Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Seraphina
Dynasty – MIIA
Iwake the moment he moves.
It isn’t the shift of the mattress or the quiet rustle of sheets that pulls me from under the surface of sleep, but something deeper, something instinctive, like my body has learned the shape of him so completely that even the suggestion of his absence feels like loss.
My eyes open slowly, the room still dim with early morning light, and I watch him as he starts to leave the bed, his back to me, his shoulders tense.
I feel embarrassed. Ashamed.
I was frantic last night. Caught like a fly in a web of deceit.
The memory presses in at the edges of my mind, jagged and uncomfortable, and I feel it begin. That familiar slipping. The quiet unraveling that starts somewhere deep in my chest and spreads outward, thread by fragile thread.
Will he look at me differently?
Will he hate me, now he knows I am broken soul-deep?
Will… will he leave me?
Trey pauses.
Then he looks back.
It’s subtle, like he felt me watching him, like some invisible tether between us tightened just enough to pull his attention, and his eyes find mine.
He doesn’t speak.
He just looks.
There’s something in the way he watches, something searching, something almost desperate, like he’s trying to read what’s written across my face before I can hide it.
My breath catches as I hold his gaze, my thoughts turning sharp and cruel in the quiet space between us, because I can’t help but wonder what he sees when he looks at me like that.
Does he see the cracks I can’t quite hold together anymore, the way I’m barely balancing on the edge of something I don’t think I can survive again?
Or worse…
Is it regret?
A slow, aching pressure builds in my chest as the thought takes root, insidious and impossible to ignore, curling through me like a whispered prayer turned wrong.
Did he bind himself to me only to realize I truly am just a burden?
He married what he thought was a woman, but instead I am simply a husk. A corpse. Empty.
We stood witnessed, bound in rushed matrimony… and he died because of me. Hurt because of my selfish actions.
My father was right… Gideon was right…
The air feels thinner the longer I lie there, my fingers curling into the sheets as the weight of it presses down, as the darkness starts to creep in at the edges of my vision, pulling me under, dragging me somewhere I don’t want to go.
I feel it happening.
The slipping.
The losing.
My breathing becomes unsteady. I feel less like something living and more like something already condemned…Marked.Unclean.A soul bound for judgment.Is that how he sees me now? As something already lost.
Of course he does. He sees everything. Just as I begin to fall, the mattress shifts.
He’s there with me.
Trey moves with quiet urgency, climbing back onto the bed, his body a solid, grounding presence as he crawls over me, bracketing me in before the distance between us can grow into something unbridgeable.
“Whatever it is you’re thinking right now,” he says, his voice low but firm, threaded with command, “You better tell it to shut the fuck up and listen to me.”
My breath stutters, my chest tight, my thoughts still racing too fast, too loud.
He leans down until his forehead presses against mine, forcing me to focus on him, on the warmth of his skin, on the steady, undeniable reality of him.
“I love you,” he murmurs, the words unwavering. “I need you. Whatever it is you’re thinking, whatever it is you’re feeling… fight it. Fight it with me.” His voice softens, just slightly, just enough to undo me. “Please, baby. You’re strong. We can do this.”
Something inside me gives.
He doesn’t hate me… he isn’t repulsed by me. He loves me. He wants me to fight.
A single tear slips free before I can stop it, trailing warm against my skin as I drag in a shaky breath, the tightness in my throat making it almost impossible to speak, almost impossible to form anything around the storm inside me.
But I try.
For him, I try.
“I…” The word barely survives the distance between us, fragile and shaking as it leaves me.
His face softens—brightens, even—like I’ve given him something precious.
“There’s your voice,” he murmurs. “God, I missed hearing it.”
I want to smile. I do. But everything inside me feels too raw, too tangled to lift my mouth into anything that resembles okay.
“I—I’m sorry I hurt you.” My voice catches somewhere between a sniffle and a choke, splintering on the way out.
“Hurt me?” he says gently. “You didn’t hurt me, dove. You…” He exhales, rubbing at the back of his neck. “If I’m being honest? You pissed me off going radio silent. I felt—” he huffs a quiet, frustrated breath, “—powerless. Like I couldn’t help you.”
“I—I’m broken.” The words spill out before I can stop them. My eyes sting, my nose burning, everything inside me unraveling all over again.
He stills.
“Dove…”
He’s going to see it now. All of it. And once he does—he’ll hate me. Regret me. Leave me.
