The memory burns through me like acid, and suddenly I understand what Thing is trying to tell me. What Hannah tried to make me see when she freed him from those chains.
I’ve been so terrified of becoming weak that I became the very monster I once helped destroy.
“I don’t want to be him,” I whisper, the admission torn from somewhere deep inside my chest. “But I don’t know how to be anything else.”
Thing’s expression softens—the first truly gentle look I’ve seen from him in centuries. “You learn. Same as consort teaches. Same as she shows us there is different way.”
“She could leave,” I say, voicing my greatest fear. “She could take my kit and disappear, and I’d deserve it.”
“Yes,” Thing agrees without mercy. “You would. So you make sure she chooses to stay.”
“How?” The word comes out broken, desperate.
For the first time since Father died, Thing smiles. Not the mindless grin of a beast, but something warm and almost... hopeful.
“You become worthy of the choice she made when she came to you,” he says simply. “You become the male she needs, not the monster you were taught to be.”
Behind him, Remus makes a disgusted sound. “Gods, you’re all going soft. Next, you’ll be braiding each other’s hair and singing lullabies.”
FORTY-TWO
HANNAH
I wakeup feeling like I actually got decent sleep for the first time since arriving in this supernatural hell, and my first thought is:Holy shit, he actually respected the barred door.
I sit up, blinking toward the entrance I blocked last night. Part of me expected to wake up to Abaddon looming over my bed like some stalker vampire, but nope. The door is still barred, still intact, and I’m still alone.
Maybe there’s hope for him after all.
My stomach chooses that moment to remind me it exists with a growl that could probably be heard in the next mountain over. When did I last eat? Did I even have dinner last night? Everything after the Four Horsemen revelation is kind of a blur of emotional devastation and existential crisis.
Speaking of which...
My hand flies to my stomach. Right. Still pregnant. With Pestilence’s baby. Because my life has officially become a supernatural soap opera.
What the actual fuck am I going to do?
For a hot second, I hear Drew’s voice in my head:“Don’t worry about anything, babe. I’ll take care of everything.”
And God, for about six months, that felt like the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to me. He swooped in after Grandma died and Mom was too much of a mess to take care of anything. Drew just... handled it all. He got estate dealers to clean out her house, he dealt with all the logistics of the funeral, and he made all the decisions Mom was too grief-stricken to make.
Then it just seemed natural for him to start taking care of other things for me, too. It started small. Sharing a phone plan. Then, after we moved in together, having him handle the bills made sense; he was better with money. And if we had so many joint bills, it was only logical to have a joint bank account. We were getting married anyway, right? And when he suggested getting rid of my car—why have two when we worked in the same building?—well, that just seemed logical, too.
Everyone thought it was so romantic how he’d show up at the end of every workday to “help” carry my bag.
“You’re so lucky,”they’d say.“Especially considering...”And their eyes would drop to my wheelchair on the bad days, finishing the sentence they were too polite to say out loud.
Yeah. Lucky me.
Little by little, my world got smaller. Safer, he called it. Book club was too stressful after work. Craft circle with my friends made me cranky, which I took out on poor Drew, who didn’t deserve it. He was so good to me, after all.
So fucking good to me that I ended up with no friends, no car, no bank account, and no life outside of what he decided was best for me.
But that was love, right? That was what a good man did. He protected you from stress and difficulty.
Except now, sitting in a monster’s castle, pregnant with a supernatural baby, that old life feels like someone else’s dream. Or nightmare. I’ve felt more like myself in the past week than I did in the entire year I lived with Drew.
Which is either a sign of serious personal growth or a complete mental breakdown. Could go either way, honestly.
