Chapter 18 Decisions
DECISIONS
By the time I returned to my apartment, the quiet felt heavier than usual, as if every shadow carried the echo of her voice.
The door clicked shut behind me, and for a moment I stood there, staring into the dim room I had once thought adequate.
A place built for a man who needed nothing but silence, weapons, and the illusion of solitude.
Now the walls felt too narrow, the rooms too bare, the air too cold for someone like her.
Bringing her into my life, even in the smallest way, had made something painfully clear. She deserved more. More than worn floors and peeling wallpaper, and a view of a city that thrived on greed. She deserved color and warmth and something that didn’t whisper violence with every passing hour.
She deserved a home.
A real one.
Not a gilded cage. Nor this ashen box I had allowed myself to rot in. But anything was better than that polished prison her father kept her trapped in.
I walked farther inside, my boots echoing softly against the worn floorboards, my mind already turning over the possibilities like stones in a restless river.
I could move. I could find a place somewhere quiet, somewhere safe, somewhere the darkness didn’t seep through the cracks.
Or I could leave Shanghai entirely. There were other cities, places where no eyes watched her, where she could breathe without being judged for every inhale.
Places where I wouldn’t feel the weight of my past pressing against my spine every time I walked the streets.
Leaving would be simple enough for me. I had done it before. Too many times. But for her…
Her father’s voice rose in my memory, sharp and cold, echoing through her home like a blade. The disgust when he said the word friend. The disrespect when he mentioned her mother. The way her body had curled in on itself under the weight of disappointment she didn’t deserve.
I wondered if she stayed because she thought she had no choice. That truth hit me harder than I expected. She stayed because she believed it was all she had. After all, every threat he muttered, every pressure he placed upon her, had stripped pieces of her until obedience felt like survival.
Tomorrow, I would ask her why. Why she remained, just to be sure if I was right.
Why she let him put out her light out instead of running toward the life she deserved.
I needed to hear it from her own lips, to know if she truly believed she was trapped or if she did not realize how many walls I would tear down to free her.
My demon stirred at that thought, restless, pacing, already imagining the taste of blood and the scent of fear.
‘Set her free.
Take her away from this place.
Away from him.
Away from all of them.’
Soon, I thought, not yet trusting my voice to contain the truth.
I moved to the shadowed side of the room where an unremarkable stretch of wall hid the only truly valuable thing I owned.
To anyone else, it was nothing more than ageing plaster and cracked paint, but beneath the surface lay a highly sophisticated safe crafted by hands that were not entirely human.
Janie had acquired it for me years ago, calling it a favor owed by creatures she refused to name, and I had trusted her enough not to question it.
I pressed my palm flat against the wall and let a thin line of blood break the skin of my thumb with a slow drag of my fang.
The moment my blood touched the surface, the plaster shimmered like disturbed water, ripples pulsing outward before the illusion dissolved altogether.
The safe emerged from the distortion, forged of dark metal laced with runes that glowed faintly in response to my presence, as if waking from a long slumber.
It had no dial, no keypad, no human mechanism. It obeyed only blood. My blood. The lock pulsed once in recognition, and a soft, almost organic click followed, like a creature uncoiling itself after being disturbed. The door slid open with a soft hiss, revealing the relic resting within.
The world might have believed it was impossible for something of its importance to be guarded by a man like me in a place like this.
My demon pushed forward eagerly, sensing what lay inside. The Heirloom Seal sat there, nothing exceptional to the mortal eye, but pulsing with a dark radiance that only creatures like me could feel.
I reached in and lifted it with both hands, and the energy surged up my arms in a flash of cold, like liquid night racing through my veins. My demon shivered, a low rolling purr rising in my chest as it fed from the power, drinking it in, smoothing its edges with greedy satisfaction.
‘Stronger,
We are stronger.’
It whispered, pleased.
The Seal pulsed once in my grip, as if acknowledging me, then quieted under my will.
I pushed my energy into it carefully, binding it tighter, stabilizing its hum until the air stilled once more.
It felt like wrestling a storm into silence, a familiar struggle that left my hands tingling long after I placed it back inside the safe.