“I am the poster child for stupidity,” he says suddenly, pointing at himself, at the ink etched into his skin.
“Shit impulse control. I hurt myself all the time just to regulate whatever the fuck is going on in my head. I argue with myself—full-on debates—and sometimes I agree, like I’ve got commentators running a live broadcast up here.
” He taps his temple. “Even now, one of them is yelling at me not to say any of this because I’ll probably freak you out. ”
A broken laugh escapes him, but there’s no humor in it.
“I don’t even know what’s wrong with me. Trauma, head injuries, drugs, booze… all of it. I’ve thrown everything at myself just trying to stay level.” His voice dips, quieter now. “I never loved. I lusted. That was it.”
My chest tightens.
“But you…” His gaze locks onto mine, steady, certain.
“You, dove? It was easy. Too easy. Like someone slipped me a prescription for love and I didn’t even question it.
” He swallows. “And that scares the shit out of me, because now all I want is to make sure you’re okay. Before anything. Before everything.”
My heart stutters, aching with the weight of it.
“Fuck—what am I trying to say…” He drags a hand through his hair, pacing a step before snapping his fingers. “Right. Okay. This might make sense. I saw it on TikTok—don’t judge me.”
Despite everything, something small and fragile in my chest almost… almost warms.
“Wasa—no, wait, that’s the green spicy shit—” He winces. “Wabi-sabi. That’s it. Wabi-sabi.”
He pulls out his phone, tapping quickly before turning it toward me.
On the screen—bowls, cups, plates. Broken once. Rebuilt. Gold seams threading through every fracture, like lightning frozen in place. Not hiding the damage—honoring it.
They’re… beautiful.
“It’s this Japanese idea,” he says, softer now. “You don’t hide the breaks. You fill them with gold. Because the damage? It’s part of the story. It makes the thing more valuable, not less.”
My breath catches.
“When I first saw it, I thought…” He shrugs faintly. “Maybe being this fucked up didn’t mean I didn’t deserve peace.”
His eyes lift to mine again, and this time there’s nothing uncertain in them. Nothing wavering.
“But it’s more than that.” His voice lowers, rough with something real. “It means you don’t have to be afraid of me seeing you as you are.”
He moves closer.
“I fucking love you, Seraphina.”
His lips brush mine.
“Even if you think you’re shattered beyond repair…
” His hand lifts, his knuckles brushing gently against my cheek.
“I see you. I fucking see you. I’m not going anywhere.
”There’s nothing casual in the way he looks at me.
Just depth. Endless, consuming depth. “You don’t have to be whole to be loved. I fell for you in the fractures.”
My hands lift on instinct, finding him, wrapping around his neck as my fingers slide into his hair, holding on as though he is the only thing keeping me here, the only thing stopping me from disappearing into the dark.
I let him take my hand, allowing him to pull me from the bed and straight into his arms, the warmth of him wrapping around me in a way that feels both grounding and dangerously easy to depend on.
“Trey…” I struggle to form the words. “I love you.”
“I love you, too—” His phone buzzes, lighting up with a message from Chace.
“What fucking timing,” he groans, glancing at it before setting it back down.
“Chace wants everyone to meet here,” he says, his voice still rough with exhaustion, though there’s an alertness beneath it now, something sharp and aware. “He didn’t say why, but I don’t think it’s anything—”
A knock at the suite door cuts him off.
“Are you alright with them coming in, Dove?” I nod.
The sound slices through the moment, abrupt and unwelcome, and I feel his body tense slightly before he exhales and releases me, stepping away to move toward the closet.
He drags his t-shirt over his head in one smooth motion, tossing it carelessly to the floor before pulling out a pair of grey sweatpants and stepping into them, his movements efficient, unbothered, a different person than from just a moment ago.
I watch him without meaning to.
Or maybe I do mean to.
My gaze traces over the golden expanse of his skin, over the ink that marks him, the lines and shadows of tattoos that tell stories I’m still learning, my eyes catching on the way his muscles shift and flex with every movement, the quiet strength in him that never seems to dim, not even when he’s running on nothing.
Even after the ugliness I showed him, he takes it on like it’s nothing… the weight in my chest hasn’t gone, but somehow, there’s space now… for more. To feel him.
He fills my lungs… my heart. My body.
Even like this—half-dressed, sleep-deprived, pulled too quickly into whatever comes next—Trey doesn’t just exist.
He thrives.