Rapha
I almost lost her.
The thought circles my head in an endless loop. And the worst part? I barely noticed she was slipping from me until Lucifer threw it in my face.
I could blame him. I want to blame him. His sick little games, the way he puppets the dead and dances on the ruins of what we once were. But the truth is, the darkness didn’t take me by force. I let it in.
I became greed .
The hunger crawls up my throat again. Not for blood. Not for food. Not even for her, though the echo of her moaning my name still lingers.
No, this is worse.
This hunger is slick and insidious. It tastes like power, like punishment, like the thrill of soul-trading and the lie that I’m in control .
What I should feel right now is a sense of peace. The slow, aching love of what it means to be hers and that she’s safe. I should feel reconnected.
But the gnawing need still rakes at me.
I take her hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. Her brow furrows, lips parting to speak, but then I’m kissing her mouth, soft and slow. She melts against me in the space of a breath, her arms winding around my neck.
I scoop her into my lap and carry her to the bedroom.
The moonlight spills through the tall windows as I lay her down, worshiping every inch of skin I once feared I’d never touch again.
I undress her slowly, reverently, brushing my knuckles along her collarbone, my lips tracing the curve of her throat. She shivers beneath my hands, beneath my mouth. Her breath catches, her eyes searching mine.
“Rapha…” Her voice is soft but strained. “We need to talk. About Cassian. About what’s happening to you.”
I press my lips to hers before she can say more, swallowing the rising worry in her tone. “Words can wait,” I murmur. “Let me show you what you are to me. What you still are. What you’ll always be.”
She shivers beneath me, eyes locked to mine, and I see the question there: Do you still see me? Still want me?
I answer with my body.
The moment my mouth finds the tender peak of her breast, her body arches into mine, her fingers digging into my back.
I kiss down her sternum, over her belly, easing her thighs apart as her breath grows ragged. She tries to speak again, but I silence her with the drag of my tongue along the heat of her, slow and deep, my hands anchoring her hips.
She gasps, her head falling back, one arm flung across her forehead as she begins to tremble.
I stay there, tasting her, worshipping her with every stroke of my mouth.
I drink down the sounds she makes, the broken moans, the way she clutches my hair as if she’ll fall without me holding her together.
Her thighs tighten around my head. Her breath catches.
“Raph—” she chokes, but the rest of my name is lost in a cry as she falls apart beneath my tongue.
She’s still shivering when I kiss my way back up her body, licking the taste of her from my lips. Her eyes are wide, dazed, but she pulls me down into a kiss that’s more desperate now, wanton and raw.
I ease into her slowly, tender from the start, but it’s different now, deeper, heavier, needier.
She gasps. I still.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, pulling me closer. “I want all of you.”
I hold her tight as I rock into her, grounding myself in her warmth, her breath, the way her body wraps around mine like she was made to hold me together.
She gasps my name again as I bury myself in her, letting her feel the full weight of me. Of everything I can’t say.
We find our rhythm together, her hips rising to meet mine, our breath tangled as I move inside her.
I cradle her face, kiss her lips, her neck, her shoulder.
I tell her without words that she’s still the center of everything good inside me, that even as the darkness gnaws at my soul, she’s the only light I’ll ever chase.
She comes again with a cry, her body pulsing around mine, and the sensation unravels me completely. I let go, spilling into her with a groan, my body shaking from more than release.
It’s surrender.
We collapse into each other, sweat-slick and breathless. Her hands stroke my back, soothing, grounding, even as I feel the ache of everything I’ve done press in again like a bruise beneath my skin.
But for now, there’s only her.
Her scent.
Her heartbeat.
The echo of her name still burning in my throat.
She curls against my chest, her fingers tracing idle shapes along my ribs, her breath still uneven from what we just shared. I think she’s drifting, her body heavy with release, but after a long silence, her voice emerges.
“You’ve changed.” The moonlight paints her face in soft silver.
Her eyes are steady, but they hold a flicker of fear.
Not of me, but of what might be happening to me.
“Not just the horns or the fire or whatever dark silk your voice is made of now. Something deeper. When you came back tonight, you didn’t even want to talk. You wanted to consume.”
I don’t deny it. I can’t.
“I almost lost you,” I say, my voice thick. “I wasn’t thinking straight. All I could feel was the hunger… and the rage.”
