Auralia should have been in the guest room. I'd shown her where everything was—the towels, the extra blankets, the bathroom stocked with toiletries.
Instead, she was here.
Curled at the far end of the couch with her knees drawn up, watching me with those grey-green eyes. Ghost lay stretched between us like a furry peace treaty, his long grey body spanning the distance neither of us seemed able to cross. His dark eyes moved between us, tracking the tension he could feel but not name.
She'd changed too. One of my sweaters—the charcoal cashmere I'd left folded on the guest bed, swallowing her frame, sleeves hanging past her fingertips. Something in my chest went tight at the sight. Mine. She was wearing something mine.
The possessive flare was inappropriate. Probably dangerous. I felt it anyway.
I wanted to touch her.
The wanting was a physical ache, lodged somewhere behind my sternum. I wanted to cross the space between us, pull her into my lap, wrap my arms around her until she stopped trembling. I wanted to press my lips to her hair and tell her it was over, she was safe, I would burn the world down before I let anyone hurt her again.
I wanted to say I love you, which was insane, because we'd known each other in person for less than a week. But five months of careful conversations lived in my chest alongside the terror of tonight, and the feeling didn't care about timelines or logic or the blood still ghosting my hands.
I kept my hands still instead. Resting on my thighs. Deliberately relaxed.
She needed space. She needed to come to me in her own time, or not at all. Pushing would shatter whatever fragile thing was building between us in this dark room.
So I sat. And I watched her watch me.
The city lights caught her cheekbones, her jaw, the delicate architecture of her face. She looked exhausted. Beautiful. Wary in a way that made me want to pull every threat from the world and destroy them one by one.
"You're staring," I said quietly.
"I'm trying to make you fit."
The words landed somewhere deep.
I understood exactly what she meant.
"I don't fit," I told her. Honest. She deserved honest. "All the pieces of me. They’re all me, but they don't fit together neatly. I've spent years trying to make them make sense, and the best I've managed is accepting that they exist in the same body."
Her eyes searched my face. Looking for the lie, maybe. Looking for the monster.
"Which one is real? Lis? Or . . . this?"
"All of it." I held her gaze, let her see whatever she needed to see. "The part that killed those men is as real as the part that wants to take care of you. I can't separate them. I've tried."
Ghost shifted between us, let out a long sigh, pressed his nose against my thigh. Even in sleep—or whatever half-aware state he'd settled into—he was choosing me. Choosing to trust me.
Auralia's eyes tracked the movement. Something flickered across her face. Not quite acceptance, but something close to recognition.
She was quiet for a long moment. The city hummed outside. Ghost's breathing was slow and steady between us, a metronome counting out the seconds.
"I don't know how to do this," she finally said.
"Neither do I." The confession came easier than I expected. "But I need to keep you here to keep you safe. So I’m going to figure out how to do it. If you'll let me."
Her hand moved. Reached across the distance—past Ghost's sleeping form, past all the space she'd been keeping between us—and touched mine. Just her fingertips against my knuckles. Barely a connection at all.
It felt like everything.
Thequestionsstartedslowly,then came faster.
She asked about Anton first—who he was, why he wanted to destroy them, what had happened to put him in exile. I told her everything. The failed coup. The auction house attack that had nearly killed Sophie before Nikolai could claim her. The alliance with the Volkovs that had made us strong enough to push him out. The organ trafficking. All of it.
"He should be dead," I said. The words came out flat. Clinical. "Nikolai showed mercy. It was a mistake we're all paying for now."
