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Elias looked at me then—really looked at me. And what I saw in his eyes wasn’t pity. It was fury. Protectiveness. Something that felt dangerously close to love.
“I can fix it,” he said. “I have leverage. We can bury the media threads. We can spin it. Say you were filming something. Doing performance art.”
I reached out, touched his jaw. “You can do a lot of things, Cipher. But you can’t unmake me.”
His brow furrowed.
“I’m not meant for polite society. Never have been. I’ve always danced on the edge. The ballet gave me structure, sure. A role. But it was never going to be enough.”
He was quiet, but I could feel the war in him—one part wanting to scorch the earth for me, the other knowing I was made of wildfire and wouldn’t be saved that way.
“I’m not asking you to fix it,” I whispered. “What if I’m asking you to stand beside me while it burns?”
Elias cupped my face, his thumb brushing my cheek like I might vanish if he blinked. “Then we’ll watch it burn together.”
I had him. And he had me. And that? That was dangerous in the best fucking way.
He leaned in, kissed me once—slow and deliberate, like sealing a pact—and then flopped back onto the pillows with a groan. “So what now? You’re officially off-duty. Should we throw a retirement party?”
I snorted. “Technically, my whereabouts are supposed to be reported to the authorities.”
He stretched, utterly unbothered. “Yeah, well. I won’t be doing that. I’ll have our guy on the force take care of it.”
“You’re obstructing justice.”
“I’m protecting it,” he said, eyes closing. “Big difference.”
I stretched beside him, catlike and smug. “A retirement party sounds tempting. But I don’t think Dominion Hall stocks enough alcohol.”
He smirked, eyes tracking the lazy arc of my arm as I reached overhead. “Seriously. What do you want to do today?”
I gave it a beat. Let the question hang in the air like something sacred.
Because with Elias? The possibilities were endless.
We could hop on a plane and be in Paris by dinnertime—white tablecloths, caviar, and a view of the Seine like something out of a dream. Or we could rent out an entire theater downtown just to watchBlack Swanon a loop while we heckled it from the balcony. Hell, he probably had the resources to shut down a theme park for the day and let me pirouette down Main Street in stilettos and lingerie if I asked nicely. With that kind of money, the world bent a little differently—rules became suggestions,time became elastic, and impulse was just another form of currency.
Still, I stayed where I was.
“I don’t have to be anywhere,” I said finally, rolling onto my side. “For once in my life, there’s no barre, no rehearsals, no endless emails about costumes and fundraising galas. Just … me. And this absurdly comfortable bed.”
“And the venomous snake,” Elias added dryly, glancing toward the far corner where Obsidian had curled into a tight black coil on the rug like she owned the place.
Right. Her.
“We should probably put her back,” I murmured, propping my chin on his chest. “Before she gets bored and slithers her way into someone’s closet.”
Elias made a noise that was half-laugh, half-grimace. “Pretty sure if she ends up in the wrong suite, there’s going to be a murder. Or at least a lawsuit.”
“Please. I’ll bet half the women here wear shoes more dangerous than Obsidian. Besides,” I grinned, “maybe it’s a loyalty test.”
“A snake test?”
“Exactly. If they can’t handle a little serpentine chaos, they don’t belong in this house.”
He arched a brow. “You’re terrifying.”
“And you like it.”