Page 182 of The Devil May Care

George’s back paws are against Caziel’s stomach and his front paws drape over my hip. His purr fills the space, low and constant, like a spell. Maybe it is a spell. The Umbral thread hums against my sternum in perfect time with it, whispering that I could stay here forever. That nothing outside this bed matters. The longer I lie here, the more plausible that feels.

My muscles, sore from days of training, start to unknot without me telling them to. The tension I’d been holding in my shoulders, melts. I can feel the pull of the realm’s magic now, soft but insistent—like the tide coming in. Caziel had said this was why he wanted me to feel it early, but he didn’t tell me how easy it would be to like it. The thought of getting up, of walking back to the barracks, feels ridiculous. My eyelids are heavy, my breaths long and slow. Caziel doesn’t move either and that makes it worse. Or better. I’m not sure.

I tilt my head just enough to see his profile. His eyes are half-lidded, but I can tell he’s not asleep. He’s still watching me in that way that makes it hard to think about anything else.

“You’re doing it again,” I murmur.

One corner of his mouth lifts. “Doing what?”

“Looking at me like I might vanish if you blink.”

He doesn’t deny it, but his gaze softens.

“I like you here.”

It’s such a simple statement, but it hits me in the ribs. Maybe that’s the Umbral thread talking. Or maybe it’s just true. My breathing slows even more. George’s purr drops into a low rumble. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think we should be talking about the trial, strategizing, something useful, but the words won’t form. The thread winds its influence around my thoughts, tugging me deeper into stillness.

Caziel’s arm tightens around me, just a fraction, and I let my head fall against his shoulder. The last thing I’m aware of before the quiet takes me completely is the steady rhythm of his breathing and thestrange comfort in knowing that, for now, neither of us is going anywhere.

“Thank you,” I say quietly.

His expression shifts, like he’s both relieved and unsettled by my gratitude.

His brow furrows slightly. “For what?”

I nuzzle in closer, pretending it’s just to get comfortable.

“For not letting me walk in blind. For all of it. Everything you’ve done to get me this far. You’ve made me… I don’t know. Feel like I can do this. Like I could win.”

“You can.” He says it without hesitation, and it sinks into me like warmth from the inside out.

His gaze holds mine, steady and unreadable, but there’s a flicker there, something softer, something that makes my pulse pick up. I reach over and take his hand, threading our fingers together. Something flickers across his face. Pride maybe, or relief, but he says nothing, just leans back down until we’re both stretched out again.

George purrs louder, kneading at the sheets. The sound blends with Caziel’s heartbeat under my ear, steady, grounding. My muscles loosen, the heaviness in the room pulling me under again.

I could stay like this forever.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

KAY

Iwake to warmth and weight and the kind of quiet that steals your name and gives you a softer one. The blankets are heavy, not suffocating, but persuasive. They mold around my hips and thighs like they were stitched to me in the night. Heat anchors my lower back, an arm flung loose across my waist, palm half-curled against my stomach as if it forgot to finish a thought.

Caziel. Asleep.

I don’t move at first. I just lie there in the steady hush of his room and let the details arrive one by one. The scent of smoke and metal that lives in his sheets. The low hush-pop of embers settling behind the hearth grate. The faint rasp of his breath where it brushes the back of my neck, steady, even, unguarded in a way I’ve never seen on him awake. His weight isn’t a pin; it’s ballast. A reminder I didn’t dream him, or last night, or the slow, careful way we tried to learn how not to drown.

George is a warm comma at my hip, a punctuation mark that refuses to be moved. He’s wedged himself so perfectly into the curve of my body that the idea of shifting even an inch feels rude. He purrs like a machine built for contentment. If satisfaction had a sound, it would be this.

I test a toe outside the cocoon. Air strokes my skin and retreats, as if embarrassed to be cooler than the bed. The rest of me refuses to follow. My legs are a pleasant ache, training soreness woven with somethinglooser, lazier, like I walked a mile in a dream and forgot my shoes. The Umbral thread hums, a warm point under my sternum, not insistent but present, a bass line I can’t quite ignore.

I should get up.

The thought floats across my mind and lands nowhere. Barracks, prep, the usual pre-trial churn—strap, lace, inventory, rehearse—and the moment I reach for it, the thought slides away. I picture the barracks windows and the way light cuts across the stone, and the image dissolves like sugar in tea. It feels far off, like someone else’s errand.

Caz shifts with a sleepy sound, not fully waking. His arm tightens for a heartbeat and relaxes, his hand splaying open against my stomach as if to check I’m still there. I cover it with mine before I can talk myself out of it. His skin is hot—Daemari heat, banked and careful—and the pulse in his wrist beats under my thumb like a metronome I didn’t know was keeping time

You have to move,I tell myself.Five breaths and then you roll.Five more and you swing your feet to the floor. It’s easy. It’s always been easy.