Chapter 13
Monday morning came too soon.
Ava woke to sunlight streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows and the unfamiliar luxury of Victor’s bed: their bed now, she supposed, though the thought still felt strange.
The sheets were ridiculous: Egyptian cotton with a thread count that probably required its own insurance policy.
She’d slept better than she had in years, which seemed deeply unfair given everything that had happened.
The space beside her was empty but still warm.
She could feel Victor somewhere nearby, not his location exactly, but his presence. A low hum at the edge of her consciousness, like background music she was learning to tune. He was calm this morning. Focused. A little anxious about something he was trying to hide from her.
The bond was going to make secrets very difficult.
She padded to the bathroom, marble cool beneath her feet, and stopped dead in front of the mirror.
The soul bond mark had spread overnight.
What had been an intricate silver pattern across her chest now spiraled outward like frost on a window, tendrils curling toward her collarbone, her shoulder, the hollow of her throat. In the morning light, it shimmered faintly, not glowing exactly, but catching light in ways normal skin shouldn’t.
Impossible to hide completely. Her silk blouse would cover most of it, but anyone looking closely would see the edges peeking above her neckline. The silver tracery at her throat like the world’s most permanent choker.
“Everyone already knows.”
She turned to find Victor in the doorway, two cups of coffee in hand, already dressed in one of his identical charcoal suits.
His own mark showed through his white dress shirt; the blue had deepened to something that looked almost black in certain light, spreading across his chest in patterns that seemed to shift when she wasn’t looking directly at them.
“The partners announced it,” he continued, crossing to hand her a cup. “Lilith made her dramatic exit. There’s no hiding what we are now.”
The coffee was perfect. Of course it was.
“How do we do this?” She turned back to the mirror, watching him appear behind her reflection. His hands settled on her waist, warm and steadying. “Walk into the office like nothing’s changed when everything’s changed?”
“We go in. Face the music. Pretend we’re professionals who happen to be magically bonded for eternity.” His lips brushed her temple. “Standard Monday, really.”
“That’s a terrible plan.”
“It’s the only plan.”
She leaned back against him, watching their reflections. The ancient demon in his bespoke suit, the first-year associate in her borrowed silk robe, their marks visible through fabric like matching brands. They looked like what they were now: claimed. Bound. Permanent.
The terror she expected didn’t come. Instead, there was just… certainty. Strange and new, but solid.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go be professionals.”
The Tesla’s climate control kept the interior at exactly 68 degrees.
Ava’s hands were still cold.
Manhattan Monday morning traffic crawled past the tinted windows: yellow cabs and delivery trucks and thousands of people who had no idea that demons walked among them, that supernatural law firms occupied the top floors of midtown high-rises, that the woman in the passenger seat had bound her soul to an immortal being over the weekend.
Victor drove with one hand on the wheel, the other holding hers across the center console. His tension bled through like heat through glass—banked, controlled, but impossible to hide. He was worried about her. About how the office would receive them. About what Lilith might do next.
“Stop trying to hide it,” she said. “I can feel you worrying.”
“I’m not—” He caught her look. “Fine. I’m concerned about the reception.”
“Because of the bond?”
“Because of how fast it happened. Because of Prague. Because half the firm watched Lilith throw a tantrum and disappear in a cloud of sulfur, and the other half has been texting about it all weekend.” His thumb traced circles on her palm.
“There will be questions. Speculation. People deciding they know our story better than we do.”
“So we give them nothing to speculate about. We’re together. It’s real. End of story.”
“If only office politics were that simple.”
The building appeared ahead: glass and steel reaching toward a sky that had gone overcast since they’d left the penthouse. Ava watched it grow larger through the windshield, trying to imagine walking through those doors as someone different than she’d been Friday morning.
Three weeks ago, she’d been a terrified first-year associate who’d accidentally breached a supernatural NDA.
Now she was soul-bonded to a senior partner.
The universe had a sick sense of humor.
Victor pulled into the parking garage with the precision of someone who’d been parking in this same spot for decades. The engine cut off. Silence rushed in.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No.”
“Good. Neither am I.”
They got out anyway.
The elevator climbed toward sixty-one, floors ticking past with mechanical indifference.
