Her mouth opened. Closed.
He ran a hand through his hair, pacing the porch like the lion prowled just beneath his skin. “I’ve been patient. I’ve been trying. Hell, I’ve been—" he huffed. “I’ve beensoft.Foryou.And maybe that was my mistake.”
Her spine straightened. “You think trying to protect me is a mistake?”
“No,” he said, quieter now. “But trying to be with someone who refuses to see it as anything but a curse? Yeah. That might be.”
The words hung heavy in the night air.
She looked at him finally. “I’m scared,” she said, voice cracking. “And I know that’s not fair. But I have spent my whole damn life building walls because I had to. Because if I didn’t, I’d get consumed. By expectations. By people who wanted to own pieces of me.”
He nodded slowly, jaw tight. “I’m not asking for pieces. I’m asking for a chance.”
“And what if I break it?”
“Then break it!” His voice rose, cutting through the dark. “But don’t stand there and pretend it doesn’t matter. Don’tstand there and treat me like a temporary fix while you wait for someone safer.”
She flinched again. “You’re not temporary.”
“Thenactlike it.”
The silence that followed was colder than the wind rolling in off the trees. Lillith’s eyes shimmered, but she didn’t cry. She didn’t run.
She just said, “I need space.”
He laughed—sharp and bitter. “That’s rich, considering we can’t even be more than thirty feet apart.”
She turned then, went inside without slamming the door but might as well have.
Dominic stared up at the stars, hands clenched at his sides.
“You’re killin’ me, fae,” he whispered to the night.
He didn’t follow her right away.
He needed a second to remember who he was without her storm clouding his every breath. Because even an alpha can only chase something for so long before he wonders if he’s the fool for trying.
And if this—whatever it was—was going to survive, maybe it was time she stopped running. Maybe it was time she chose him back. Or let him go. But either way, he wasn’t going to keep playing the villain in her story.
Not when all he ever wanted since he really had gotten to know her, since this tether, was to be her choice. Not her curse.
20
LILLITH
The trek to Markus and Rowan’s felt longer than usual.
Every step beside Dominic was quieter than the last. Not silent, exactly. Just… too still. Like the kind of quiet that settles after a slammed door, when the echo of it still hums in your chest but no one wants to be the first to speak.
Lillith hated it.
She hated that she kept checking his expression from the corner of her eye and only finding that jaw-locked stoicism he wore like a crown when he didn’t want anyone to see him bleed.
She hated that she knew it was her fault.
And she hated most of all that her magic still hummed under her skin every time he got too close. That when they brushed arms by accident, her whole body still lit up like fireflies caught in a mason jar. Trapped. Glowing. Helpless.
The previous night clung to her like smoke—half dream, half truth. She’d tasted the kind of affection she wasn’t sure she believed in. Tasted it, and then shoved it away.
