Page 14

14

AURELIE

I jolt from deep sleep to full alert at the first wail. My body responds before my mind catches up—maternal instinct overriding exhaustion. The high-pitched cry pierces the quiet night, slicing through the darkness like a knife.

"I'm coming, Sephy," I mumble, throwing the covers off and stumbling toward the nursery, my feet clumsy with sleep.

But when I reach the doorway, I freeze. Rolfo's broad silhouette is already bent over the cradle, his movements gentle despite his size. He lifts Sephy with a care that contradicts everything I've ever known about demon men.

It's not the first time I've found him in here tending to her, but each time, it melts something in my chest. Each time I watch them together, it lowers my walls a little further.

"There we go, little one," he murmurs, voice low and soothing. "I know, I know. It's terrible being hungry, isn't it?"

I press myself against the doorframe, watching as he cradles my daughter against his chest. She looks impossibly tiny in his arms, her silvery-blonde curls catching the faint glow from the hearth. Her cries soften to hiccuping whimpers as Rolfo moves across the room with practiced ease.

"Let's get you something to eat," he continues, speaking to her as though she understands every word. "Your mama needs rest. Growing a person is hard work, you know."

My hand drifts to my still-tender abdomen at his words. He doesn't know I'm here, watching this midnight ritual unfold. There's something intimate and vulnerable about seeing this massive, scarred demon guardsman tending to my infant with such tenderness.

Rolfo retrieves a bottle from beside the hearth, where he must have been warming it. He tests a drop against his wrist, nods once in satisfaction, then settles into the rocking chair. The chair I've sat in countless times these past weeks, struggling to find my footing as a mother.

"There you go," he whispers as Sephy latches onto the bottle. "That's the way."

The creak of the rocking chair fills the silence as Sephy drinks greedily. Rolfo hums something tuneless and low, a rumble more than a melody. My daughter's tiny hand reaches up, finding his finger and wrapping around it with that surprising strength newborns possess.

The ache that blooms in my chest has nothing to do with milk. It spreads through me, hot and painful and sweet all at once. I press my fingers to my lips to hold in whatever sound wants to escape.

I shouldn't want this. Shouldn't let myself imagine what it would be like if this were real—if we were truly a family rather than a convenient arrangement born of desperation. But in the soft glow of the hearth light, with Sephy's tiny hand wrapped around his massive finger, the fantasy is too seductive to resist.

Later, I sit at the kitchen table, turning the empty bottle in my hands. The glass is still warm, a reminder of everything I cannot have. Across the room, Rolfo crouches beside the cradle I've moved to the main room for the night. His massive frame seems to fold in on itself as he leans close to whisper something to my sleeping daughter.

"What are you telling her?" I ask, surprising myself with the question.

He glances up, those mercury eyes catching the light. "Ancient demon lullabies. Very scary stuff." The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Nothing that would frighten a brave little warrior like her, though."

"She's barely three weeks old."

"Never too early to learn courage." He rises to his full height, stretching his back. "Or that she's safe."

Ada's voice echoes in my head: He means everything he does. The thought terrifies me almost as much as the realization that I've been staring at him too long, memorizing the lines of his face in the dim light.

I force myself to look away. "We'll be out of your hair soon," I whisper, more to convince myself than him. "I just need a little more strength, then we'll keep moving."

"Aurelie—"

"I have to," I cut him off, clutching the bottle like a shield. "It's not safe to stay in one place. It's not safe to—" Want this. Want you. I swallow the words before they can escape.

"Not safe to what?" He steps closer, and the air between us seems to thin.

"To forget what I'm running from," I finish, meeting his gaze despite the danger. "Kaelith won't stop looking. He never stops."

Rolfo's expression darkens. "Let him come."

"You don't know him."

"I know men like him." His voice hardens. "Men who think ownership gives them rights to another's soul."

I shake my head, setting the bottle down with a decisive click. "No one knows men like Kaelith. That's why they don't survive him."

The silence that follows feels heavy, pressing down on my shoulders like a physical weight. Sephy makes a soft sound in her sleep, drawing both our gazes to her perfect, peaceful face. My daughter—the one good thing to come from years of horror. I can't risk her. Can't risk what might happen if Kaelith finds us here.

Rolfo's mercury eyes flick back to me, studying me with that unnerving intensity that seems to strip away my defenses. The hearth fire casts half his face in shadow, highlighting the scar that bisects his eyebrow.

"Are you still planning to go?" he asks, his voice gentler than I've ever heard it. None of his usual gruffness remains—just genuine concern that makes my chest ache. "I'd understand," he adds after a moment. "If you did."

His question hangs between us. Simple words that carry impossible weight.

I open my mouth, but something catches in my throat. My fingers twist in the fabric of my nightdress, trying to anchor myself against the storm of conflicting emotions. Safety versus freedom. Risk versus certainty.

What if I stay? What if I let myself believe this could be real? What if I trust him and he's just like all the rest? What if I trust him and Kaelith finds us anyway?

I can't form the words. Can't commit to either path. The silence grows, becoming its own answer.

Rolfo nods slowly, as if my speechlessness tells him everything he needs to know. His shoulders square, his jaw sets, and for just a moment, I glimpse something pained and raw in his expression before his guardsman's mask slides back into place.

"Get some rest," he says, his voice rougher than before. "Morning comes early."

He moves past me, his massive frame carefully avoiding contact with mine in the narrow space. The heat of him radiates as he passes—that distinctive scent of leather and something smoky and uniquely him filling my senses for just a heartbeat before it's gone.

I stand frozen, watching him retreat down the hallway toward his bedroom. The soft click of his door closing echoes with finality.

My legs give way and I sink into the kitchen chair, trembling. Sephy sleeps on, oblivious to the chaos inside me. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold together the pieces that feel like they're breaking apart.

I don't want to go.

The realization hits me with the force of a physical blow. I don't want to leave this little house with its handmade nursery and creaky rocking chair. I don't want to run anymore. I want to stay here, where my daughter smiles in her sleep and a demon guardsman hums lullabies in the darkness.

"What's happening to me?" I whisper to the empty kitchen, pressing my palms against my eyes. Hot tears leak between my fingers despite my best efforts. Six months of running, of never letting myself want anything except survival, and now my traitorous heart decides to want the most dangerous thing of all.

I want him—this scarred, growling demon with gentle hands and silver eyes. This man who carved a crib from black-purple wood and learned to change diapers and warm bottles. Who stands between Sephy and the world like nothing could move him.

How am I supposed to trust this feeling? Every decision I've made since I was nine years old has been about survival. I don't know how to want things. I don't know how to trust that wanting won't destroy me.

My fingers brush over the mark on my upper arm through the thin fabric of my nightdress—Kaelith's brand, a permanent reminder that I belonged to someone else. That I was property, not a person.

The scar tissue feels rough beneath my fingertips. A map of everything I'm running from. Everything I fear becoming again.