"What is this?" I whisper.
"I do not know," he says. But his voice is certain. Terrified. Like he's just realized something fundamental about the world has shifted.
The boundary between us—the last remaining shred of professional distance—just dissolved along with the stone.
And there's no going back.
Chapter 11: Tamsin
Forty-eight hours.
That's how long it's been since I climbed onto Cyprian's petrified chest and cracked him open with my bare hands while crying like a feral animal. Forty-eight hours since his amber veins flared incandescent gold and something ancient locked into place between us—something I still don't have words for, something that makes my chest ache when I think about it too hard.
Forty-eight hours since he carried me out of that massage suite wrapped in his wings and deposited me gently in his guest room like I was made of glass.
I haven't seen him since.
He's been sending texts. Professional. Polite. Completely devoid of the raw vulnerability he showed me when his entire body was calcifying and he thought he was going to die.
The session scheduled for tonight will proceed as planned. 11:30 PM. Apex Wellness.
Your compensation has been adjusted to reflect hazard pay for emergency stone-lock intervention.
I trust you are recovering adequately.
Every message makes my stomach twist.
Because they're nothim. They're the corporate security mogul. The ancient gargoyle who's spent eight hundred years building walls around himself. The version of Cyprian who doesn't let anyone see him vulnerable.
And I'm terrified that the version of him who held me on those furs and told me I was the only person who'd ever truly seen him is gone.
But I'm going to this session anyway.
Because I have something to show him.
The encrypted file is on my phone—a digital recording I made two days ago when the collection agency showed up at my apartment. The same collection agency that bought my medical debt portfolio. The same predatory assholes who've been threatening wage garnishment for the past six months.
Except this time, they weren't threatening.
They wereoffering.
I recorded the entire conversation. Every word. Every threat disguised as an opportunity. Every detail of the deal they tried to make: erase my entire $57,000 debt in exchange for architectural blueprints of Cyprian's obsidian vault system.
I told them to go fuck themselves.
And then I grabbed my volcanic stone massage roller and threatened to smash their teeth down their throat if they ever came near me again.
I'm going to show Cyprian the recording. I'm going to prove that I would never,everbetray him. That whatever this thing is between us—this terrifying, overwhelming, soul-deep connection—it's real.
And then maybe he'll stop sending me corporate emails and start acting like the man who told me he'd been alone for eight hundred years.
I pull into the Apex Wellness parking lot at 11:22 PM.
The building is dark except for the third-floor suite. The volcanic heat lamps are glowing through the reinforced windows, casting an orange glow across the pavement.
My hands are shaking as I grab my bag and head inside.
The elevator ride feels like it takes forever. My heart is pounding. My palms are sweating. I keep rehearsing what I'm going to say—how I'm going to present the evidence, how I'm going to make him understand that I'm on his side, that I'mhis.
