparing pasta, his muscles coiled tight beneath rolled sleeves. The scent that drifts through the kitchen is disarming—roasted garlic, sun-dried tomato, basil—warmth rendered tangible.
Grief edges in without warning.
My mom always cooked by hand. No spells, no shortcuts.
She claimed real flavor demanded labor. Patience, mess, devotion.
Even after sixteen-hour stints in the lab, she’d come home and insist on making every meal herself.
I used to sit at the counter taking in every precise movement, her mind elsewhere, her hands steady.
Now the kitchen is too quiet. Too clean.
My fingers tap out an erratic rhythm against the marble, the twitch of restlessness bleeding into my leg the moment I force them still.
Then I notice the apron Raze has on. It’s pink. Frilled, and bubblegum-bright, with a stitched cartoon heart that belongs in a love-themed bakery, not strapped to a man who once shattered someone’s jaw for wrinkling my coat.
A startled laugh escapes me. “What the hell are you wearing?”
Raze doesn’t blink. If anything, he squares his shoulders and grins.
“Touch a single thing in this kitchen and I’ll file you as a security threat,” he warns, brandishing the spoon with conviction. “After last week’s catastrophe, you’re officially on the culinary blacklist.”
“The fire was minor—”
“You incinerated a lasagna. Kane still has nightmares about it.” He jabs the spoon toward me. “I’ve killed men for less catastrophic crimes against pasta. Besides, I refuse to survive another week of takeout. This body is a temple of violence, Ellis. It requires real sustenance.”
I snort into my wine. “Your modesty is humbling.”
“Pragmatism,” he deadpans. “If I get soft, who’s going to keep you alive when the masses discover you’re marrying Eclipsera’s most eligible bachelor?
” He plates the food with militaristic exactness, setting a fork down in front of me.
“Try not to offend the gods of cuisine while I’m gone.
I need five uninterrupted minutes of sanity. ”
“What could I possibly ruin? The sauce?”
He chuckles under his breath, already stalking off and muttering something about protein balance, and how his combat certifications never included emotionally unstable brides with arsonist tendencies.
I hide a smile behind my glass. For a man tasked with monitoring my every move, Raze has perfected the art of creating space without relinquishing control.
He cooks. He threatens. He pretends not to see the cracks when I start to break.
Mom would have liked him. Or, at the very least, respected the pasta.
When I finish eating, he reappears carrying two items: a dish towel draped over his shoulder in quiet defeat, and a black velvet box that sends my pulse skidding sideways.
“Delivery,” he says, setting it down like it might detonate. “Figured you’d want solitude for this one. Kane’s not on till midnight, so you’re stuck with me. I’ll be in the next room, actively ignoring your existential spiral.”
“Thanks,” I manage, but my voice cracks on the word. He’s already gone, boots retreating with the expertise of someone who’s witnessed far too many emotional implosions to bother counting.
The box sits there like a death sentence dressed in velvet, and my hands tremble as I reach for it. I have to curl them into fists twice before I can summon enough control to lift the lid.
When I finally pry it open, the ring inside is exactly the kind of absurd I should have anticipated. The diamond is audacious—cut like a weapon, cold and vicious in its clarity. It doesn’t just declare affluence; it weaponizes it, daring anyone to question its origin or intent.
Beneath it, folded with precise angles that somehow manage to look angry, is a note in Dom’s familiar slash of handwriting.
Since I can’t be there to put this on your finger, and because Father insists on turning every private moment into a spectacle, I thought I’d send it ahead. You’re probably rolling your eyes already. Good. I’d be worried if you weren’t.
If you hate the ring (and odds are you do), feel free to weaponize it. Hurl it at someone deserving. Melt it down. Pawn it for a fresh identity and enough funds to disappear into a life of luxury and plausible deniability.
Now, a few things.
I hope my mother hasn’t driven you completely mad yet. Though in fairness, I’ve endured twenty-five years of her curated chaos, so if she’s being unbearable, that’s just her baseline. There’s a reason I avoid her soirées unless physically restrained. But she likes you, that’s the terrifying part.
As for Margaux . . . I told her to behave.
