Chapter 13 #2
He shifted, turning on the bed so he faced me more fully, one knee on the mattress, the other foot braced on the floor. He was close enough that I could see the tiny scar at his temple, the shadows beneath his eyes.
His gaze dropped briefly to our joined hands, then rose to my face again.
“You scared me,” he said. “Really scared me. I know you’re tired of hearing that, but you did.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“And I realized something.”
I tried to make my voice light. “That you like drama?”
“That I am done pretending I can live with you like this,” he said.
That stole my breath.
“Like what?” I asked, careful.
“Halfway,” he replied. “Always halfway. Always almost. Always pulling back when it gets too close and then pretending you don’t care if I stay or go.”
“I never said I don’t care,” I shot back.
“You never say anything,” he said, not cruel, just honest. “You let me stay. You let me fight beside you. You let me put my body between you and whatever horror the day brings. But you never say I belong there.”
I stared at him.
He wasn’t wrong. That irritated me.
“You think I don’t want you?” I said.
“I know you do,” he answered, quiet and steady. “I feel it every time you look at me like you’re daring yourself not to move. Every time you pretend you’re immune to me and your pulse tells a different story.”
“That’s a little arrogant,” I muttered.
“It’s accurate,” he said.
We fell quiet again.
I became suddenly, painfully aware of how close he was. Of the way the mattress dipped under his weight. Of how his scent wrapped around me—clean soap, leather, the iron note of old blood that never fully left us no matter how often we washed it away.
“Cass,” he murmured, “As I told you at Shadow Thorn, I don’t want one night.”
I sucked in a breath.
He held my gaze, unflinching.
His hand tightened around mine.
“When I touch you now, I’m not walking away tomorrow and pretending it meant nothing. I won’t pretend you’re just another mission.”
Every word slid under my skin.
I remembered my own voice from what felt like a lifetime ago, asking him for just one night, one moment, something I could tuck away like a stolen luxury before Valerian took everything.
I wasn’t that woman anymore.
She was still a piece of me; scarred, furious, desperate. But there was more now. This house. This clan. Raven. Rene.
Con. What happened between us at Shadown Thorn.
I looked at him, really looked, and let myself imagine it.
Not just the heat and the relief and the way he made my body feel like it belonged to something other than war.
But the mornings after. The arguments. The fights with blades and words.
The way he’d stand at my back in every council hall, in every battlefield, in every horrible, beautiful, mundane moment between.
He must have seen some of that cross my face because his expression shifted.
His voice softened. “Tell me to stop, and I will. I mean that, I’ll give you more time to adjust. I’ll sit back and watch you sleep and pretend my heart isn’t trying to claw its way out of my chest. But I can’t keep sitting beside you like this, pretending I don’t want more, that we aren’t more.”
My heart hammered.
“Con,” I said, “I don’t know if I can promise you… anything. Not with Valerian. Not with the pieces. Not with everything breaking.”
“I’m not asking for a promise,” he replied. “I’m asking for a choice.”
He leaned in just enough that I could feel his breath on my cheek.
“Choose me,” he whispered. “Not as a distraction. Not as a fleeting moment. Not as a last night before you die. Choose me because you want a future where we both survive this.”
The word future made something crack open inside me.
We never talked about the future in this house. We talked about missions. Threats. Contingencies.
I realized again, with a small jolt, that I wanted it. I wanted it when we were at Shadow Thorn, and I still wanted it.
Not just survival. Not just another war survived, another scar added to the collection.
I wanted this. Him. Us. Tangled and complicated and infuriating and real.
I lifted our joined hands and pressed my lips to the back of his.
It was a small kiss. Barely a brush of my mouth against skin. But it lit his eyes in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
“Yes,” I said, voice low.
His throat worked. “Yes… what?”
“Yes to more than one night,” I said. “Yes to messy. Yes to you being here when I wake up. Yes to you driving me insane with overprotective nonsense. Yes to you not letting me die quietly.”
One corner of his mouth curled, relief and hunger and something very much like joy all fighting for space on his face.
“You’re sure,” he said.
“For once,” I answered.
The restraint in him snapped.
He moved closer in a slow, deliberate slide, giving me time to change my mind. When I didn’t, his free hand came up, fingers brushing along my jaw, thumb resting just beneath my lower lip.