Her hand moves to my cheek. “Rapha, what’s happening to you?”
I shut my eyes. “Reaping souls for Lucifer is changing me. The need for souls has replaced the blood addiction from when I was a vampire, only a thousand times stronger. It’s in every part of me now.
And all the while, Lucifer continues to play his games.
He brought your father back. Sent him to the manor.
Gave him a head start. And held me back. ”
She stiffens against me. “What?”
“He’s trying to pull me apart. Testing what’s left of me. Seeing how much I’ll sacrifice before I snap. And I nearly did, Dru. I left you here alone while I—” I heave a breath, guilt battering me.
She sits up, pulling the sheets with her, and I feel the shift in her. The warmth of our bodies fades between us, replaced by something colder. Sharper.
“What was the point of bringing me back if you keep leaving?” she asks quietly, but her voice holds an edge I’ve never heard from her before. “If I’m only going to lose you piece by piece?”
“Drusilla—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You left me here alone for weeks while you slipped further and further into whatever this is. I kept telling myself you’d come back to me. That I’d wake up and the man I loved would be here, whole again.”
I sit up too, throat tight. “I didn’t mean to leave you alone. I thought?—”
“That I couldn’t handle it?” Her eyes flash. “That I’m fragile? That I’m still the girl who needed rescuing under an olive tree?”
I look at her, at the wild light in her eyes, and it hits me.
She’s furious .
“You’re not alone anymore, Rapha,” she says, softer now, but no less intense. “You don’t have to bear this burden by yourself. I’m not helpless. I don’t need to be protected from the truth. I need to be your partner. Let me fight for you. Let me stand beside you .”
The words cut through me like a blade made of love and fury and desperate, stubborn hope.
I want to argue. To warn her away from what I’ve become. But she’s already proven she won’t flinch. She faced her father’s revenant alone. She wielded the manor’s magic like a weapon. And she’s still here, naked in every way, her soul laid bare in front of me.
“You’re right,” I whisper. “You’ve been fighting this whole time. And I’ve been running. From you. From what I’m becoming. From everything.”
She softens slightly, reaching out to take my hand, our fingers threading together. “Then stop running. Let me help you find your way back.”
I squeeze her hand. “I’ll try.”
“Not good enough,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “There is no trying . There is only doing .”
I almost laugh at her bossy tone, but the emotion in my throat is too heavy to get past.
“I will,” I say. And I mean it.
I lie down again and tug her close, needing her to ground me.
She’s quiet for a long time before she finally asks, “What aboutwhat I did? Rapha? How did I do that? How was I able to use the magic in this place?”
“You called it,” I murmur. “The manor… I built it for you. It responded because it’s bonded to you now. It will always answer if you’re in danger within its walls.”
She blinks, silent.
“You saved yourself,” I say. “You didn’t need me to fight Cassian. You found your strength. The manor’s magic didn’t just let you use it. It obeyed you.”
“I don’t want it if it means becoming like him, ” she whispers. “My father… he called me a stain. Said he would cleanse our bloodline of my sin.”
“He won’t touch you again,” I swear. “Lucifer can twist every rule he wants, but I’ll burn this entire plane to ash before I let that revenant get near you again.”
Her eyes fill, but she presses her lips to my chest. “Don’t let my father or Lucifer take you from me, Rapha. Please. You’re still in there. I know it.”
I wrap my arms around her, breathing her in like I need her scent to keep me tethered. “I don’t know how much of me is left,” I admit, “but what remains is yours.”
She presses her cheek to my heart, listening to the strange rhythm that no longer belongs to the living.
“I’ll fight for you,” she whispers. “For both of us.”
Only then does her breath slow and her eyes finally fall closed.
And I’m left holding the most dangerous thing in all the worlds: a reason to hope.
I stroke her hair and try not to think as she sleeps, curled into me, her breath soft against my skin. But my mind is already racing.
Because the itch, the greed, is still there.
I slip from bed and pace the room. I’m fraying at the edges. Man to vampire to demon to nothing. I press my forehead to the cool wall and exhale a breath I can’t hold on to.
Lucifer.
I need to speak to him.
The world rips open around me, and the manor vanishes. I land on the obsidian tiles ofGlutton Hall, where Lucifer looms on his throne above me.
“Well, well,” he drawls. “Look who’s crawled back. You know, I don’t appreciate you dropping in like this without an invitation.”