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Her breathing slowed first, her warm and spent body sagging against mine. Then she slid off me. No kiss. No lingering touch. Just a void where her body had been.

The shadows peeled from my wrists like shedding skin, as if they’d decided I wasn’t worth the trouble anymore. They seemed thicker now, bloated with the light they had siphoned from me. They slithered back to her and disappeared into her skin as she walked to the bathroom without a word. The door clicked shut behind her.

And I broke.

Tears came before I could stop them. Silent at first. Then choking. My fists clenched in my lap, my arms shaking, as I gasped for air that wouldn’t come.

I’d fought demons in Hell. I’d bled for the tribunal’s cold justice. I’d stood before judgment itself and not flinched.

But this? This unholy, beautiful ruin she had made of me, this agonizing ache in my soul that felt like the darkest worship and the most profound humiliation, was unbearable.

I didn’t know how to survive that. She hadn’t just taken me. She hadn’t broken me. Devoured me. All of me.

I stood on unsteady legs, barely able to pull my pants back on. My blood roared in my ears. I grabbed my coat. My blade. And just left.

Prague was still sleeping, shrouded in a cold, indifferent mist. Pale lights blinked in shuttered windows like distant stars. The streets glistened with frost, empty and silent. I walked until my limbs went numb, until the stars faded and the sky turned into that desolate shade of indigo.

I wasn’t sure why I returned to Cassia’s flat. Maybe it was some masochistic impulse. Maybe I thought she’d be gone. Maybe—damn me—I hoped she wasn’t.

The apartment door creaked as I pushed it open, the sound loud in the predawn stillness. The shadows didn’t greet me this time. They were sated.

The couch was half lit by the window’s pale encroaching light. And she was there. Curled on the cushions. Knees drawn up to her chest. Across the worn pillow’s fabric, her glorious hair lay like a tangled golden halo. Her face was wet. Her shoulders were trembling.

But she felt me. I knew she had.

She slowly looked up, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed and lost. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice broken. “I-I don’t… I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean to— Remiel, please. Please, I didn’t mean to make you feel like that… Don’t…look at me like I’m…a monster.”

She sobbed, a harsh sound. Her hands curled into fists against her chest as if they were trying to hold herself together.

And for the first time since she’d kissed me with such consuming passion, I didn’t feel like prey. I didn’t feel like a victim. It felt like this very person who had systematically destroyed me was now asking to be saved.

I didn’t answer right away. Couldn’t. But I silently crossed the small room, my boots faintly echoing on the old worn wood. I sank onto the couch beside her and opened my arms.

She didn’t move. Just stared at me with those wide, lost eyes. So, I gathered her myself. Lifted her as if she was fragile or precious and curled her trembling form against my chest.

She didn’t fight me. Didn’t resist. Just pressed her face into the curve of my neck, her breathing shuddering against my skin.

Her body was still shaking. And I, the ruined angel I was, held her. Held her as if she was the only thing keeping me tethered to this world.

I pressed my lips to her hair, inhaling her scent of rosewater and ash and sorrow. My own raw voice whispered. “I don’t care what you do to me, Cassia… So long as you do something.”

19. Cassia

I woke to warmth. The room carried the faint lingering scent of black tea and old paper. Sunlight, thin and hesitant, bled through the curtains in long slats, turning dust motes into fleeting gold.

The silver cuffs were cool and smooth against my skin. They dully glinted in the soft morning light like bridal chains, unmarred by any visible clasp or key.

I slowly sat up with heavy, bone-deep dread. The movement tugged at something deep within my chest, a phantom ache barely perceptible but unmistakable. I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed through the sensation, through the crushing weight of what I’d done.

The night’s brutal truths settled over me like ash.

The couch softly creaked. Remiel was already awake. Of course, he was.

He sat at the small table by the window, his shirt half unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled to his elbows. Steam curled from the mug cradled in his hands. He looked like something pulled from a forgotten, tragic painting. His partly bare chest gilded in the morning light, his light brown hair was tousled from sleep, and his jaw was shadowed with the stubble of contemplation.

“I made breakfast,” he said, not looking at me.

My voice, when I found it, came out hoarse, a mere whisper. “You stayed.”