Page 85 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

He leaned in, kissed my forehead, then settled in closer, arm tightening around me, like the choice we’d made was something he meant to hold on to with both hands.

Outside, somewhere in the darkness, an auction system weighed numbers and profiles and decided who would be allowed into its shadowed halls. A fragment waited in a guarded warehouse. A formula threatened to rewrite the balance of our world.

Inside my room, for a few stolen hours, I let myself stop bracing for the end.

And started imagining what it might look like to build a life instead of just surviving one.

With Constantine beside me.

Not as a last night.

But as the first of many.

CHAPTER 14

The room had quieted into that rare stillness that only arrived after the world had tried and failed to kill you.

I lay curled in Constantine’s arms, the sheets tangled around our hips, my head resting just below his collarbone. The soft lamplight brushed his skin in warm-gold. His breathing was slow, steady, a rhythm I’d come to recognize as his version of rest. Not sleep. He almost never slept deeply. But his guard was down, his body loose and unarmored.

His hand rested at the small of my back, palm warm and fingers drifting, tracing idle lines that sent a soft, almost unbearable comfort through me.

I’d fought monsters across continents. I’d ripped apart soldiers and warlocks alike. I’d died more than once in my own way and learned to get back up.

Nothing—nothing—had ever scared me like the quiet of this moment did.

Because quiet meant recognition.

It meant honesty.

And letting someone stay was the most dangerous thing a vampire could do.

Con’s breath stirred my hair. “You’re thinking again.”

I shut my eyes. “I’m allowed.”

“You’re overthinking,” he corrected. “That’s different.”

“You’re bossy in the morning.”

“It’s evening,” he murmured. “And you’re avoiding the question.”

I let out a breath against his chest. “If I wanted an interrogation, I’d go downstairs and talk to Sirus.”

His fingers flexed gently against my spine. “You’re deflecting. You always deflect when you’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” I lied.

His other hand slid up, brushing a lock of hair from my cheek. “Cass. You trembled in your sleep.”

I stilled.

He said it with no judgment, no threat—just quiet truth.

“That could have been from magic overload,” I offered.

“It wasn’t.” His thumb traced along my temple. “It was from fear.”

He didn’t push. He didn’t lecture. He just held me, creating a silence that made lying feel heavy and pointless.