Page 15 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

The house is too quiet when I wake, and for a second, I think I might be dead. Not in the dramatic sense. Just in that dull, ghost-like way you feel when your body registers absence before your brain can name it.

I wait a moment, listening. No sound from the hallway, no movement from the adjoining room. He could be in the kitchen. The living room. His own room. Anywhere in this massive, too-quiet house.

I push the blanket aside and rise, my feet meet the floor, bare and cold. The tile doesn't soften under me. Neither does the ache behind my eyes. I wrap a throw blanket from the edge of the bed around my shoulders and step into the hallway.

Each room I pass is dim and undisturbed. The kitchen is empty. So is the living space. His door is closed, and I knock once, lightly. Nothing.

I open it slowly. The bed is untouched. Sheets sharp and cold as polished bone.

He didn’t come back at all.

This house at night feels like a cathedral no one worships in anymore.

The lights are low, soft golden fixtures tucked into corners, casting long shadows that stretch toward me like something thinking.

The silence has its own gravity. No music.

No footsteps. No whispered murmurs from the beach below.

I drift to the kitchen, only to fill the kettle and set it to boil. The motion feels rehearsed, like I’m acting out the illusion of a normal life. Tea in the middle of the night. As if a warm drink could fix the ache I don’t know how to name.

Steam hisses from the kettle. I pour the water over a bag of chamomile, though I hate it. It tastes like breathing in a dusty room. Still, I drink it.

The back deck calls to me. Glass doors reflect my shape in ghost form, so I open them just enough to step out. Cold air rushes into my lungs. The ocean moans below, black and endless.

This is where we stood the first night I got here. When I asked if I was safe here.

I grip the deck railing. The wood is damp with salt. My tea burns the inside of my lip. I don’t care. If pain is the currency, I want change back.

I don’t know what he did tonight. Only that he walked into darkness, and he's yet to return.

And I hate that I care. Hate how much my chest twists with the waiting.

When the door clicks softly behind me, I don’t turn right away.

He’s back.

His silence is weighty. I don’t look at him. I let the ocean speak for us.

Then I say, flatly, not turning, “Was it worth it?”

His voice is low. Rougher than usual. “No.”

I finally look. He’s still dressed in black—the same fitted tee from earlier, stretched across his chest, slightly rumpled but clean. The joggers hang low on his hips, fabric unmarked, his stance composed.

“Then why go?”

“Because I had to remember what I am before I forget it entirely.”

I take a slow sip, eyes not leaving his. “And?”

He moves closer, each step deliberate. No theatrics. Just weight.

“I remembered too well,” he says.

He doesn’t step outside, not yet. Instead, he leans against the railing beside me, eyes on the black water like it owes him something.

“I went to Discentra,” he says.

I blink slowly. The name tastes like metal.

“That place with the glass and the—Dominic,” I say. Not a question.

He nods once.

“What were you looking for?”

His jaw clenches. “Permission. To be the thing I used to be.”

“And did you get it?”

He shakes his head. “No one can give it to me anymore. Not even him.”

I set the mug down on the railing, harder than I mean to. “So what now, Elias? You walk in shadows for a few hours, remind yourself you’re not a monster, and expect me to be waiting with fucking chamomile?”

His mouth twitches at that. Not a smile. Something more bitter.

“No. I expected you to be asleep.”

“You don’t get to disappear into your demons and come back expecting me to still be soft.”

“I don’t want soft.”

“Then what do you want?”

That stops him.

His breath is slow. Purposeful.

He turns to me fully now, his voice a whisper dragged through gravel. “I want to be the man who waits in the hallway just to hear you breathe. The man who kills for you and never asks forgiveness. The man who doesn’t touch you until you ask, but thinks about it every second you’re near.”

I swallow.

His hand moves—not to me, but to his own chest.

“But I can’t want those things without remembering what else I’m capable of. Tonight was about remembering.”

I whisper, “Did you hurt someone?”

“No.” A beat. “But I wanted to. That’s worse.”

“Not to me.”

His head jerks slightly. “Why not?”

“Because it means you still want control .”

And I can live with darkness. I just can’t live with chaos, but I don't say that part out loud.

He nods once. Then slowly holds out a hand.

I stare at it—the long fingers, the faint bruises across the knuckles. This is the hand that’s taken lives, shielded mine, and touched me only when hidden by silence or darkness.

I place mine in his.

He exhales, ragged.

We go inside together.

The door clicks shut behind us, muffling the ocean and leaving only the sound of our steps on the hardwood. I don't realize how tightly I’m gripping his hand until we’re in the living room and he stops, and I almost keep walking.

He doesn’t speak right away, just looks at me. Then, in a voice quieter than I expect, he says, “There’s something I want you to see.”

I nod, unsure what to expect. He leads me past the polished concrete corridor, down into the side room I once mistook for a storage space. It’s dimly lit now, not sterile—lamplight spills across a desk with two chairs, a large monitor, and a small metal box that hums softly.

He gestures for me to sit. I don’t.

Instead, I fold my arms. “What is this?”

Elias opens the drawer, takes out a sleek black flash drive, and inserts it into the monitor. With a few quiet keystrokes, the screen lights up. Folder after folder appears. Timestamps. Dates. My name in neat text.

I feel my body go still. Not in fear. In something colder. “You’ve had this the whole time?”

He doesn’t flinch. “Yes.”

“And you’re just showing me now?”

“I wasn’t ready for you to see the way I saw you. Then I realized the problem is that I was seeing you instead of knowing you.”

