The walk back to the apartment was silent. The city air felt heavier than usual, as if the secrets Vee had unearthed were physically pressing down on Chase's shoulders. Beside him, Rixsa's tail was tucked low, twitching with a nervous energy she couldn't quite mask.
When they entered the living room, the scene was deceptively domestic. Alex was asleep on the sofa, clutching a printed spreadsheet like a security blanket. Kaelen, however, was in the kitchen, meticulously polishing the silverware with a frown of intense, aristocratic concentration. The golden choker around her neck hummed with a soft, steady light, a constant reminder of her status.
Chase didn't go to his room. He walked straight into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, watching her.
"Leave us, Rixsa. I need to have a chat with Kaelen," Chase said, his voice flat and ominous.
"Chase, maybe we should sleep on it—" Rixsa started, her eyes darting toward the unsuspecting demon.
"Now."
There was a subtle hostility in his eyes, a coldness that Rixsa hadn't seen since he first threatened to throw them out. She hesitated, then sighed, hovering in the doorway. She didn't leave; she just stayed in the shadows of the hall, close enough to intervene if the "Warrior" in Chase decided to take over.
Kaelen didn't look up from a silver spoon. "If you are here to critique the shine on the salad forks, human, I suggest you find a more productive hobby. I have followed your 'Rules of the Dwelling' to the letter."
"Vee told me about the Western campaigns, Kaelen," Chase said quietly.
The spoon clattered onto the tile floor. Kaelen froze, her small shoulders tensing. The hum of the suppressor on her neck spiked in pitch, reacting to the sudden surge of her internal Essence.
"Vee is a senile old scribe who spends too much time smelling ink," she whispered, her voice trembling.
"He told me about the First Divine Schism," Chase continued, stepping closer. "He told me about a commander named Vincent. And he told me why an entire human legion was wiped out in a single night."
Kaelen turned slowly. The aristocratic haughtiness was gone, replaced by a raw, hollow terror that made her look far younger than her centuries. "You have no right to speak that name in this house."
"I have every right," Chase countered, his eyes flashing with a hard, ancient light. "Because I'm the one harboring you. Because if he's in this city, he isn't just coming for you—he's coming through me. Did you think you could just hide in my guest room and pretend you didn't butcher your own husband's family?"
"I didn't butcher them!" Kaelen shrieked, her power flaring so hard the lightbulbs in the kitchen shattered, raining glass onto the floor. "I saved Alex! The Council was going to execute her! They were going to erase her from existence! She was the only thing in that cold, wretched realm that didn't look at me like a tool of the Tenth Circle!"
"So you gave up Vincent's coordinates," Chase said, unmoved by her outburst. "You told the gods exactly where the human resistance was sleeping."
Kaelen sank to the floor, her silk skirts pooling around her like a funeral shroud. She buried her face in her hands, her voice breaking into ragged, ugly sobs.
"I thought they would just capture him! I thought... I thought the gods would be merciful if the war ended quickly. I didn't know the sky would turn to fire. I didn't know I would have to watch the horizon burn for three days." She looked up, her eyes wide with a haunting memory. "But it did not matter. For every one they sent after him, they were killed, one after the other. Eventually, they sent lesser gods—but they fell by his hands too. But there was only so much one man could do. So I ran."
Rixsa stepped out of the shadows then, ignoring Chase's warning glance. She sat on the floor next to Kaelen and tentatively put an arm around her. To Chase's surprise, the proud demon didn't push her away; she leaned into Rixsa, her small frame shaking with the weight of two hundred years of guilt.
"He loved me, Chase," Kaelen choked out. "Even after I told him what I was, even after I showed him my true form... he didn't care. He was a monster to the gods, but he was a man to me. And I killed him. I killed everything he was."
"Vee says he's not dead," Chase said, his tone softening just a fraction. "He says Vincent spent a century hunting you before the trail went cold."
Kaelen looked up, her face tear-stained and pale. "Then he's coming to finish it. He's coming to kill the traitor."
"Maybe," Chase said, looking toward the window at the darkened city skyline. "Or maybe he's just like me—a man who can't find peace because the ghosts of his past won't stop screaming."
He looked back at the two demons on his kitchen floor. He had started the night wanting to demand the truth to protect himself, but seeing Kaelen shattered like this reminded him of the soldiers he used to lead—people who made impossible choices in the heat of a war they didn't start.
"Rixsa, take her to the room," Chase commanded, exhaling a long, weary breath. "Kaelen... if he finds this place, I won't hand you over. Not because I forgive you, but because no one—not even a husband—gets to break the rules of my house."
Kaelen looked at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. Rixsa helped her up, guiding the trembling demon toward the hallway.
"Thanks, Warrior," Rixsa whispered as she passed him.
Chase stood alone in the dark, broken kitchen. He looked down at his hands, feeling the phantom weight of a sword that wasn't there. He knew men like Vincent. They didn't come for apologies, and they didn't come for peace. They came to a conclusion.