Yet even as my demon basked in the remnants of power spreading through us, I felt its discontent flicker, sharp and undeniable.
‘Not enough.
Not like her.’
It growled, impatient, and I exhaled slowly, my fingers curling against the open safe.
No, it was not the same. The power of the Seal sharpened me, steadied me, fed the creature inside me.
But when she touched my hand… when she looked at me with those soft eyes…
when she spoke my name as if she were tasting it…
That fed something else entirely.
Something far more dangerous that frightened me more than any relic or enemy ever had.
I closed the safe gently and rolled my shoulders, letting the faint hum of leftover power settle under my skin. The room felt different now, the air heavier, my body coiled with both strength and frustration.
Then my phone pinged.
My heart reacted before my thoughts did, a sharp spark of hope flaring through my chest. Her. It could be her. Another message. Another moment I had no right to want but craved anyway. I pulled the phone from my pocket, already bracing for the warmth that would follow seeing her name on the screen.
Instead, my brow tightened.
Not her.
My employer.
The irritation that swept through me was instant and absolute, clamping down on the fragile thread of anticipation that had risen so easily inside me. I opened the message unwillingly, already predicting the words.
Is the job done?
Report to the club. Now.
I stared at the screen, a growl slipping beneath my breath before I could bite it back. The last thing I wanted tonight was that world. That noise. That blood-soaked velvet nest of greed and power, and the criminals who worshipped both.
But I would have to go. If only to end whatever loose ends my employer believed existed. My demon grumbled low, displeased, claws scraping against my mind.
‘Waste of time.
We should be with her.’
I slid the phone back into my pocket.
“Agreed,” I muttered under my breath. “But we will get this over with.”
Then we would return to what mattered.
To her.
To the girl who had given me a reason to want a future at all.
The streets bled neon as I crossed them, the night thick enough to swallow sounds and faces but not thick enough to muffle the irritation burning beneath my skin.
I moved through the city like a living darkness.
Each step a reminder of how much I would rather be anywhere else.
Preferably standing outside Alora’s window, watching the warm glow of her room, and letting myself imagine a world where tomorrow was the only thing that mattered.
Instead, I was being dragged back into this sinner’s world.
The one made of blood and fear.
The one I belonged to.
The one I never wanted her to see.
The closer I came to the nightclub, the more the air shifted.
The scents changed, growing heavier, coarser, soaked in the particular stench of debauchery.
Bass thumped beneath the ground as I approached the rear entrance, the vibration pulsing through my boots the way a heartbeat might thrum beneath bone.
Another two guards stood like statues beside the metal door.
Different men than last time.
‘Still just as weak.’
Their eyes flicked up when I approached, their spines stiffening, their jaws tightening. That single instant when recognition sparked always brought a certain scent with it. Fear. Sharp, metallic, tinged with the sour edge of adrenaline. My demon inhaled deeply, savoring it like wine.
They moved aside without a word.
Good. At least someone knew their place tonight.
The door opened into a corridor lit by flickering lights, the thrum of the music and the muffled roar of the crowd thickening, growing louder with each step. The sounds of the club pressed against me, the air vibrating with a dangerous pulse that felt almost alive.
Heat. Sweat. The scent of bodies pressed too close.
Strobe lights sliced the dark into fragments. Human silhouettes writhed like something caught in a net. My demon purred, recognizing the territory, the same way a predator recognized a den soaked with prey.
This was Xue Long’s kingdom.
But they whispered about me.
Not him.
I cut through the crowd with ease, bodies moving out of my way without conscious thought, as if something inside them screamed at them to part. Eyes followed me, but darted away the moment I looked back. Even intoxicated, humans could sense danger when it walked directly through the room.
I continued until I reached the private corridor that led to Xue’s office. The guards here stiffened too, though neither dared speak. I entered without knocking.
Xue Long was already there.
He stood near the window, staring out at the city through heavy velvet curtains drawn apart just enough for him to peer out. The light caught the tailored lines of his suit, the smooth cut of his hair, the forced elegance he draped himself in like armor.