CHAPTER 10
Cillian
Ares’s shouting yanks me from unconsciousness like a hook through water. My eyes snap open, instinct driving me upright before my brain can process the danger. Pain explodes through my abdomen—white-hot and vicious—stealing my breath and vision in one brutal sweep.
“Fuck,” I gasp, collapsing back against the mattress. My hand flies to my side, finding fresh bandages where I expected torn stitches. The pain pulses beneath my palm, a steady throb that matches my racing heartbeat.
Something shifts beside me—a warm weight I hadn’t registered until now. I turn my head, the movement sending another spike of pain through my core, and find myself staring at a cascade of purple hair spread across my pillow.
Maya.
She’s curled on her side facing me, features soft with sleep, one hand tucked beneath her cheek. The sight of her—here, in my bed, vulnerable and unguarded—feels like a hallucination born of blood loss and wishful thinking.
I blink, expecting her to vanish. She remains solid, real, her cherry-champagne scent mingling with the metallic tang of my blood in the air. The combination should be jarring. Instead, it’s oddly comforting, like finding something I didn’t know I’d lost.
My bedroom door slams open with enough force to rattle the hinges. Ares fills the doorway, his massive frame tense with barely contained panic. His hair stands in wild disarray, eyes wide and frantic as he shouts, “Maya’s gone! She’s not in her room, and I can’t?—“
He freezes mid-sentence, gaze landing on the sleeping form beside me. The transformation is immediate—the coiled tension draining from his body so quickly it’s almost comical. His shoulders drop, mouth closing with an audible click of teeth.
“She’s here,” he says unnecessarily, voice dropping to a normal volume. “She must have slipped past me.”
“Obviously.” The word comes out sharper than intended, edged with pain and something that might be possessiveness. I push the feeling down, focusing on Ares’s disheveled appearance instead. “You might be the worst guard I’ve ever seen.”
He runs a hand through his cinnamon curls, a rueful expression crossing his features. “I was more concerned with keeping everyone else out than keeping her in.”
The admission hangs between us, weighted with implications neither of us is ready to address. Maya isn’t a prisoner—not technically. But she isn’t exactly free to leave either. We let her walk away once. Even though she returned of her own free will, I’m not sure we have it in us to let her walk away again.
Hopefully, she doesn’t decide to put our resolve to honor her wishes to the test.
The complicated ethics of our situation are interrupted by a commotion from the front of the safehouse—doors banging open, heavy footsteps on worn floorboards, voices raised in what sounds like argument.
Ares sighs, the sound bone-deep and weary. “Logan and Poe are back.” He glances at Maya, still somehow sleeping through the noise. “They’ll want to discuss whatever they learned.”
I shift up in the bed, wincing as the movement pulls at my wound. “I’ll be out there in a minute.”
“Take a painkiller first,” Ares says, nodding toward the untouched bottle on my nightstand. “You look like shit.”
“I will,” I lie, the words coming easily after years of practice. We both know I won’t touch them. Pain keeps me sharp, keeps me present. Keeps me from slipping into the dangerous softness that beckons whenever Maya is near.
Ares’s gaze lingers on me for a moment longer, something unreadable in his expression. Then he nods once and pulls the door closed behind him, leaving me alone with the sleeping Omega whose presence in my bed feels like a test I’m destined to fail.
I turn to Maya, studying her face in the dim light filtering through the curtains. Sleep smooths away the wariness that usually tightens her features, making her look younger and more vulnerable. A strand of purple hair has fallen across her cheek. My fingers itch to brush it away, to feel its softness against my skin.
I curl my hand into a fist instead. “I know you’re awake,” I say quietly.
Her breathing doesn’t change, but I catch the slight tension that creeps into her shoulders. She’s good—better than most at feigning sleep—but I’ve spent my life reading people’s bodies for signs of deception. The subtle tells are as clear to me as shouted confessions.
“No, I’m not,” she mumbles, eyes still firmly closed.
My lips twitch toward a smile. This stubborn, impossible woman who refuses to be what anyone expects her to be.
I shift again, more carefully this time, and notice something different about the pain. It’s still there, still sharp, but somehow... cleaner. More focused. I lift my shirt, examining the bandage wrapped neatly around my torso. Beneath it, I can feel the pull of fresh stitches—tight and even where before there had been torn flesh and seeping blood.
“You did this?” I ask, looking back at Maya.
She’s watching me now, eyes wide and unblinking like an owl caught in sudden light. The wariness has returned, but there’s a flicker of pride, quickly suppressed.
She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t need to. Ares wouldn’t have dared come at me with a needle.