Repeatedly. I even bribed her with that ridiculous perfume she hoards and offered to bankroll her next miniature coup.
Still, she’s Margaux. You’ll know within five minutes whether she’s playing nice or plotting regicide.
I’d offer an apology, but I make it a policy never to apologize for family. It only encourages them.
I miss you.
Not in the tortured, candlelit, sonnet-reciting kind of way. More like the silence is too quiet, too long. No one’s around to insult me properly or threaten to stab me for being unbearable.
I know you think I’m bleeding out in some subterranean dungeon, but I’m fine. Truly. Father hasn’t had cause to drain me yet. Shocking, I know. Either he’s distracted or mellowing with age. (Doubtful, but one can dream.)
Anyway, try not to impale anyone important. Unless it’s absolutely justified. I’ll see you soon. Or not soon enough.
—D
The laugh that escapes me is too raw. It cracks open something splintered in my chest, and the ache I’ve been pretending wasn’t there rushes in.
Two weeks of silence and separation, my only tether these notes Raze delivers as if they’re contraband.
My throat tightens until breath becomes a struggle, and I press my palms to the table, grounding myself before I unravel completely.
The ring shackles my finger like a diamond-studded sentence.
It’s ostentatious and excessive and everything I despise, making it perfect for the role I’m expected to play.
I flex my hand, following the way light fractures across the stone’s surface, trying to ignore the cold bite of metal against trembling skin.
Once, when I was young enough to believe in fairy tales, I’d dreamed of a wedding.
Something quiet and honest, before I learned that in our world, marriage is another currency.
Another leash. Now here I am, dressed in white for a game that stains everything red, where love isn’t sanctuary but leverage.
At least I’ll have Dom beside me in this gilded prison.
There are worse men to marry. And I do love him—in the way storms love wreckage, in the way ruin recognizes itself.
His darkness speaks to mine. Sometimes, I let myself imagine escape.
Him and me, vanishing into some forgotten corner of the world, far from the bloodied legacy we were born to serve.
But Eclipsera’s grip runs deep, its claws buried in bone.
Every day I remain, I rot a little more.
This city doesn’t just run on power. It’s built on silence, sacrifice, and love that demands blood in exchange for permission to feel.
I fold his note carefully, tucking it into the desk drawer where it joins its brothers. For a moment, I lean my forehead against the wood, breathing in the lingering scent of faded ink and Mom’s vanished presence. A single tear slips loose, and I swipe it away with an irritated hand.
Raze doesn’t check on me. He never does when the quiet turns oppressive. That’s why I trust him. He pretends not to notice when my breath stutters, or when I have to steady myself before I stand. He lets me break without commentary.
I don’t go to bed, instead I settle into the living room, surrounded by the files Kian “generously” provided about the Apex Initiative. The fire hisses low, casting shadows that writhe across sheets of research and fragmented data, making the clinical language seem even more sinister.
I keep glancing at the door. Hoping stupidly that tonight might be different.
That Luna will finally come home. We haven’t spoken since the fight.
Only the occasional creak of floorboards at impossible hours reminds me she still exists.
I want to tell her about Dom, the wedding, all of it.
But I already know how it would go. She’d accuse him.
Say I’m being manipulated. That I’m trading too much for a boy made of shadow and bad decisions.
And maybe she’d be right. But I made this choice. I signed the contract and stepped into the role. I just didn’t expect the fiction to be so lived-in.
The research in front of me confirms what I’d suspected, detailed protocols for extracting magical essence from creatures to create hybrids. What turns my stomach is the theoretical framework for human implementation.
I remember the screams, the way the creatures writhed during extraction.
The pain was beyond anything I’d seen, and these notes suggest the hybrid creation process is even worse.
If they ever move to human trials . . . I shudder thinking about who would willingly submit themselves to that kind of agony.
“You know,” Raze says, slicing through my spiral with his usual bluntness, “normal people sleep at night.”
I don’t glance up from the papers. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
“At the rate you’re going, that’ll be any day now.” He adjusts his weapon holster, preparing to swap shifts with Kane. “Suit yourself, but don’t blame me when you face Madeline Shaw tomorrow looking half-devoured by void hounds.”