The drive is mercifully quiet, that is until I pull into Ezra’s driveway and my brain blue-screens.
What the actual fuck? This is not what I expected.
A sleek, modern house, built of reflective glass and wrapped in shadows, melds into the forest like a trick of the light. It shifts with the trees, vanishing then returning, hiding in plain sight.
“Wow …” I breathe, leaning over the wheel. “Your house is insane.”
Ezra blinks, clearly caught off guard.
“Huh?” His fingers flex slightly, an unconscious tell. “Oh. I’m glad you like it.”
His voice is steady, but there’s something else there.
Something hesitant.
“I had it built so I could see the outdoors from anywhere in the house. I spent most of my life outside, but I enjoy modern amenities. This was my compromise.”
My pulse trips.
He didn’t call it a home, or a refuge. He called it a compromise. My heart squeezes uncomfortably when I think about how lonely Ezra must have been all these years.
Once I’m out of the car, I open the back door, then frown.
Louie is still unconscious. I run my fingers through her hair, worry twisting my gut.
Ezra doesn’t miss a thing. His shadows find me first, curling around my wrist with quiet certainty. A heartbeat later, he’s by my side, wrapping me in his arms, making everything a little less terrible. I let myself sink into him, just until my pulse evens out.
“Please don’t worry, Aurora. I don’t like how I feel when you’re upset.”
The tendrils writhe subtly, mirroring the ache in his voice.
“Louie is resilient, one of Hell’s strongest warriors.” His hands tighten around me. “That cum-slick spellwhore might be an asshole, but he’s right. If she wakes up confused—or worse, violent—you’ll be at risk without your power.”
He untangles himself from me, scooping Louie into his arms with ease.
As we step inside, the interior of his home steals my breath.
It’s expansive … and minimalist to a heartbreaking degree.
Ezra’s bookshop is full of warmth and clutter and life, the kind of space that welcomes you without asking why you’re there.
This place isn’t a home. It’s a skeleton made of bare walls and echoing silence, built by someone who never expected to stay. And for some reason, that realization hurts more than I want it to.
But the glass walls? They’re stunning.
The view looks like something Monet might have painted if he ever wandered into the wilds of Appalachia and let the forest swallow him whole. Even the second-floor ceiling gleams with glass, built to let the stars spill in at night.
I linger, eyes moving over the room trying to make sense of the kind of person who builds a house like this, but Ezra’s quiet mumbling pulls me from my thoughts.
When I join him, he’s laying Louie down in the spare bedroom, a glass of water already waiting on the nightstand.
A slow, aching twist pulls through my stomach.
No, no, no. He can’t do this to me.
He can’t be hot as fuck and a man who actually changed because he said he would. That’s not real.
Ezra drapes a plush blanket over Louie’s small, naked form.