“Last chance for more time to adjust,” he murmured.
I huffed a slight laugh. “I just said yes. Stop trying to talk me out of it.”
His eyes darkened. “Good.”
He kissed me.
It wasn’t careful. The first press of his mouth to mine was claiming, years of frustration and tension, pouring out in a rush that stole my breath.
I met him halfway.
My free hand fisted in the front of his shirt, dragging him closer. He shifted onto the bed fully, knee sliding between mine as he leaned in, bracing his weight on one arm so he didn’t crush me.
His lips moved against mine with a heat that had nothing to do with fever. He tasted like mint and something darker, something uniquely him that I’d wanted and denied myself for far too long.
The kiss deepened.
He softened it for a heartbeat, letting it slow, giving me time to adjust to the reality of him finally, truly close. Then I nipped at his lower lip, and whatever careful control he had left burned away.
His hand left my jaw and slid down my throat, pausing over the thrum of my pulse. His thumb traced that beat, as if memorizing it. As if reminding himself I was alive, here, beneath him.
“Cass,” he breathed against my mouth. “Tell me if—”
“Stop talking,” I whispered. “Just… stay.”
He did.
We moved together in a way that felt both inevitable and entirely new. Clothes shifted, layers giving way under clumsy fingers and urgent touches. He was gentle when I needed it, rough when I pulled him down and demanded it, reading my body like he’d trained his whole life for it.
I didn’t ask for just one night this time.
I didn’t bargain with destiny or frame it as a farewell before some grand last stand.
I let myself feel every moment—the weight of him, the way his breath hitched when I scraped my nails down his back, the way he murmured my name like a prayer and a curse all at once.
He treated me like something breakable and indestructible at the same time, reverent and hungry, careful without ever making me feel fragile.
When we finally broke apart and lay tangled in the sheets, the room smelled like us. Skin, sweat, leather, soap, and something warmer I didn’t have a name for.
Con lay on his side, one hand resting at my waist, thumb drawing idle patterns along my skin. His hair was mussed, his mouth a little swollen, his eyes softened in ways I wasn’t used to seeing.
I stared at the ceiling, heart still racing, lungs slowly catching up.
“Still alive?” he asked quietly.
“Unfortunately,” I said.
He huffed a laugh, breath warm against my neck. “Liar.”
I turned my head to look at him. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
“Only about you,” he replied.
I studied his face, the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, the shadows from too much worry and not enough rest. He was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with perfection and everything to do with the raw, unguarded expression he wore now.
“Con,” I said slowly, “this changes things.”
“It should,” he said. “If it didn’t, we did something wrong.”
“I don’t know how to… do this. And hunt the pieces. And keep the clan alive. And not lose my mind.”
He considered that. “We do it together.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“It won’t be,” he said. “We’ll fight. We’ll scare each other. I’ll probably annoy you so much you’ll threaten to stake me at least once a week.”
“At least,” I agreed.
“But we’ll still be here,” he went on. “Through all of it. That’s the difference.”
I lay there, letting his words sink in, feeling the truth of them slot into the cracks I usually filled with duty and cynicism.
For the first time in a very long time, I didn’t think about dying tomorrow.
I thought about walking into that warehouse with him at my side. About facing the auction. About telling Raven, when this was over, that I had finally stopped running from something that wasn’t a monster.
I thought about surviving. With him. With all of them.
“Okay,” I whispered.
His thumb paused. “Okay?”
“I’ll try,” I said. “Not just for tonight. For all of it. For us.”
The word felt strange in my mouth.
Us.
He smiled, slow and genuine, the kind of smile I’d only seen flashes of before.
“Good,” he said.
He leaned in, kissed my forehead, then settled in closer, arm tightening around me, like the choice we’d made was something he meant to hold on to with both hands.
Outside, somewhere in the darkness, an auction system weighed numbers and profiles and decided who would be allowed into its shadowed halls. A fragment waited in a guarded warehouse. A formula threatened to rewrite the balance of our world.
Inside my room, for a few stolen hours, I let myself stop bracing for the end.
And started imagining what it might look like to build a life instead of just surviving one.
With Constantine beside me.
Not as a last night.
But as the first of many.