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This was why she hated me.
I was the monster in her story.
And in that moment, a bleak, unshakable truth settled: Even if I lived a thousand more years, she would never be mine. Not truly. Not after what I’d done. Not after what I had chosen to become.
Strangely, that knowledge didn’t break me. Instead, it steadied me. Because some part of me had already known. I didn’t want to survive in a world where she had to carry the unbearable weight of my existence, my betrayals. My goodbye was not just for the night.
It was for forever.
30. Cassia
“Let me help you recall the entire scene,” I heard myself say, my sharp voice distant. “Paint the full picture for you.”
I turned slowly, still kneeling on the dusty, debris-strewn floor before that broken altar. I forced my gaze upward, locking eyes with Remiel.
He froze, staring into the distance. Somewhere toward Michael’s statue. The inability to face me again.
“Look at me.” No scream. No residual rage. Just the flat dead weight of a command forged in millennia of bone-deep betrayal.
The muscles in his jaw worked, and a silent war waged in those golden eyes before his gaze finally lowered onto me.
A choked, guttural sound tore from him, probably from the bloody tears I hadn’t fully washed off. He dropped to his knees before me. Like penance and shattering awe.
His hands, slightly trembling, came up. I didn’t recoil, though every instinct screamed defiance. But I let him touch me. Didn’t care about the blood smearing his skin.
“I tried…I tried to help you,” he whispered desperately.
Silence was my only answer.
He leaned forward. Close enough to feel the heat of his breath. The crushing weight of a moment neither of us deserved.
My lips parted. Perhaps in desperation. Perhaps in a final, weary surrender.
He kissed me. Not softly or demanding but reverently. Like touching something holy, something he knew he had desecrated beyond repair. As if the kiss itself could save us both from the wreckage he had created.
Our lips parted, barely. His breath ghosted against mine—warm, ragged.
“Here’s your chance for redemption…” I whispered. My chin trembled then, my control fracturing.
Real hot tears blurred his horrified, hopeful face.
“Help…me.”
His entire being seemed to freeze. I lightly pressed my forehead against his; the contact was electric. I trembled from the immense burden I had just given, the desperate request torn from my own shattered soul.
“I’ll do anything,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Tell me what to do. Cassia, tell me, and I swear, by all that’s left of me, I’ll do it.”
I leaned back just enough to meet his gaze, the desperation there a stark mirror of my own. The fire returned to my eyes, hardening into resolve. “Tether me.”
The words struck him harder than my slap ever could have. His breath hitched. “Wh-what?”
“You heard me,” I said, my voice steadying. “Not with cuffs. Not with force.” I reached out, and my fingers brushed the center of his chest, over the heart that beat too fast. “Bond me to you. Give me your light. Willingly. Anchor me, Remiel, before I unravel completely. Save me.”
He swallowed hard against the impossible. “You told me… I didn’t have the right—”
“I’m giving it to you now,” I said, the words bitter and final. “Not because you deserve it. Hell knows you don’t. But because I need it.” My voice cracked. “I-I need…something real. To hold on to.” My hand dropped, heavy. “Unless…you don’t want the burden. Unless you don’t want me.”
He kissed me again, fiercely this time. Desperately. His mouth was rough, branding me with a pain that was almost pleasure.
