Chapter 34
Sophia
Sophia woke to the kind of silence that didn’t feel like peace.
It felt like the world holding its breath.
Her eyes opened slowly, heavy and gritty, the faint morning light bleeding through her curtains in soft gold streaks. For a moment, she didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her body felt foreign, stiff, sore, like she’d been carved out of stone and left to harden overnight.
A solid chest pressed against her back. A heavy arm draped over her waist. A slow, steady breath brushing the crown of her head.
For a moment she didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t think.
Her mind scrambled, reaching for context, for memory, for anything that explained why she wasn’t cold, why she wasn’t alone, why she wasn’t—
Maddox.
The realization hit her like a soft, unexpected blow.
She was on the couch. Wrapped in a blanket. Curled against Grim’s chest, his body curved protectively around hers like he’d spent the entire night guarding her in his sleep.
The room was dim, washed in the pale gray of early morning. The lamp in the corner was still on; he must’ve left it that way for her. The house was quiet, but not the suffocating kind. More like the world was still waking up.
Sophia blinked slowly, her eyes gritty, her body stiff from sleeping in one position too long. Her cheek was pressed against Grim’s shirt, the fabric warm and smelling faintly of smoke, leather, and something that felt like safety.
Her chest tightened.
She didn’t deserve this. Didn’t know how to hold it. Didn’t know how to breathe around it.
She shifted carefully, trying to slip out from under his arm without waking him. She didn’t want to disturb him; he hadn’t slept in days, not really. She could feel the exhaustion in the heaviness of his limbs, the slackness of his grip.
But the moment she moved, Grim’s arm tightened instinctively.
His breath hitched, and he stirred, voice rough with sleep. “Sophia?”
She froze. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Grim blinked down at her, eyes still heavy, hair mussed, jaw shadowed with stubble. He looked younger like this. Softer. But the worry was still there, buried under the exhaustion.
“You okay?” he murmured.
She nodded, though her throat felt tight. “I just… need to go to the bathroom. Go back to sleep.”
Grim didn’t let go right away. His hand slid from her waist to her arm, slow and careful, like he was making sure she was real. Then he released her, leaning back against the couch with a low exhale.
“I’m not going back to sleep,” he said, voice gravelly.
“You should,” she whispered. “You didn’t sleep last night.”
He didn’t argue. Didn’t insist. Just watched her with that quiet, steady intensity that made her feel both seen and exposed.
Sophia pushed herself upright, her muscles protesting, her legs unsteady. The blanket slipped from her shoulders, pooling around her hips. The room felt colder without Grim’s warmth.
She stood slowly, her body stiff, her breath shallow. The living room looked different in the morning light — softer, gentler — but her body didn’t trust it yet.
She walked toward the bathroom on autopilot, her hand brushing the wall to steady herself. The familiar creak of the floorboard under her foot made her flinch, a small, involuntary jerk she couldn’t control.
She hated that. Hated how her body reacted before her mind could catch up.
The bathroom door felt heavier than it should’ve. The light switch clicked too loudly. The brightness stabbed at her eyes.
She kept her gaze down — toothbrush, sink, tile floor — anything but the mirror.
She brushed her teeth without looking up. Washed her face without lifting her chin. Tied her hair back by feel alone, fingers fumbling through the strands.
But she couldn’t avoid it forever.
Her breath hitched as she finally forced herself to look.
Just a glance. Just a second.
It was enough.
Bruises shadowed her jaw, faint yellow and purple fingerprints blooming across her skin. A cut near her temple, still tender. The ghost of someone’s grip on her upper arm. Her eyes looked wrong, darker, hollowed, like someone had scooped out the light and replaced it with something sharp and tired.
Her throat closed.
She gripped the edge of the sink until her knuckles went white, grounding herself against the cold porcelain. Her reflection blurred as tears burned behind her eyes, but she blinked them back.
She didn’t want to cry. Not here. Not now. Not because of him.
But the truth pressed in anyway.
This was her face. Her body. Her life.
And yet it felt like she was looking at a stranger wearing her skin.
She turned the light off. The mirror disappeared into shadow. She didn’t look again.
When she stepped back into the hallway, Grim was sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, head bowed like he was praying or bracing or both. The moment he heard her footsteps, he lifted his head.
His eyes softened. His shoulders eased. He reached for her without touching her.
“You okay?” he asked again, quieter this time.
Sophia swallowed hard. “I’m… trying.”
The words felt thin. Fragile. Like they might crack if she breathed too hard.
Grim nodded once. “You want coffee?”
She did. She didn’t know if she could drink it, her stomach was a tight, trembling knot, but she wanted the ritual. The normalcy. Something that didn’t feel like survival.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
She walked into the kitchen, each step careful, her body still stiff and sore, like her bones were remembering every hour she’d spent curled on cold concrete. The morning light filtered through the window in soft, dusty beams, but even that felt too sharp against her skin.
She reached for the coffee tin, but her hands shook so badly she nearly dropped it. The lid slipped, clattering against the counter, a small sound, harmless, but it hit her like a gunshot.
Sophia flinched, breath catching, shoulders jerking up toward her ears.
Grim was beside her instantly. A steady presence at her side, warm and solid and unmovable.
“Let me,” he murmured.
Sophia’s throat tightened. “I can do it.”
“I know,” he said softly. “Let me anyway.”
Her fingers loosened. The tin slipped from her hands into his.
Grim moved slowly, deliberately, like every motion was a promise not to startle her. He measured out the grounds with steady hands, filled the pot, turned on the machine. The quiet click of the button sounded softer when he did it, gentler somehow.
His movements were controlled and careful, as if he were handling something breakable.
Sophia leaned against the counter, her breath shaky, her chest tight. The smell of brewing coffee filled the kitchen, warm, familiar, comforting, but instead of grounding her, it cracked something open.
Her throat burned. Her eyes stung. Her ribs felt too tight to hold everything in.
A soft, strangled sound escaped her before she could swallow it. Her hand flew to her mouth, her shoulders curling inward as tears blurred her vision.
Grim turned immediately.
“Sophia.”
Her name in his voice, low, rough, worried, made her chest ache.
She shook her head, trying to breathe, trying to hold herself together, trying not to fall apart in front of him. “I’m fine,” she whispered, even though the word felt like a lie scraping down her throat.
“You’re not,” Grim said quietly. “And you don’t have to be.”
That did it.
Her breath hitched. Her vision blurred. Her knees wobbled like they couldn’t hold her anymore.
Grim didn’t touch her, not until she reached for him first.
Her fingers brushed his shirt, barely a whisper of contact, but it was enough.
He stepped in, slow and careful, his hands settling on her arms with the gentlest pressure she’d ever felt from him. His thumbs brushed the inside of her elbows, grounding her, steadying her, giving her something solid to hold onto.
Sophia sagged into him, her forehead pressing against his chest, her breath shaking apart in small, broken bursts.
Grim held her.
Not tight. Not possessive. Just steady, a quiet, unyielding anchor in a world that still felt like it was tilting beneath her feet.
Grounding. Real. Safe.
“I’m here,” he murmured, his voice rumbling through his chest into her cheek. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Sophia’s voice cracked. “Don’t leave.”
Grim’s breath stilled — just for a second — like the words hit him somewhere deep.
“I won’t,” he said, and she felt the truth of it in the way his hands trembled against her arms. “Not today. Not tonight. Not until you tell me to.”
Sophia closed her eyes.
For the first time since she’d been taken, she let herself truly lean into him; she knew he’d catch her.