He clicks a file. Surveillance footage. Grainy. Distant. Me walking from the clinic to the café across the street. Another shows me standing on my balcony. Wrapped in a towel. Drinking wine.

It should feel invasive. But what I feel is closer to grief.

“You watched me,” I say, “like I was a problem to solve.”

“No,” Elias says. “Like a pattern I couldn’t stop learning.”

I exhale sharply. “So you thought if you knew every angle of me, you could control the outcome?”

“No,” he repeats. “So I wouldn’t lose you.”

The room quiets. I move toward the screen and watch myself reach for my keys in a still frame. My head bowed. My shoulders are drawn in.

“This isn’t who I am anymore,” I whisper.

Elias steps beside me. “It never was. It’s just what you looked like while surviving.”

I turn to face him. “Delete it.”

He doesn’t hesitate. Click. Delete. Confirm. Gone.

“I want you in my sight,” he says. “But not like that.”

“Then how?”

His voice is low. “Close enough to stop pretending I don’t need you.”

I don’t move. Neither does he. The tension between us thickens.

And then I speak before I can overthink it: “Then touch me like you mean it.”

I think he’s going to deny me. Tell me I’m too vulnerable, or he’s too volatile. But he just looks at me like I’m something burning—hot enough to fear, too vital to abandon.

Then his fingers lift, hovering near my jaw. He doesn’t touch yet.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Say it again.”

“I want you to touch me.”

His hand lands lightly on my face, palm to cheek, thumb brushing the hinge of my jaw. I feel it in my knees.

He breathes in, like he’s trying to memorize this moment. Then his other hand comes to my waist—no pressure, just placement.

His lips find mine slowly. No rush. Like he’s letting his body believe it’s real. The kiss is restrained, but it scorches. Because it’s him. And because I asked.

When he pulls back, his eyes are heavy. But he waits.

I nod. “Don’t stop.”

He takes it like an order he’s waited years to obey.

His mouth returns to mine, firmer now, claiming without conquering. My fingers slide into his hair, tugging just enough to earn a growl in his throat. He presses me back against the desk. The edge digs into my hips, and I don’t care.

“You sure?” he asks again, voice nearly gone.

“Still yes.”

He lifts me like I weigh nothing. Sets me on the desk. His hands don’t shake, but they tremble with restraint. His eyes never leave mine as he touches the hem of my shirt.

I pull it off myself.

His gaze drops. Reverent. But not worshipful. Something darker. Like he’s finally allowing himself to be starving.

“You are not what I expected,” he murmurs.

“You either,” I whisper back.

He moves in again. His hands on my waist, then my back, then up—tracing skin like he’s mapping territory he already claimed in his mind.

I lean in until there’s no space between us.

When he kisses me again, it’s not about permission anymore. It’s about surrender.

His hands slide up my ribs, fingers splayed like he’s holding fragile glass. My breath hitches. My body answers his without question, heat blooming in places I’d forgotten could feel anything like this. The edge of the desk is a bruise I welcome.

His mouth skims down to the curve of my throat, teeth grazing, not biting. A sound escapes me. I grip the back of his neck. I could ask for more. He’d give it. I know that.

But instead, I whisper, “Elias, wait.”

He stills. Immediately.

The silence between us is thick, but not angry. He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. His chest rises, slow and steady, though I can feel his pulse in the way his hands stay planted against my sides.

“Okay,” he says.

I breathe. “Not yet.”

His nod is measured. Not disappointment, not frustration. Just reverence, like I’ve given him something better than he asked for.

“I’m not leaving this room,” he says. “Not unless you want me to.”

“I don’t.”

He exhales, forehead resting gently against mine.

We stay like that for a long time. Breathing. Letting the heat between us settle, not vanish.

Eventually, he helps me down from the desk. His hands slide over my hips, then release.

I reach for the shirt. He watches as I pull it back over my head, eyes darker but soft.

“We stop here,” I say.

“For now,” he agrees.

He walks with me back toward the hall, but this time we don’t separate. At the threshold to the guest room, we pause. He doesn’t ask. He just waits, gaze steady, like he won’t step past unless I do first.

I cross the doorway. He follows.

The room is dim, quiet. Familiar. I pull back the covers, and he waits until I slide in before taking the other side. There’s a carefulness to him now, like he’s afraid the bed might vanish if he moves too fast.

We lie there in the dark, both of us on our sides, facing the same way. Not touching. But close enough that the heat of him curls along my back like breath.

His body behind mine in the bed, not touching, but close enough that I can feel the warmth of him ghosting against my spine.

And when I fall asleep, I don’t feel hunted. Or haunted.

Just wanted.

A sound wakes me, but it isn’t loud. Maybe it’s just the wind shifting against the house, the sigh of the ocean rearranging itself. I blink slowly, my cheek pressed to a pillow that smells like cedar and something darker beneath it—him.

Elias hasn’t moved. He’s still there behind me, that steady furnace of a body. Not touching. Still.

I turn slightly. Not to face him, not yet. Just enough to feel the pull of gravity where he lies. It’s new, the not-flinching. The not waiting for the catch beneath the calm.

I reach back, slow. My hand finds his forearm, warm under the fabric of his shirt. I don’t pull or grip. I just let it rest there.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move.

But his breath catches. Once.

Then his hand covers mine.

We stay like that. Two people made of coiled silence, of bruised shadows learning a new kind of stillness.

Sleep pulls at me again, thick and forgiving.

Before I go under, I hear his voice. Barely there.

“Whatever this becomes, it’s yours to call it.”

And that’s the last thing I remember before the dark takes me whole.