(Caelum Ashborne)
For one wild heartbeat, panic clawed at his throat—too still, too quiet, too slack—but then he saw the minute rise and fall of her chest. Shallow. Uneven. But there.
His lungs loosened. Barely.
Gods. She looked…
He’d known, in abstract, what the Devil was capable of. He had seen the aftermath of Apollo’s punishments. He’d walked past the pits, past the torture wheels, past the cages that never opened. He’d watched demons dragged out in pieces.
This was worse.
Because she was not a demon. Because she was not supposed to be here. Because he needed her alive.
Because something about the angle of her head, the mess of her hair, the marks on her skin made his chest hurt in a way he didn’t have a mission word for. Not pity. Not love. Something more dangerous: responsibil
