Chapter Nine

Teleporting home after a good hex was like stretching out in sun-warmed sheets with a glass of wine and no responsibilities. 

I landed dead center in my living room, boots hitting the pentagram with a soft thump, still riding the high of victorious chaos. The cottage welcomed me like a satisfied co-conspirator—smelling faintly of dried herbs, lavender, wet dog, and smug satisfaction.

The smile on my face could’ve powered a small village.

“Oh, that was glorious,” I sighed in a whisper, spinning once on my heel like a tipsy dancer.

I still reeked of vinegar and supernatural disobedience. One of the jars had broken in my satchel—oops—but it was worth every drop of rot. The look on Niklaus’ face? Priceless. The faint vampire shrieking in the distance? Music to my ears. I had probably started a fashion crisis. Maybe even a furniture-burning. Perfection.

“You smell like war crimes.”

A gruff voice came from the couch.

I blinked toward the shadows—and there he was, wide awake.

Dylan.

Sitting upright, legs stretched out, moonlight hitting one side of his face, arms crossed, and expression very unimpressed.

I threw him a grin and sauntered closer, removing my satchel sideways like I was in the process of shedding the skin of a well-executed disaster. “Still up? Miss me?”

“You were gone for, what, ten minutes?”

“I didn't want to overstay. It would be outrageously impolite.”

“You smell like fermented garlic and a lawsuit.”

I flopped into the couch opposite him, propped my boots on the edge of the coffee table, and let out a pleased sigh. “They’ll live. Probably. Well, they are already dead, but you get the idea.”

He watched me, head tilted slightly, eyes sharp even in the low light.

“You really just walked into a vampire estate.”

“Strutted, actually. Wrecked the vestibule, ruined a parlor, insulted a centuries-old corpse in a vest. Honestly, I was shockingly restrained.”

He rubbed a hand down his face. “Why am I even surprised?”

“Because you cling to the idea I’ll choose peace?”

“Peace doesn’t walk around with homemade garlic bombs, Thea.”

I snorted and reached down to tug the satchel fully off my shoulder, tossing it aside. “Vampires like drama. They're old, bored, and cranky from the afterlife. I’m just speaking their language.”

“You realize they’ll likely retaliate, right?”

“Oh, I hope so,” I said dreamily. “If they don’t, I might have to egg their manor as well. That architecture was begging for petty vandalism.”

He stared at me for a long beat, then shook his head with the barest hint of a smirk. “You’re the most unhinged woman I've ever met.”

“Unapologetically.”

I kicked off my boots and sank deeper into the cushions, stretching like a satisfied cat. The adrenaline was still humming through my veins, fizzing in my fingertips like too much magic without a place to land.

For a while, neither of us said anything.

Then Dylan’s voice broke the quiet, soft this time. “I was... worried.”

I looked over at him. His expression was relaxed now, but his jaw still held tension. He hadn’t just stayed up—he’d waited. On purpose.

“Really?” I said lightly, trying to deflect the weird flutter in my chest. “You doubting my survival rate?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Just looked at me in that way he did—like he could see the face under the mask, the ache under the grin.

“I don’t doubt you,” he said quietly. “I doubt everyone else.”

The smile slid from my face. Not gone—just softened.

I glanced away, to the kitchen, to the soft flickering candle I hadn’t lit. “Well... I’m here.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You always are.”

My chest did that thing again—tight but warm, like maybe I wasn’t as immune to things as I thought.

“Well,” I said after a beat, trying to lighten it, “if I go missing tomorrow, it’s probably because a vampire tried to stuff me into a spiked coffin and call it penance.” I paused a moment. "Or they told Darcy."

“I’ll avenge you,” he said solemnly. “With garlic stew.”

“Make sure it’s the spicy one.”

His smirk widened. “Noted.”

And in the quiet that followed, something else settled. A truce. A tether.

Maybe not a declaration, but something that tasted close.