Page 20

LILLITH

T he trek to Markus and Rowan’s felt longer than usual.

Every step beside Dominic was quieter than the last. Not silent, exactly. Just… too still. Like the kind of quiet that settles after a slammed door, when the echo of it still hums in your chest but no one wants to be the first to speak.

Lillith hated it.

She hated that she kept checking his expression from the corner of her eye and only finding that jaw-locked stoicism he wore like a crown when he didn’t want anyone to see him bleed.

She hated that she knew it was her fault.

And she hated most of all that her magic still hummed under her skin every time he got too close. That when they brushed arms by accident, her whole body still lit up like fireflies caught in a mason jar. Trapped. Glowing. Helpless.

The previous night clung to her like smoke—half dream, half truth. She’d tasted the kind of affection she wasn’t sure she believed in. Tasted it, and then shoved it away.

And Dominic… he hadn’t stopped her. But the pain in his eyes when he did finally speak had left her more gutted than a hundred fae blades ever could.

So yeah. She was determined to break the bond now more than ever.

If it wasn’t real—if it was just magic twisting feelings and spinning threads that didn’t belong—then it had to go. Because love wasn’t supposed to make you feel like drowning every time you breathed too close to it.

By the time they arrived at Pines & Needles , the skies were low and gray with early afternoon clouds, and the front stoop was littered with drying lavender bundles and half-finished sigil chalk.

Markus opened the door before they knocked, wearing reading glasses and a long cardigan covered in ink smudges.

“Lions and faes,” he said with a tired smile. “We were wondering when you’d crack.”

Rowan emerged from the kitchen, apron still on and flour dusting his beard. “Came for answers or just emotionally-driven pie?”

“Both,” Dominic muttered, stepping past them and not looking back.

Lillith winced.

“I need…” she started.

“To talk,” Rowan finished. “Yeah. Come on in.”

He nodded for her to follow, and Markus took that as his cue to snag Dominic and guide him into the upstairs study under the pretense of “helping catalog binding stones,” which, judging by Markus’s smirk, was code for “giving the emotionally stunted shifter something to throw around without breaking anyone’s feelings. ”

Rowan led her to the sunroom. It smelled like sage and cardamom and the faintest trace of woodsmoke. The tea tray was already set.

Of course it was.

She sat stiffly, arms crossed, as he poured them both steaming mugs and waited her out like the seasoned counselor he was.

She cracked. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she admitted, voice brittle.

Rowan sipped calmly. “No one does. That’s the human part.”

She glanced out the window, catching the faint edge of Dominic’s profile upstairs through the reflection. He wasn’t looking at her. Hadn’t since they left the house.

“I’m trying to be responsible.”

Rowan tilted his head. “Responsible or afraid?”

Her gaze snapped to his.

“You think I don’t know what it looks like?” he asked softly. “You love him. Or you’re falling so hard it’s making you dizzy. And it terrifies you because if you let yourself feel it— really feel it—you don’t know if it’s real or just a cursed bond talking.”

She looked away.

He leaned forward. “You know what I think?”

“Something infuriating,” she muttered.

“I think you’re hexing your own happiness.”

Her throat caught and she bit her lip to keep it from trembling at the truth.

Rowan continued, gentler now, like he knew how sharp the next part would land. “You’ve built your whole life around not needing anyone. Around keeping everyone at just the right distance. Because you learned, young, that love was transactional. That it came with rules and roles and punishments.”

“Don’t—”

“You grew up with court magic. With expectation. With a father who made you feel like love had conditions.”

Her hands curled into fists.

“And then you came here,” he said. “You made a life that was yours. You built safety. And now, someone’s gotten close enough to rattle it. To matter. And you’re scared because that means they can break it.”

Her voice cracked. “He won’t understand.”

“He does, ” Rowan said quietly. “Maybe more than you do. That lion’s been walking around with a broken heart and too much swagger for years. He knows what it means to be betrayed by the ones who were supposed to love you.”

She blinked, vision blurring.

“He doesn’t need perfection. He doesn’t need the perfect words. But he does need the truth.”

“And what if the truth is… I don’t know if I’m enough for this?”

Rowan smiled. “Then that’s the truth. And he’ll still choose you. Every day.”

Lillith buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know how to let someone stay.”

“Then let them stand beside you,” Rowan said. “Start there.”

Upstairs, something clattered. Dominic’s voice cursing low, and Markus’s amused laugh echoing after.

Lillith exhaled, slow and shaking. She wasn’t ready. But maybe she was willing to try because if she didn’t, she was going to lose the one thing that had ever felt like hers not out of obligation, or magic, or curse—but out of something deeper.

Love.

Maybe not yet spoken. But it's already real.