Victor’s hand stayed firm in hers. Warmth rolled off him in deliberate, slow waves—meant to soothe her nerves. It helped, though she wasn’t sure she liked needing the help.
The doors opened.
Cassandra looked up from the reception desk, took one look at them, and smiled, the first genuine smile Ava had seen from her. “Welcome back. Derek’s been pacing since dawn. I think he wore a groove in the carpet.”
“Is it bad?” Ava asked.
“It’s Monday at a supernatural law firm.
Could always be worse.” Cassandra’s amber eyes flicked to their joined hands, to the visible marks peeking above their collars.
Her chin dipped, just barely, the smallest nod of approval.
“Malphas wants to see you both. His office, when you’re ready. And Ava?”
“Yes?”
“For what it’s worth, I’m glad it’s real.” She turned back to her screens before Ava could respond.
They walked through the foyer together, and the reactions began immediately.
Associates looked up from their desks like prairie dogs sensing a predator.
Conversations stopped mid-sentence, leaving awkward silences that filled with the sound of their footsteps on marble.
A woman from contracts held a coffee cup frozen halfway to her mouth, eyes tracking them with naked curiosity.
A paralegal pretended to read a document that was clearly upside down.
Ava kept her spine straight, her expression neutral, her hand firmly in Victor’s.
The whispers started before they’d made it ten feet.
“Can you believe…”
“Three weeks, I heard…”
“Matching marks, look at her neck…”
“Heard she’s the one from the Peterson Holdings mess…”
Victor’s grip tightened almost imperceptibly. A spike of protective anger flared from him—quickly suppressed, but she caught it before he could bury it.
Easy, she thought at him, not sure if he could hear her. We knew this would happen.
Whether he heard or just felt her intent, some of the tension eased from his shoulders.
Derek materialized from his cubicle like he’d been launched from a cannon, nearly colliding with a mail cart in his haste. His eyes were wild, his tie askew, and he was clutching a tablet like a security blanket.
“Oh thank god. I thought—when you didn’t answer texts—I mean I figured you were busy but then Cassandra said Malphas wanted to see you and I thought maybe—” He stopped. Actually looked at them. His mouth fell open. “Holy shit. Your marks changed.”
“Good morning to you too,” Ava said.
“They’re like…” Derek made vague gestures at his own chest, struggling for words. “More. They’re more. They’re spreading. Is that normal? Is that a thing that happens?”
“Soul bonds are rare enough that ‘normal’ doesn’t really apply,” Victor said, steering them toward the associate bullpen with a hand on Ava’s back. “Conference Room Three. Five minutes. I need to speak with Malphas first.”
Derek nodded, still staring at their marks. “Right. Yes. Five minutes. I’ll just… coffee. More coffee. Does anyone need coffee?”
He disappeared before they could answer.
Ava’s desk looked exactly as she’d left it Friday morning. Files stacked neatly, organized by priority. Coffee mug washed and waiting beside her keyboard. Monitor dark, waiting for her password. Everything the same, when nothing was.
She touched the edge of the desk. Grounding herself in something solid and real. She was here. They were here. They’d made it back from the Hamptons, survived the partners’ scrutiny, watched Lilith vanish in a cloud of sulfur.
Now they just had to make it through Monday.
“Ms. Feng.”
Her head snapped up.
Malphas stood ten feet away, having appeared without sound or warning, a skill she really wished the partners would stop demonstrating.
His too-long fingers were steepled before him, each joint bending at angles that slid away when she tried to count them.
His lipless mouth was set in an expression that might have been neutral or might have been amusement.
His eye sockets, empty and dark, tracked her with precision despite having nothing visible to track with.
“Mr. Malphas.” She surprised herself by sounding steady. “Victor said you wanted to see us?”
“I do. Both of you. My office.” He turned and glided away, his movements too smooth, too fluid, like something pretending to walk rather than actually walking.
They followed.
Malphas’s office was a study in controlled precision.
Glass and steel surfaces gleamed under recessed lighting.
Papers lay in stacks so perfectly aligned they might have been measured with a ruler.
The air smelled faintly of old books and something else: ink, maybe, or the particular scent of contracts signed in blood.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan spread out sixty-one stories below, the humans going about their lives utterly unaware of what happened in rooms like this.