Ash breathes into the line. “Alright. Listen to me very carefully. You are no longer on city surveillance. I dropped you off the map. You’re ghosts for the next twenty minutes. After that, I can’t promise anything else won’t come your way. Get him home.”
“Copy,” I say.
Saint takes the last turn toward the manor road, bracing himself and his wrist. The world goes quiet in a way you can feel in your teeth. Vale exhales, low and satisfied. “Caelum,” he says, almost sing-song.
“Mateo,” I answer.
“We,” he says, grinning slow and wicked despite the glassiness in his eyes and the blood still drying at his temple, “have a guest for dinner.”
I look down at Damien, and he glares up defiantly at me.
I smile, and the shiver that runs through Damien makes my blood sing in anticipation. “No,” I murmur. “Dinner is for family. He’s for after.”
Chapter 46
Ember
By midday I’m sure something’s wrong. No one’s said it out loud. No one’s slipped. No sirens, or shouting, not even mess. No sudden rush of bodies and guns and orders. But there’s a static in the house.
It’s in the way footsteps move, how voices sit low and tight, how the air feels charged like storm static.
And Wraith hasn’t left me alone. Not once. That’s the tell.
He’s always been protective. That’s not new. But today it’s turned into a kind of orbiting that steals my breath.
If I stand, he stands. If I sit, he sits. If I go to the bathroom, he waits outside the door, shoulder against the wall, arms crossed, pretending not to be listening to every sound I make. If I make tea in the kitchen, he leans on the counter and “helps” by being the one to pour the water like suddenly I’m too delicate to handle a kettle.
And if I try to wander — not leave, just wander — his palm ghosts low on my back and steers me somewhere he clearly already decided is “acceptable,” which today means… The library, the lounge off the back terrace. Nowhere with a direct door. Nowhere near the front of the house, or downstairs.
It’s subtle if you’re not paying attention. Unfortunately for him, I pay attention.
We’re in the solarium now, only because I annoyed him until he caved. It’s all glass and lush green and heat. Plants creeping up trellises. A faint misting system built into the ceiling. Soft chairs. Old stone underfoot still warm from the brief flash of weak sun that broke through earlier.
I’m in one of the chairs curled up with my legs folded under me, sketchbook in my lap. He’s sitting opposite, too big for the delicate little wrought-iron thing he’s crammed himself into, like some bored guard dog pretending he’s furniture.
He looks… calm. Too calm.
He’s in black joggers and a fitted charcoal tee, hair a little messy from sleep. He shaved, but not clean — rough stubble cuts along his jaw, and the metal in his lip glints when his mouth moves. There’s a bruise blooming faintly along his throat, like someone’s thumb pressed just a little too hard there and didn’t apologize for it.
“What happened?” I ask.
He doesn’t even pretend not to know what I mean. He just says, “Nothing,” in that deep, even voice, and tips his head back against the chair, watching me instead of the ceiling.
Liar.
I narrow my eyes. “You’ve been breathing down my neck like a human restraint harness all morning.”
His mouth ghosts into a smile. “You say that like it’s new.”
“It’s…more,” I say tentatively.
He lifts a shoulder. “Last night we talked about rules. I’m following them.”
God, he’s good. He’s not rattled, or even twitchy. His pulse is steady in his throat. His attention never leaves me for more than a couple seconds at a time.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was relaxed.
But he hasn’t checked his phone once.
