No more half-truths. No more pretending this wasn’t bigger than stolen kisses and silk sheets.
With a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, I sat up.
If Callista had something to tell me, I needed to hear it.
Even if it meant risking everything I was starting to feel for Hades.
Even if it meant tearing down the only thing that had started to feel like home.
My heart raced as I swung my legs over the side of the bed, the chill in the air slicing through the haze of warmth Hades had left behind. I sat there for a moment, caught between the soft press of silk sheets and the sharp pull of reality.
The bathroom door loomed across the room—the same threshold he’d carried me through just hours ago. His arms around me. His mouth at my neck. That quiet possessiveness that had felt like protection instead of a prison.
My mind flashed back to the hallway, the rain slicking our skin, the heat of his mouth on mine as thunder cracked above us. And later—fuck, later—his body tangled with mine in the dark, every breath a vow I hadn’t asked for but had somehow started to believe.
But this… this wasn’t just about us anymore.
A knot twisted low in my stomach, sharp and cold. Callista’s voice echoed through my head, every syllable laced with warning.
“Meet me. Tell no one.”
Something was wrong. Deeply, irrevocably wrong.
I rose from the bed, and the sheets slipped through my fingers like water, like memory. I stood in the stillness, staring at the door as if he might walk through it at any second and ask me to forget everything except him.
Would I?
That was the problem—I didn’t know anymore.
I needed answers. Even if they cracked everything wide open.
With quiet resolve, I got dressed and moved through the dim hallway, each step padded and silent. The house felt… hollow without him. Too still. Too careful. Like even the walls were holding their breath.
I passed the kitchen, hesitating as I glanced at the front door—the same one he’d walked through earlier, dressed in black, tie straight, eyes unreadable.
He’d told me not to open the door for anyone.
But he hadn’t said anything about walking out of it myself.
I reached for the handle with a hand that wasn’t shaking—but only because I’d forced it not to. My other pressed against my stomach, trying to quiet the ache that had nothing to do with lust and everything to do with doubt.
Outside, the rain had started again—light but steady. The kind of rain that whispered things you didn’t want to hear.
I stepped out into it anyway.
Each drop was a cold reminder of everything I stood to lose. But I kept moving. Down the steps. Across the street. Toward whatever truth Callista thought I was strong enough to face.
Because if she was right?
Then nothing about this twisted, breathless thing between Hades and me had ever been real.
And if she was wrong?
Then I might’ve just broken something that could never be repaired.
Either way, I was walking toward it.
Into the unknown.
