Sleep Angel

Seraphina's POV

We lay there for a long time, the rise and fall of his chest slowly calming mine. My ear rested over his heartbeat.

His hand traced the line of my spine in absent circles - soothing, thoughtless - as if he had done it a thousand times in a life I could not remember.

“I shouldn’t be here,” I said against his skin, because guilt was a living thing and it always found me.

“I know,” he answered, his voice low and raw. “But I'm not sorry.”

I closed my eyes. The truth was ugly and soft. “I’m not either.”

He huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “We are in trouble.”

“Terrible trouble,” I agreed.

He tipped my chin up with a finger and kissed me againv- slow, grateful, devastating. When we parted, he pressed his forehead to mine. “Sleep Angel,” he whispered. “You need it.”

“I’ll wake up and this will be a dream,” I said. “The kind that hurts.”

“It isn’t a dream,” he said. “And it isn’t the end either.”

I did not know what he meant. I did not ask. I was too tired, too full, too empty. My eyes slid shut, and the last thing I felt was his breath in my hair and his arm tight around my waist, as if he meant to keep me in that small, safe circle forever.

****

Light found us in the morning, pale and slow through the curtains. My eyes opened to a ceiling I did not recognize and the heat of a body against mine.

For one soft, foolish second, I forgot where I was. I felt only warmth. I felt held.

Then everything rushed back - the reveal, the choice I had made, the way I had said yes when every rule in me said no.

Guilt moved through me like cold water.

I shifted, and he woke. He did not startle. He blinked, then smiled like sunrise. It was too gentle for the burden in my throat.

“Good morning,” he said. His voice was sleep-rough, and it curled around my heart when he added, “Seraphina.”

“Morning.” I tried to sit. The sheet slipped, and I caught it to my chest, as if modesty mattered after last night. Maybe it did. Maybe it was the only shield I had left.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I don’t know what I am.”

He nodded like he had expected that. He sat up, the sheet falling to his hips, and scrubbed a hand over his face.

“We have to go home,” he said softly, almost an apology. “He’s waiting.”

The room went quiet as a held breath. Home did not sound like a place. It sounded like a blade.

I looked at him - the ink, the mouth that was not my husband’s, the eyes that had held me together when I was breaking - and words failed me. Everything inside me became an argument I could not win.

“When we get there,” I asked, thin-voiced, “what do I call you?”

His mouth twisted. “Cassian,” he said after a beat.

I nodded once. The nod felt like a lie and a truth at the same time.

He rose, moving around the room, gathering clothes, finding my things. He did not rush me.

He did not crowd me. When he brought me a glass of water, our fingers touched, and my stomach flipped, because my body did not know how to forget him.

“Seraphina,” he said when I could not seem to stand. “I won’t let you face him alone.”

“You can’t stop what happens there,” I whispered.

“I know,” he said. “But I can stand next to you.”

It shouldn’t have helped. It did.

We dressed without saying much. The rain had stopped, but the day looked washed out and tired. I smoothed the bed with my hand as if I could erase what had happened, but the room still hummed with it.

He opened the door and waited, not touching me, and somehow that hurt more than if he had.

On the ground floor, he paid. The clerk smiled too brightly. Outside, the air was damp and fresh, as if the world had started over in the night.

At the car, he opened the passenger door and waited until I sat. He leaned on the frame for a second, studying my face, and I looked anywhere else - at the wet pavement, the gray sky, the shape of his hand near my knee.

We drove in silence for a while. The road was clean and slick. Trees dripped. The sky hung low. My thoughts tripped over one another until they were only noise.

At a bend, he spoke without looking at me. “If you want to pretend last night didn’t happen, I’ll follow your lead.”

I stared at him. “Could you?”

“No,” he said. “But I could try for you.”

A small, sad laugh escaped me. “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t try to be something for me that you’re not.”

“All right,” he said. “Then I won’t.”

We passed a sign for the city. The closer we drew, the colder my hands felt. The mansion was not a home; it was a case I never fit.

And now it held more than fear. It held a man I had betrayed with his brother’s mouth.

“Cassian,” I said, tasting the name, keeping it soft like a secret. “When we walk in - what do I do?”

“You breathe,” he said. “You stand tall. And you remember you didn’t break yourself. You survived.”

The words landed like a steady hand between my shoulders. I pressed my palms to my knees and watched the city rise.

We turned onto the long road that led to the gates. The house appeared, immediately my breath stuttered. He reached to switch off the radio we hadn’t been listening to anyway.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “But go.”