Chapter 23
THAT'S... ACTUALLY KIND OF CREEPY.
I awoke with a start, the pre-dawn darkness pressing against my windows like a physical weight.
Something had pulled me from sleep… a noise, a shift in the air, a sixth sense honed by years of living with one foot in the supernatural world.
My eyes adjusted slowly to the shadows, pulse quickening as they settled on the silhouette standing at the foot of my bed.
Not Grayson's lean frame or Kearan's careful posture.
This was someone else entirely, someone who hadn't bothered to knock.
"Goddammit, Ro," I hissed, shoving myself upright. "This is the third time this week. Learn what a door is for."
He didn't move, didn't respond to the anger in my voice. Just stood there, a study in predatory stillness, backlit by the weak moonlight filtering through my curtains. The silence stretched between us, heavy with things neither of us was willing to say.
"You did well with the demon," he finally said, each word measured and precise. "Better than I expected."
I blinked, surprise momentarily displacing my irritation. Ro didn't compliment people. He evaluated them, criticized them, occasionally tolerated them, but praise? That wasn't in his vocabulary.
"Is that a compliment?" I asked, unable to keep the suspicion from my voice. "From you?"
His mouth curved, a gesture that had nothing to do with humor. "It's a warning dressed up as one."
I pushed back against the headboard, putting what little distance I could between us in the small room.
My sleep shirt, one of Grayson's old tees, slipped off one shoulder, but I didn't bother adjusting it.
Let Ro be uncomfortable. He deserved it for breaking into my room at.
.. I glanced at the clock... 4:17 in the morning.
"I'm in a lot of danger, aren't I?" I asked, cutting straight to the point. No point dancing around it. "More than just the usual 'half-demon whose father once annoyed hell' danger."
He nodded once, sharp and decisive. "The demon you expelled was a scout. Part of a network."
My stomach twisted. "What kind of network?"
"The kind that's been waiting for someone exactly like you to slip up.
" He took a single step closer, the shadows shifting around him like living things.
"By expelling it—by using chaos/intention magic in front of witnesses—you've announced yourself to something much older and larger than my usual enemies. "
The air between us felt suddenly charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. "You mean Zandia's enemies."
"I mean entities that make Zandia look like an amateur.
" His voice dropped lower, rougher. "The Soul Ring forming and then going missing woke up whatever wasn't already paying attention.
Your witch's blood is awakening. You bonding with your mates one by one.
All of it has been watched. Has been for longer than you know. "
Something cold slithered down my spine. "Who is watching?"
He paused, the hesitation was so brief I almost missed it. But I caught the flash of something crossing his face before his expression smoothed back to its usual mask.
"Someone who's been in your life as long as I have," he finally said.
The words landed like stones. Someone in my life already. Someone close enough to watch me constantly, to track my every move without me noticing. The possibilities raced through my mind, but none of them fit. None of them had been in my life "longer" than Ro.
"How?" I demanded.
His smile turned bitter. "I pay attention, Parker. To details, to patterns, to you. So do they."
The simple statement hung between us, weighted with implications I wasn't ready to examine.
Something softened in my chest, a feeling I quickly smothered before it could take root.
I'd seen glimpses of this before… Ro stepping between me and danger without being asked, Ro showing up exactly when things were about to go sideways, Ro knowing things about me he had no logical way of knowing.
But hearing it acknowledged, however obliquely, made it real in a way I couldn't dismiss.
"That's... actually kind of creepy," I said, aiming for levity and missing by a mile.
His eyes met mine, intense and unreadable. "I know."
We stared at each other in the half-dark, an understanding passing between us that I couldn't put into words and he wouldn't. Ro was on my side.
Not openly, not in a way that made him vulnerable, but consistently, quietly, in all the ways that mattered.
And somehow, impossibly, I'd started to trust that. To rely on it, even.
He stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body. "Put the ring back on," he said, voice harder now, edged with urgency. "Embrace what you are. The demon half isn't a liability… it's armor."
I shook my head. "No."
No explanation. No justification. Just a flat refusal that hung in the air between us.
Ro's jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the skin. "You're in danger as long as that ring exists and you're not wearing it. Every creature who can smell demon blood knows what a free soul ring means. You're a beacon."
"I'll deal with that," I said, voice steadier than I felt.
He stared at me for a long moment, frustration and something darker moving behind his eyes.
I expected anger. Demands. Threats, maybe.
What I got was worse… silent acceptance.
He wouldn't push. Couldn't. Because forcing me to wear the ring would be no better than Zandia's manipulations, and Ro, for all his darkness, had manipulated me to a certain point but never passed it.
"Get your bonds complete," he said finally, each word precise. "All of them. You don't have much time before—" He stopped abruptly, cutting himself off.
"Before what?" I pressed, leaning forward.
He shook his head. "Just do it."
And then he was gone, slipping through time and space, leaving nothing but a whisper of displaced air and the lingering scent of smoke and cinnamon.
I sat in the sudden quiet, heart hammering against my ribs. Morning was coming, whether I was ready for it or not.
My eyes drifted to the nightstand, where the grimoire lay beside the dagger.
I reached for it, fingers brushing the worn leather cover.
It opened at my touch, pages flipping to the exact spot where the soul ring waited, nestled in the binding.
I lifted it carefully, feeling its weight in my palm…
heavier than it should be, humming with potential power.
I'd said I wasn't putting it back on. I wouldn't be able to remove it once I put it on, and it would amplify my demon powers. But when would be the right time? Ro had gone through a lot to get me to create it, so there was a purpose for it. He wouldn't waste his time otherwise.
Was the time right now? With demons circling, with Zandia moving her pieces across the board, with Ro's cryptic warning hanging in the air?
I closed my fingers around the ring, feeling its edges bite into my palm.
Not yet. I wasn't ready. Not for what the ring demanded, not for what wearing it would mean.
I'd face the danger my way… with my mates beside me, with the power I'd already claimed, with the bonds I was still forging.
Besides, I still hoped for a way to return the soul to the human who'd bartered it.
I tucked the ring back into the grimoire's spine and closed the book with careful hands.
Outside my door, the compound was stirring to life, voices and footsteps and the mechanical sounds of the day beginning.
Soon, my team would be looking for me. Questions would need answers. Plans would need making.
But for now, in these last moments of quiet, I allowed myself one small truth: Ro was trying.
In his own broken, furious way, he was trying to protect me.
Not because he stood to gain anything from my survival.
Which he did. But because somewhere along the way, despite everything…
despite the lies and the manipulation and the blood between us…
we'd become something to each other that neither of us had words for.
I wouldn't ever call him my father. Because he wasn't. He was a gene donor, but something had definitely changed about the way he thought of me since he'd reappeared in my life.
It wasn't enough. It would never be enough to make up for what he'd done, for the pieces of myself I'd lost because of him. But it was something. A beginning, maybe. Or the echo of one.
I slipped from the bed, moving to the wall near where Ro had vanished through.
The concrete felt cool against my palm as I pressed my hand to it, watching my breath fog the surface.
Somewhere out there, beyond the Division's walls and wards, whatever had been watching me waited. Patient. Ancient. Hungry.
Let it wait a little longer. I had bonds to complete. A team to protect. A power to master.
And when the time came, when whatever Ro had been too afraid to name finally showed itself, I'd be ready. On my terms. In my way.