I nod. “I know.”
He kisses me then — slow, final, like a door closing — and the web tightens.
But this time, somehow, it feels like home.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
RAVEN
The house feels different now.
Not bigger. Not colder. Just quieter in a way that feels wrong—like the walls finally exhaled and accepted that I’m not trying to escape anymore. The air doesn’t echo when I walk barefoot through the hallways, and the floorboards don’t whisper with ghosts the way they used to. Whatever haunted this place has gone still.
It’s just me now.
And him.
And whatever twisted thing we’ve become.
When I find Damien, he’s standing by the window, half-dressed and wholly dangerous. His back catches the pale morning light, muscles shifting under skin that looks carved from shadows. He wears only loose black pants that hang low on his hips, and his hands are clasped behind him like a man trying to decide whether to destroy or devour the world outside.
“You’re awake,” he says without turning.
“So are you.”
A small, crooked smirk ghosts across his reflection in the glass. “Come here.”
I do. Slowly. Each step deliberate, controlled, measured. Not because I’m afraid—because I know he’s watching me, and I like it when he does. His gaze is a weight I’ve learned to crave.
When I reach him, he turns and catches me with an arm around my waist, pulling me back against his chest. The gesture feels so natural it’s almost ordinary. Maybe it’s always been meant to be this way. His arm. My body. The hush between us that’s both a cage and a promise.
“Look,” he murmurs.
I follow his gaze through the window, out across the long, winding drive that cuts through the trees. The world beyond looks exactly the same as the day I was taken—unmoved, indifferent. Except now, at the very end of the road, there’s a car.
My breath catches.
Familiar.
Abandoned.
Sam’s.
Left like a question I never answered.
I freeze, every muscle taut, but Damien’s grip doesn’t change. He doesn’t tighten or soothe. He just stays still, breathing against my neck in that calm, unnerving way that always feels like both a warning and a vow.
“She came,” he says quietly. “She saw the front door. And she left.”
A pause.
“Just like you asked.”
Something inside me breaks—but not the way it used to. There’s no rush of tears. No ache of loss. Just a hollow exhale that feels like release.
I don’t cry because this isn’t grief.
It’s freedom.
