Chapter 13
Cristian
The next morning, I stood outside Nadia’s door. She’d locked it again. Apparently, she did not appreciate being snuck up on and accidentally revealing secrets to me… like her desire to sniff my laundry.
I could hear her voice on the other side, low and distracted. “Lesson plans… curriculum mapping…”
What sorcery was curriculum mapping? It sounded like a battle strategy designed by the dull.
The floorboards creaked beneath me as I paced the hallway. She had forbade me from entering her chambers. Again.
I had been many things in my life—general, diplomat, prisoner—but never dismissed for the sake of arithmetic.
“She has chosen books over me,” I muttered.
My reflection in the hallway mirror stared back at me, unimpressed. I ignored it.
If she would not come to me, I would adapt to her world.
Understand her strange rituals of grading papers and third grade math.
Learn her language. She’d been impressed that I’d known the phrase “invitation-only,” hadn’t she?
How much more impressed would she be if I picked up more of this modern vernacular?
That decision led me to the kitchen, to the black cylinder on the counter. The witch’s voice lived inside it.
I folded my arms. “Alexa Witch. Awaken.”
The blue light flared. “I’m here. What can I help you with today?”
I flinched. “Do not mock me with your sorcery, demon. I come seeking truce.”
A pause. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“You did,” I said darkly. “You caught it like a fever.”
Silence. Then: “Would you like me to play music?”
“No,” I snapped. “Teach me to speak the tongue of the peasants.”
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”
“Fine. Teach me… what did she call it… American slang.”
Another pause. Then, cheerfully: “Here are some popular slang terms!”
The cylinder began to speak rapidly, listing words like spells.
“Slay, queen. Slay.”
I frowned. “Slay whom?”
“Let’s get this bread.”
I narrowed my eyes. “We already have bread, do we not? Why acquire more?”
“It’s giving mid.”
I waited. Nothing followed. “It’s giving what?” I demanded. “You cannot end a sentence without completing it!”
“No cap,” she chirped.
I stopped pacing.
“Rizz,” she said.
“Define it,” I ordered.
Her answer was obscene. I recoiled. “That is not charm. That is indecency disguised as vocabulary.”
I tried to mimic her. “Am I speaking like a Bostonian now?”
“No.”
I ground my teeth. “I hate you with the passion of a thousand suns.”
“Would you like me to add passion fruit to your shopping list?”
I ignored her and pointed at the ceiling. “Modern curses. Teach me those instead.”
The demon obeyed. “Fuck. Shit. Bitch. Dickhead.”
I repeated them carefully, like learning an incantation. “Do people truly use all of these in one conversation?”
“Sometimes more,” she said pleasantly.
I nodded. “Good. I will blend.”
I tried a sentence. “Greetings, dickhead fuck bitch!”
She was silent for a long moment. Then: “You’re doing great!”
“Excellent,” I said, satisfied.
From down the hall, I heard Nadia’s muffled voice through the door. “Cristian, are you talking to Alexa again?”
I straightened. “No.”
“Are you swearing at her?”
“Possibly.”
“Don’t corrupt my speaker!”
“I would never corrupt your witch,” I called back. “She is already damned.”
Her laughter echoed faintly through the hall and wound brightly through the bond.
I stood there longer than I should have, listening to her laugh fade into soft humming again. The sound settled something in my chest I didn’t want to name.
I looked at the black cylinder. “Do not tell her about this.”
Alexa’s light twinkled once. “My lips are sealed.”
I do not often sleep. It’s more of a hobby than a necessity for life.
Centuries in stasis robbed me of the need. But today, exhaustion crept in. Not physical—mental.
The witch’s box had outlasted my patience, as had the language lessons.
“Rizz,” I muttered to myself. “Godless word.”
I lay down on the couch, arm over my eyes, letting stillness take me. It came too easily.
And then I was no longer alone.
The room in the dream was made of gold and ruin. Candles hovered in the air. Curtains bled light that wasn’t sunlight. I knew this place. The court’s ballroom, reconstructed from memory.
And her voice.
“Cristian,” Ambrosia cooed, emerging from the shadows like a perfume that had gone rancid. “You sleep again. I’ve missed this.”
She looked exactly as she had centuries ago—flawless and false. Her gown dripped jewels that caught the candlelight, and her smile was too bright for the grave she deserved.
I couldn’t move my mouth. Couldn’t speak. She didn’t need permission to invade my dreams. She never had.
“I’ve been waiting for you to rest,” she said, circling me like a cat around prey. “Your thoughts are loud, you know. So many distractions in that house. The human, especially. You seem to think of her often.”
I tried to look away, but the dream held me fast.
She tilted her head, eyes sharp and gleaming. “Don’t worry. No one else knows we’re here. This is just for us.”
I finally forced sound from my throat. “This is not for us. It’s for you. You didn’t exactly ask my permission before taking over my dream, did you?”
Ambrosia’s laugh slithered over my skin. “Still so cold. Even in sleep.” She leaned close, brushing her fingers over my cheek. “But you’re restless. I can feel it. You’re fighting something you can’t win. Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.”
I tried to focus, to find control in the disorder of the dream. Her power here was thick and cloying, seductive in its certainty. I forced the words through it like a blade through water.
“I want to break the bond,” I said. “With the woman who woke me.”
Her smile widened. “Of course you do. So self-sacrificial.”
“Tell me how.”
She sighed as if I’d complimented her. “You could have anyone or anything in this world, and you waste your desires on freedom. How predictable.”
“Tell me,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Only if you join me.” She stepped closer, pressing a hand to my chest. “Join the court. Be mine. Rule beside me as you were meant to. Then I’ll give you every answer you crave.”
“No.”
Her expression soured. “Still clinging to your noble resistance. It’s what made you delicious.”
She traced a finger down my throat, and I tried to pull back. The dream wouldn’t let me. My muscles refused command.
“You can’t win, Cristian. You never could.”
I shook my head, once, twice—hard enough that the walls seemed to tremble. Her laughter filled the space.
I kept shaking until the sound cracked—and the dream cracked with it.
I woke with a gasp.
The room was dark again, the house quiet. My heart pounded once, hard, then settled. Ambrosia’s voice lingered in the back of my mind like smoke. Only if you join me.
I pressed my palms against my eyes and exhaled.
If I wanted to break the bond, I would have to find another way. Ambrosia would never help me. The court would never help me. They had trapped me once. I would not allow them to do it again.
Somewhere in the next room, Nadia stirred in her sleep. The bond hummed faintly, a soft pull at the edge of my awareness.
I leaned my head back against the couch, listening.
Her breathing steadied me.
For now, that would have to be enough.