And now she carried ten years of grief.
Ten years of blood and ghosts and mories sharp enough to wake sleeping wounds; carrying grief without setting it down because stopping ant vulnerability and vulnerability ant Phei stood unguarded from the world in the house of vultures who wanted nothing but his doom that they’d happily celebrate.
lissa did not need pressure to confront her grief but all she needed was an anchor.
In all those years lissa had been convincing herself endurance and healing were the sa thing.
So, she held herself together.
Until now.
And standing there inside her quiet penthouse while moonlight rested across bookshelves, orchids and warm navy walls, Phei simply held her tighter because sotis love looked dramatic and expensive and impossible.
To let her KNOW she did not have to be invincible.
And sotis love simply looked like refusing to let sobody tremble alone.
Phei knew lissa had chosen him over herself so many tis that sowhere along the long ugly road of that endurance between surviving and living, sacrifice had stopped arriving to her dressed like heroism or love for him and quietly changed clothes into routine.
That was perhaps the cruelest thing love did when stretched across enough years.
Not heartbreak.
...Not longing...
...Routine.
’Because eventually the extraordinary stops feeling extraordinary.’
The things you gave away stopped feeling expensive and you no longer counted the pieces of yourself you traded away because giving pieces away had beco part of the architecture holding your days together, like support beams hidden behind walls: unseen until everything collapsed.
lissa had done that.
Again and again and again.
Every ti old grief dragged muddy footprints through rooms she had spent years cleaning. Every ti mories arrived carrying blood on their shoes and ghosts under their fingernails. Every ti healing politely knocked at the door asking for attention and lissa looked through the peephole and decided she was busy.
Later.
I will survive this later.
Because Phei needed protecting.
Because Phei needed watching.
Because sowhere across ten years, his existence had quietly climbed higher on her priority list than her own ability to breathe without hurting.
Ten years of that kind of love changed people in strange ways.
It blurreddevotion and self-destruction until they shared walls. It turned sacrifice into instinct while at once it taught people how to smile while bleeding and call it efficiency.
’And the worst part?
’...People praised you for it.’
Humans were funny creatures like that. Work yourself into collapse for soone you love and suddenly everybody calls you admirable instead of deeply concerning.
’Now it is my turn, l.’
Not with questions and interrogation on things she was not ready to confront yet.
Certainly not with that uniquely irritating human tradition where sobody cried once and suddenly everyone within a five-kiloter radius transford into emotionally unlicensed investigators demanding explanations while holding cups of tea.
No.
lissa needed sothing simpler tonight.
’Warmth.’
His arms around her shoulders.
Fingers moving slowly through dark hair with enough patience that ti itself seed to slow down around them.
The steady percussion of his heartbeat beneath her cheek where she rested against him so completely that Phei sotis wondered whether she was trying to move permanently into his ribcage.
Honestly, if lissa could physically crawl into his chest and establish residency there, she probably would.
’Property prices on Hell’s Paradise are criminal anyway.’
And the language she would actually accept:
I am here.
I am not leaving.
You can stop carrying the sky for one night.
You can be ugly with grief.
You can collapse.
So he held her.
Outside the towering glass walls of the penthouse, Hell’s Paradise Island glittered beneath midnight with the quiet arrogance only obscene wealth could maintain. Gold lights stretched through roads below like molten rivers while towers pierced upward shalessly enough that mountains themselves might reasonably develop inferiority complexes.
Beyond the city rested the forests, ancient and endless beneath the night sky, dark enough to remind civilization that money rented dominance but nature still owned the land.
Inside the penthouse, warm amber lighting softened navy walls and bookshelves while moonlight slipped through glass in silver paleness, touching white orchids near the windows until the petals almost glowed against the darkness outside.
Sowhere deeper inside the kitchen, refrigeration humd softly. Wind brushed against the glass walls. The city below remained alive.
Inside his arms though, ti loosened.
The tremors running through lissa gradually softened from earthquakes into aftershocks.
Her breathing, uneven and fractured at first, slowly borrowed rhythm from his until they breathed together without trying.
The white-knuckled grip twisting desperately into the fabric behind his back eased little by little until her fingers no longer looked like they were preparing for abandonnt.
Trust looked quieter than desperation.
That was when Phei moved; because silence was valuable, yes, but only when spent correctly, and because the woman slowly dissolving against him needed laughter almost as much as oxygen tonight.
One arm slipped beneath her knees.
The other curved naturally behind her back.
Then he lifted, lissa Ryujin Tiamat left the floor with all the warning signs of natural disasters and tax audits.
The noise escaping her mouth afterward was profoundly undignified.
’Not mildly undignified, historically undignified.’
The sort of sound capable of destabilizing carefully cultivated reputations.
"Put down, dragon!"
Phei laughed imdiately while adjusting her weight in his arms in a princess carry, the sound bright enough that even the room itself felt warr afterward.
"Counteroffer," he said while starting deeper into the penthouse. "No."
"I am a grown woman."
"Debatable."
"Phei."
"You are currently receiving premium transportation services. Please appreciate the custor experience."
lissa smacked his chest with all the violence of an offended housecat.
Not because she lacked strength.
Her arms had already betrayed her anyway, curling comfortably around his neck while her body relaxed into his hold with the exhausted surrender of sobody who had forgotten how to ask for softness and looked quietly devastated receiving it freely.
"You’re ridiculous," she murmured while pressing her face deeper into the warmth between his neck and shoulder.
"Ridiculous is my side occupation," Phei answered. "My primary career involves emotionally manipulating beautiful won into smiling."
"I’m not smiling."
"Your face is conducting suspicious activities adjacent to smiling."
Against his neck, lissa made a tiny sound halfway between a laugh and surrender.
Better.
’Much better.’
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