Page 22

I swallowed. “She was already waiting for me when I got there. I thought the house was empty, but I found… bodies. One in the kitchen, and more in my mom’s old room. I watched her change… into what she really was.”

I could still hear the skittering sound of her claws on the walls, and smell the sickening stench of burning flesh.

“And the fire?” Xander pressed gently.

“I don’t know how it started. One second she was on top of me, and then I blinked and the room was on fire.” I shook my head, but how else could I explain it?

“Do you believe me?” I asked. The question slipped out before I could stop it.

He paused for a moment. “I believe you’re telling the truth,” he said.

Something in his tone loosened the knot in my chest an inch further, and I exhaled a long breath. Hearing it out loud… I hadn’t known how much I needed the validation until now.

“Tell me more about Titan,” I said with a smile that didn’t feel forced. “What’s it like?”

Xander’s gaze softened, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of something in his eyes—longing and pain.

“Titan’s not like Earth. Everything there—time, energy, even life—works differently.

Magic is as natural as breathing, and the land changes with the mood of its people,” he paused, tilting his head slightly as though recalling a distant memory.

“Even the air has a different taste to it. The fragrances of the land are sharper, more vibrant. Life moves slowly there, too, as if there’s no rush to anything.

It always drove Ragnar mad, as you can imagine. ”

I wanted to smile along with him, but thinking about Ragnar made my stomach drop a little.

“I suppose I should tell you,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “for the sake of our deal… the years on Titan are longer too.”

“How long?”

He cocked his head to one side, then the other, as if carefully measuring his response. “A hundred Earth years, give or take.”

I stared at him, my jaw dropping open.

“A hundred years? How does that even work?”

“As I said,” Xander replied, his tone calm and patient, “time moves slower on Titan. Our aging process does, too. Time itself is relative. It feels no different on Titan than it would here, simply a time dilation between our worlds. You could live an entire lifetime on Earth and return to Titan only to find that a handful of years have passed.”

“Wait…” I said slowly. “How old are you all? Exactly?”

Xander shrugged, his posture as relaxed as ever. “Ragnar and I are 30. Orion’s the youngest—he would be coming up on his 29th orbit on Titan.”

Orbit . The word tugged at my brain as I frantically did the math, the numbers falling into place with a startling clarity. My eyes widened. “You’re three thousand years old?!”

Xander’s mouth twitched in what could almost be called amusement. “Not quite,” he said, his tone so casual it was borderline absurd. Like being a literal millennia-old being was no big deal.

I gawked at him, my mind spinning. “So… what you’re telling me is, this is basically like Narnia?”

For the first time, Xander chuckled, the sound low and rich, like warm honey. It sent a ripple of warmth through the room, and suddenly, all coherent thoughts fled my mind.

“No talking lions,” he said, his smile just a little wider, “but yeah. Lewis had a decent grasp on the concept, even if he missed the mark.”

“I don’t know whether to laugh or scream,” I admitted, shaking my head. “This is all just… insane.”

But my thoughts weren’t just on the vivid picture he was painting of Titan. No, I was steadily losing focus because Xander was making an absolute disaster of the pancakes.

He’d been so calm, so steady as he talked, but his precision seemed to crumble the longer he worked.

Batter dripped along the side of the bowl, streaks of it smudged all over the counter like some abstract art experiment.

I watched, horrified, as he tilted the spatula too slowly as he checked to see if it was done, nearly tearing one of the pancakes in half.

“Oh my God. Stop—just let me do it.”

I pushed myself off the stool, heading straight for him, my hand already outstretched to grab the spatula. But before I could even reach his side, he shifted smoothly, cutting me off with a single step. His towering frame turned to face me fully, the spatula still in his hand.

I froze.

His presence was overwhelming up close—the sheer height of him, the calm intensity in his expression. The heat of the stove radiated behind him, but it was nothing compared to the chill radiating from his body.

“Eve, I’m trying to cook for you. Now please,” his voice dropped into that low, warm register. “Sit back down.”

I swallowed, my breath hitching.

“I—uh—” I stammered, scrambling to cover the jolt of something—excitement? Irritation?—shooting through me. His steady, focused gaze held mine with unnerving ease, a small flicker of amusement glinting in his eyes like he knew exactly how flustered I felt. “Fine. Just don’t burn anything.”

His lips twitched into a small, knowing smile as I reluctantly backed up, returning to the stool like I’d been sent to time-out.

“Bossy woman,” he muttered, turning back to the stove with infuriating calmness.

I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at the back of his head as I tried to huff, but I felt like my insides were melting.

I shifted in my seat, pretending to fiddle with a crumb on the counter as I tried to steady my breathing.

Xander, whether oblivious or entirely too aware, worked at the stove like nothing had happened.

He finished serving everything with a relaxed manner, and before I knew it, he was sliding a plate in front of me.

The sight of bacon and fluffy pancakes made my stomach growl.

Despite the battle in the kitchen, they seemed to have turned out perfectly, smelling of rich, creamy butter and coated in sticky maple syrup.

“You’ve been through a lot,” he said, sitting across from me with his own plate. “But you’re braver than you think, Eve. We’ll figure this out.”

I looked up at him, his pale eyes meeting mine with a calm certainty that rooted itself somewhere deep inside me.

“I don’t feel very brave,” I admitted, barely louder than a whisper.

“You don’t have to feel it to know it’s there,” he said, his tone was stern but his eyes were soft. “Bravery is found in the act, not the belief.”