Chapter 15 OF SHADOW AND LIGHT #2
It was a strange thing, owing your life to the people who had once tried to take it.
Stranger still to find yourself grateful for it.
For most of my life, I’d believed in good and evil the way most people believed in the ground under their feet.
Fixed. Reliable. A line drawn so clearly in the sand that you could stand on one side of it and know exactly who you were.
But that line was a farce. A mirage that constantly blurred and moved beneath me until I lost track of which side I was supposed to be on entirely.
That was the truth no one ever bothered to tell you when they handed you your calling and your weapon and your place in the war.
That nothing was black and white in this world.
Especially not people. That survival and righteousness didn’t always point in the same direction.
That sometimes the heroes let you down and sometimes the monsters saved you.
And sometimes you had to make peace with the fact that you’d never fully understand which was which.
The anchoring spell had proven that much.
Light and dark weren’t enemies. If last night had taught me anything, it was that they were two halves of the same breath, each one doing what the other couldn’t do alone.
Trace’s warmth hadn’t pushed Dominic’s darkness away inside me.
It had made room for it. And Dominic’s darkness hadn’t dimmed Trace’s light.
It had framed it, made it visible in a way the daylight never could.
Maybe that was the lesson I’d been refusing to learn all along.
That I carried both in me. The capacity for mercy and for violence.
For sacrifice and for selfishness. That I didn’t have to choose between the two of them or between the parts of myself that belonged to each of them.
I could be both and I could love both. I could hold the light in one hand and the dark in the other and be whole because of it, not in spite of it.
And maybe, just maybe, that truth would be the thing that would carry me through what was coming next.
I turned back to Dominic, feeling more grounded and more like myself than I had in months, and knowing it was because of them.
“Where’s Trace?” I asked, needing to see him too. To confirm with my own eyes that he was okay and thank him for what he had done for me.
“He’s feeding downstairs with Gabriel,” replied Dominic, lifting his glass and swirling the liquid inside. “Do you want me to bring him up?” he asked, his expression unreadable.
“No. It’s okay,” I said, not wanting to disturb him from what he needed. I would have plenty of time to talk to him after he was done and back to himself.
“As you wish, angel.”
I pushed myself up against the headboard, wincing as my muscles protested the movement. Everything felt tender and used up, like I’d run a marathon while someone had been systematically breaking every bone in my body.
The movement drew his attention. His gaze quickly sharpened, tracking over me as he cataloged every wince and grimace. But beneath that careful assessment, I caught something else. That same look from before that had the unmistakable glint of fear.
I frowned at him. “I’m okay. You don’t have to look so worried.”
His jaw ticked almost imperceptibly. “That appears to be beyond my control anymore.”
The admission caught me off guard because Dominic didn’t do worry. He didn’t do vulnerability. He did cocky and controlled. Dry-wit and certainty.
I studied his face properly then. The tension in his jaw.
The way his fingers gripped the tumbler just a fraction too tightly.
The careful way he was holding himself, as if he were keeping something massive contained behind his ribs.
The cracks were more than showing in his perfectly maintained facade and I knew exactly why.
“You were scared,” I said softly. It wasn’t a question.
His eyes snapped to mine. For a moment, he looked as though he might deny it. As though he might deflect or make some cutting remark that would steer the conversation away from anything resembling vulnerability. But then his expression softened, just slightly, and he set his glass down again.
“Of losing you?” He huffed out a breath but there was no humor behind it. “I was terrified.”
The words were simple, unadorned, and they landed so deep within me that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to forget them.
“Watching the corruption eat you from the inside out while I stood there helpless, pretending I had any control over any of it.” His mouth pressed into a hard line.
“I have never been afraid like that. Not of dying, not even of damnation. I’ve made my peace with all of that a long time ago.
But watching you slip away…” He stopped, searching for the words.
“I realized in that moment that there are things far worse than death.”
My throat burned with grief and guilt as I swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry I put you—”
“You never have to apologize to me, angel,” he cut in, his dark eyes holding mine.
“I didn’t say that to make you feel guilty.
I said it because I think you ought to know what you mean to me.
What you’ve always meant to me.” He paused, looking down briefly before returning his gaze to me.
“I’ve spent my entire life carefully curating what I allow myself to care about, and I must say, the list is rather short. ”
My chest warmed around his words. I could count on one hand the number of people he’d ever admitted to caring about, and I was pretty sure most of them were dead.
“But you…” He shook his head slowly. “You have slipped past every defense I had without even trying. You have enchanted me so completely that the very thought of existing without you has become incomprehensible. That I should now be bound to you in a way that can never be undone is my most profound privilege and my only remaining weakness.”
A sudden wave of emotion rose up behind my eyes, tears welling before I could stop them. I blinked hard, fighting them back as guilt tangled in with the warmth. Because I hadn’t asked him to do that. I would never have asked him to bind himself to me in a way that couldn’t be undone.
I didn’t even fully understand what it meant yet, what he’d given up, but the permanence of it made my chest ache with a mix of gratitude and remorse.
