Now I'm standing in a fucking parking lot in the rain.
I turn back toward the building.
Apex Wellness rises behind me—sleek black glass and steel, the kind of place I never would have stepped foot in if I hadn't been desperate. The kind of place where I met a gargoyle who looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
My bag is soaked through. Heavy. The canvas straps digging into my shoulder.
Inside: the severance check. The termination paperwork. The corporate health benefits cancellation form.
All neatly printed. All legally binding. All proof that hecared—in the most cold, transactional, devastating way possible.
I'm free.
My debts are gone. My credit score will recover. I can afford rent. I can afford food. I can afford to fuckingbreathefor the first time in three years.
But I can't feel any of it.
Because the only thing I wanted—the only thing that actually mattered—just told me not to come back.
I came here desperate for money to survive.
I'm leaving with money.
But I don't have the will to use it.
Chapter 16: Cyprian
My left hand is stone.
Not metaphorically.
Not partially.
Completely, utterly, irreversibly calcified from the wrist down. Gray slate where living tissue should be. Cold. Rigid. Dead weight hanging at my side like a monument to my own catastrophic failure.
I stand at the floor-to-ceiling windows of my penthouse, staring out at the city lights blurring through the rain. My reflection stares back—massive wings folded tight against my spine, amber veins dim and flickering like dying embers, and that fucking petrified hand pressed flat against the glass.
The stone is spreading.
I can feel it creeping up my forearm. Slow. Methodical. The familiar grinding sensation of mineral replacing muscle, of my body punishing me for rejecting my mate.
Good.
I deserve it.
The penthouse is silent except for the rain hammering against the windows and the low hum of the climate control system. Everything is exactly as I left it this morning. Immaculate. Controlled. Perfect.
Empty.
I told her to leave.
I looked into her eyes—those sharp, defiant, beautiful eyes—and I told her to get out and never come back.
And she did.
Because I am eight hundred years old, and I have survived wars and plagues and the collapse of empires by trusting no one. By assuming betrayal. By cutting off threats before they can destroy me.
It has kept me alive.
