Page 153 of The Devil May Care

His hand lingers for one breath more. Then drops. But he doesn’t explain. Doesn’t offer a reason. He steps back; eyes are unreadable again. Controlled. Quiet. Guarded.

“Get some rest, Kay,” he says, voice low. “Tomorrow will be hard.”

And then he is gone. Leaving me standing there with the ghost of his kiss still burning my cheek, my heart halfway to my throat, and the almost-taste of him still lingering on my lips. The thread still burns in my palm, and I wonder what the hell just happened—and why it feels like something just started that neither of us knows how to finish.

I shouldn’t have done that.

The thought loops in my head, louder than it should, drowning out the quiet scrape of my boots down the corridor as I make my way back to the barracks. The Rite, these threads, they’re messing with me. Of course I’m discombobulated. This is a high stress environment. My crush is a product of adrenaline and at least Caziel had the sense to pull back before I led us both down the path of regret. And yet my lips still tingle where his breath brushed mine. And that’s all it was. A brush. A hesitation. A no.

He didn’t even have to say it. Just turned away, silent and sure, like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t made the biggest mistake of my life by leaning in, thinking maybe—maybe—he saw me the way I’ve started to see him.

My face burns. I can’t tell if it’s from embarrassment or fury or residual want. Maybe all three. Of course he pulled back. He’s not like me. He’s Daemari. He’s lived a thousand moments sharper and stranger than anything I’ve scraped together. He’s trained in restraint. In politics. In survival. I’m just a girl who mistook kindness for something more. A girl who took her own rose-colored feelings and threw them at the nearest person who showed her a hint of attention. A person still grieving the loss of the woman he loved.

I duck into a shadowed alcove and press my back to the cool stone. My heart thunders against my ribs, trying to outrun the tendrils of shame curling through my chest. I don’t cry. I will not let myself do that, but I close my eyes and press my fingers to my lips like that’ll erase what almost was. Or maybe to savor the last sweet memory. Too many times, in my past, I’ve made the first move only to be laughed at. Or worse, pitied. Told I was “too much” or “confused” or “reading into things.”

Maybe I was. Maybe I always am. But gods, it felt real with him. Just for a moment.

I slide down the wall, curl my knees up. George must sense it, because he appears without a sound and presses into my side. Warm, quiet, present.

“I’m an idiot,” I whisper, rubbing his ear. He butts his head up under my chin. “You didn’t have to agree so easily.” I chastise him, but there’s no real heat behind my words.

George just purrs louder.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CAZIEL

Iam summoned just after sunrise. No written decree, no seal, only a runner with hollow eyes and careful words.

The Sovereign has requested your presence. The Elders are already convened.

I let the message sit for a minute. Long enough to make a point. Then I dress in silence. I double check my glamor, locking it in place. Not because I am hiding. Not exactly. But it is easier, safer, to let them see the version of me they expect. The smooth-faced heir with nothing left to lose. Not the Daemari beneath it, the one marked by the Rite and something older, something deeper. The one who risks unraveling just as much as they do.

The meeting chamber is buried in the western wing, past the Hall of Judgments and behind a double-locked arch of obsidian stone. Most days, it is empty. The flame burns low here, steady and cold. Today, the room buzzes.

Cloaked figures drift around the crescent table like insects in slow orbit. Elders whisper behind folded hands. Solonar stands apart, spine straight, expression unreadable. I do not approach the table, choosing to take up position near the back wall, half-shaded by a carved pillar of jet. It is not meant to be defiance, exactly, just distance. A reminder that I am here by invitation, not obligation.

The air shifts as my father enters. He does not sweep or stride, but glides like a shadow that forgot it was meant to be attached to a livinghost. Every movement is deliberate. Every silence calculated. He drips in gold, his glamor reflecting in the shine of the metal, the chiseled jaw, the Roman nose.

“My thanks for your timeliness,” he says, taking his seat at the head of the crescent. “There’s much to address.”

He does not look at me. He does not need to.

Solonar clears his throat. “We’ve begun internal reviews of Rite progress. The pace is swift. Perhaps swifter than we expected, but the Flame is pushing the timeline.”

One of the Elders leans forward, voice dry as ash. “Particularly for the outsider.”

“She is not of us,” another murmurs. “And yet she persists. Quite admirably.”

My father hums, fingers steepled beneath his chin. “Persistenceisadmirable. It is not, however, the same as worth.”

A few heads nod. Others pause, calculating.

“The girl has survived two trials,” Solonar says. “And earned the mark of Flame, my Liege. She cannot be dismissed outright.”

“True,” the Asmodeus allows. “But neither should we let novelty cloud our judgment.”

He speaks softly, with measured stillness, almost benevolent in his musings. But I have seen blood freeze under tones like that.