“I just…I feel like I’ve damned you,” I admitted quietly, my throat thickening as I tried to get the words out. “Like I forced you into something you can never escape from.”
He set his drink down on the end table and sat down on the bed beside me. Close enough to see the way his pupils dilated as he looked back at me. His hand came up to my face, the back of his knuckles stroking my cheek in a touch so gentle and reverent that it made my breath catch.
“This is not damnation, angel.” A faint, crooked smile touched his mouth. “And if it were then I would still choose it a thousand times over.”
“You say that now but what about after you’ve lived with me for a few decades and you realize I’m completely insufferable, especially when I don’t get enough sleep?”
“Then I shall suffer with dignity,” he said with a smirk. “And adore you all the more for it.”
A laugh bubbled up through the tears, watery and helpless. “Well,” I breathed, trying to hold it together and not drown the mood out completely, “if that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”
“What I feel for you is so much more than love, angel. I love you not as a mortal loves but as something eternal.” He reached up and wiped away a single tear from my cheek.
“I love you the way the darkness loves the stars, and the way the ocean worships the moon. Utterly. Irrevocably. And without hope of redemption.”
I stared at him, helpless against the weight of his words, against the certainty in his voice. I didn’t know what to say to that. How to respond to that level of devotion. Instead, I pushed forward and pressed my lips to his.
He responded immediately, his hand cradling the back of my head as he kissed me with a gentleness that threatened to undo me completely.
His thumb stroked along my cheekbone as his mouth moved against mine, unhurried and achingly sweet.
When he finally pulled back, just enough to rest his forehead against mine, something warm and certain bloomed in my chest. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt protected, cherished, and utterly safe.
Like I had finally found the one place in all the worlds where nothing could hurt me.
“You will always be safe,” he said quietly, his voice dropping to that intimate register that made the rest of the world disappear. “So long as I draw breath, nothing will take you from me. Not prophecy. Not the Horsemen. Not even death itself. Do you understand me, angel?”
I nodded, unable to form words past the emotion clogging my throat. In retrospect, I hadn’t even noticed that he seemed to have answered my thoughts then. I was too wrapped up in the vow, in the moment, to pay it any attention.
His thumb brushed across my cheekbone once more before he pulled back completely, shifting back into his usual confidence. “I certainly didn’t go through all that trouble tracking down the Roderick sisters just to lose you in the end.”
My curiosity quickly climbed to the forefront. “How did you find them anyway?” I asked, still breathless from the kiss and his promise, but curious to know how he’d managed to track them down.
“I didn’t find them, per se.” He paused, the corner of his mouth tipping up. “I called in a favor. Witches are surprisingly easy to get in touch with once you know who to call and have unlimited funds at your disposal. All I needed was a phone number and one conversation with them.”
“Of course,” I said, shaking my head and fighting back a laugh. “Because everything is just that simple for you.”
“Not everything,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to my lips for just a beat before lifting again. “But I do have my moments.”
“So, what did you say to them?” I asked, unable to fathom what he could have possibly said to the three most wanted Supernaturals in the world that would persuade them enough to come out of hiding and help their sworn enemy.
“I told them the truth,” he said simply.
My eyebrows shot up at that.
“Don’t look so surprised, angel. Lies are tedious when the truth serves you better.”
“And what was the truth?”
“That you are actively working against the Order and the Horsemen and that you have no intention of harming the child. I simply helped them see that you are the only thing standing between the Horsemen and The Son of Perdition, and that keeping you alive serves their interests as much as it does mine.”
I blinked, taken aback by how simple and logical he made it sound.
“As soon as they confirmed what I was saying was true, they immediately offered to help you.”
“Offered, huh?” I crooked my brow at him. “You made helping me seem like it was their idea, didn’t you.”
“Who? Me? Don’t be ridiculous, angel. It was the only reasonable thing to do and who was I to stand in their way?” He flashed another lopsided grin. “They certainly have their reasons for doing this, but right now, their reasons happen to align with ours.”
“You’re terrifyingly good at this.”
“I am nothing if not efficient.”
A reluctant smile tugged at my lips. “And what happens when they don’t align anymore?”
“Then the truce ends and we go back to being what we’ve always been.”
I exhaled slowly, some of the tension easing from my shoulders.
When he put it that way, it made sense. A temporary truce that benefited both sides without leaving either of us worse off when it ended. It was pragmatic, strategic, and strangely reassuring.
At least for now anyway.
I met his eyes again. “So, what now?”
“Now?” He picked up his glass from the side table and drained the last of his drink.
“Now you rest. You recover. Perhaps a long hot shower to rinse away the last few days if you feel up to it. And when you are ready, we will face whatever comes next together.” He set the empty glass down and stood but didn’t move away from the bed right away.
“You mean the Horsemen.”
His expression darkened, the casual confidence slipping into something grimmer. “Make no mistake, angel. The compulsion will return and it will probably be stronger than ever.” His eyes locked on mine with absolute certainty. “Only this time, they will have to come through me first.”