My hand settles on his arm, thumb brushing back and forth in a slow, grounding rhythm before I realize I’m doing it.
This is a mistake.
The movie drones on. His breathing evens out. His head slips from my shoulder to my lap, cheek pressed into my thigh. He sighs—deep, content, unguarded—and my body reacts before mymind does, tension coiling low in my gut, not with want but with something worse.
Attachment.
I look down at him. His mouth is slightly open, lashes dark against flushed cheeks. The defiant man who snaps at me in meetings, who bares his teeth like a cornered animal, is gone. What’s left is young and tired and softer than anyone has ever allowed him to be.
Including me.
I brush his hair back from his forehead. He stirs, frowning, then relaxes when my hand stays where it is.
“Lucian,” he murmurs, half-asleep.
“I’m here,” I say again, and this time it feels like a promise.
“You’re so warm.” He falls fully asleep in my lap. Dead weight. Trusting me to hold him there.
I don’t move.
Warm.
The credits roll. Another movie starts. Hours slip by unnoticed while the world outside my bedroom keeps turning—meetings postponed, orders waiting, blood debts unresolved. The Romano empire doesn’t pause for quiet afternoons or sleeping handsome men. But I do.
I imagine, unbidden, a different version of this room. Sunlight instead of blackout curtains. No guards posted outside the door. No names whispered with fear. Elias older, surer of himself, laughing without checking my expression first. A life where my hands aren’t instruments of violence by default.
A life I don’t get to have.
The weight of it settles in my chest, heavy and familiar. This is the cost of the crown. You can want softness. You just can’t keep it.
Elias shifts, nestling closer. My fingers tighten reflexively, like I can hold the moment in place if I don’t let go.
I know better.
Still, I stay exactly where I am, letting him sleep, letting myself pretend—just for this afternoon—that the Devil of the North End can be gentle, and that gentleness doesn’t have to be punished. All I want is to feel normal. To know him.
Elias stirs before the next movie finishes, shifting in my lap with a soft, disgruntled sound. His eyes crack open, unfocused, then flick up to me like he’s checking whether this is still allowed.
“You’re still here,” he murmurs.
“Yes,” I say simply.
He hums, satisfied, and settles again. His brows knit together. “You’re…thinking too loud.”
I snort. “That’s not possible.”
“It is for you,” he says, pushing himself upright with a small wince. He doesn’t pull away, though. He stays close, leaning into my chest, fingers fisting lightly in the fabric of my robe like an anchor.
“You do that thing with your jaw.”
I hadn’t realized I was clenching it.
I reach for the remote and pause the movie. The sudden quiet feels heavier than gunfire. Elias glances at the frozen screen, then back at me.
“What?” he asks.
I hesitate.
