All Chapters of The Nun's Lustful Desire : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

THEODORE’S POVThe clearing stays empty no matter how many times I search for it.I've searched these trees for hours, retracing the same broken path while the falling snow buries every trace of her scent. My chest burns. My hands shake—not from the cold, never the cold. I press my palm onto the ground where she lay, searching for anything. A strand of hair. A trace of her heartbeat. Anything.But there’s nothing."Where is she," I say out loud, to no one, to the trees, to the wolf pacing behind my ribs. "Tell me where she is."Gravewind doesn't answer.That’s wrong. He always answers. Even when I beg him to stop, he growls, snarls, demands blood. For two hundred years, his voice has been louder than my hatred. Now there is only silence in my chest—so deep, it feels like something inside me has died.I laugh, but it breaks into something close to a sob.For decades, I prayed for death. I welcomed fifteen dragons tearing my throat open. I wanted it. I never feared it. But now, one stra

ANGEL'S POVThe eyes in my diary blink.I stop breathing. The crimson eye locks onto mine for one impossible second. I blink hard, but when I look again, the page is blank—just cream paper and a faint pencil smudge, as if the drawing erased itself before I could prove it was ever there."It's not real," I whisper to the empty car seat beside me. "It was never real."Mom glances back at me. "Sweetie, you've been acting strange."I give her a small, reassuring smile, but repeat the words three more times, desperate to believe myself. By the second hill before Ashbrook, I almost did.The rest of the drive home is painfully quiet. My diary stays closed in my lap, looking harmless. Dad says nothing. Neither does Mom, though she keeps watching me in the side mirror, as if checking that nothing else has changed.Marta, Liza, and Mara are waiting on the porch by the time we pull into our comfortable mansion. The sight of it always makes me feel safe. I'm home. For a moment, their loud voices

THEODORE'S POVI sit cross-legged on the flat stone at the top of the meditation hill, eyes closed, and for the first time in two hundred years, I allow myself to feel good about something I should regret.The wind curls frost around my shoulders. Somewhere below me, Veyra hums with fear instead of laughter, and I like it better this way. I am done trying to be liked. I am done being careful.“You look disgustingly relaxed,” Azrael says, pacing behind me, his boots crunching over the frozen grass. “Do you know what they're saying in the lower quarter? They're saying you snapped a man's neck like it was nothing. They're saying the ice prince finally showed his true face. Theo, you were supposed to lie low. Keep your head down until everyone forgot you were still breathing.”"I'm tired of being forgettable.""You weren't forgettable, you were safe." He throws his hands up, and frost puffs from his mouth with every word. "Safe means alive. Safe means your father doesn't send fifteen more

ANGEL'S POVMy mother’s hands freeze over my blouse, caught halfway through a fold, and her eyes lift to mine with a sharpness I've never seen from her before. She sets the fabric down slowly, as if it has suddenly grown heavy in her hands.“When you were lost in the woods,” she whispers, “did you see anyone? Did anyone call you by another name? Did anything strange happen?”I sit up straighter on my bed. "Mom, why are you asking me this now? Is something supposed to happen to me?"She laughs, but it comes out thin, like a string pulled too tight. “Don’t be dramatic, sweetheart. A mother worries.” She snaps the suitcase open wider and keeps her hands busy, folding my cardigans into neat, quick squares. “Now, tell me the truth. Did you see anything strange around you that day? Or maybe… have you been having strange dreams lately?”I watch her fingers move faster than her words. "You're scaring me a little.""Nonsense." She waves a hand and changes the subject so quickly I barely have t

THEODORE'S POVI catch Azrael by the collar before his second foot clears the window."Going somewhere?"He freezes mid-air, one leg still hooked over the window ledge, a travel bag stuffed so full a sock is hanging out like it wants to escape too. His hair is a mess. His eyes are red from no sleep. He looks l!ke a man who packed for war and realized halfway through that he'd already lost."I'm going to Earth," he says, like that explains why he's climbing out a window instead of using the door."No, you're not.""I have already decided.""You decided." I let go of his collar and cross my arms. Gravewind stirs low in my chest, more curious than angry, watching Azrael the way a wolf watches a rabbit that keeps tripping over its own feet. "Prove it."Azrael blinks at me like I slapped him. "Prove it?""You've never opened a realm gate alone in your life. You told me that yourself, twice, while crying about it." I sit on the edge of my bed and gesture at the open floor. “So prove you can