LILLITH
The light inPines and Needlesfiltered in slow, golden slants through the lace curtains, touching everything with a deceptive gentleness. It smelled faintly of cedar, lavender, and something spicier—Dominic’s cologne clinging to the air like memory.
Lillith stirred on the old velvet couch, a tangle of limbs and half-forgotten dreams. Her eyes blinked open against the morning, slow to adjust. Her neck ached. Her back protested. But it wasn’t any of those things that pulled her to consciousness.
It was the clarity.
That quiet, aching clarity that sometimes only came after a night full of restless sleep and dreams you couldn’t quite hold onto. She stared at the ceiling, watched the dust motes dance in the beams of light. Her heart fluttered, fragile and wild.
She had to tell him.
No more waiting. No more weaving herself in circles of doubt and protection. No more telling herself that he’d walk away eventually, that she was just something temporary for him to fixate on.
Because the truth was louder now than her fear.
He loved her.
And she loved him right back.
She’d felt it in the way his eyes lingered just a second too long when she looked away, in the gentleness of his hands when he thought she was asleep, in the way he never tried to own her magic or tame her fire. Only ever stood beside it. Shielded it.Believed in it.
He hadn’t just fought for her. He’d waited. He’d endured. Even when she’d given him every reason not to.
And last night, when she pushed too hard, crossed that fragile line between protection and cruelty—he hadn’t shouted. He hadn’t stormed off. He’d justhurt.Quietly. Deeply.
If he could stop trying… so could she.
If he could risk everything to be honest, then she could too.
She sat up slowly, running her fingers through her sleep-mussed curls, breath catching in her throat. “I have to tell him,” she murmured into the morning hush. “Ihaveto tell him.”
No excuses. No more hiding behind her childhood of rigid court manners and silent betrayals. No more blaming her father’s abandonment or the way the high fae used affection as a weapon.
Dominic wasn’t them. He never had been. Maybe he was the first person who could love her without trying to change her.
She stood quickly, feet bare against the creaky wood floor, the air cool against her skin. She could still feel the echo of his presence—warmth in the cushions, the scent of his skin on her sleeve where he’d brushed past her the night before.
He couldn’t have gone far.Not with the tether. Not with the bond.
She was going to find him. She was going to say the words. Finally. No riddles. No sarcasm. Just truth. Because if lovemeant anything—iftheymeant anything—then it was time she stopped hexing her own happiness.
She was ready.
Only… when she reached for him, reached for the magic that always pulsed between them like a heartbeat, there was nothing.
It was the silence.
Not the usual morning quiet of Celestial Pines, no. This was deeper. Emptier. Her chest felt hollow. The tether… it was gone.
For a split second, she blamed it on the way they’d left things last night—too many unsaid things, too many glances that stung and words that burned. Maybe he was just keeping his distance, sleeping off the ache of disappointment.
But the ache she felt wasn’t from guilt or anger. It was from absence.
She sat upright, the blanket falling off her lap. Her hand flew to her chest, pressing hard, like she could find the thread of their connection again if she just looked hard enough.
Nothing.
“Dominic?” she called out. The way she used to, like a joke. Like a challenge.
