Page 31 of Can't Bite This Feeling
She’sfurious.
“You’re not alone anymore, Rapha,” she says, softer now, but no less intense. “You don’t have to bear this burden by yourself. I’m not helpless. I don’t need to be protected from the truth. I need to be your partner. Let me fight for you. Let mestand beside you.”
The words cut through me like a blade made of love and fury and desperate, stubborn hope.
I want to argue. To warn her away from what I’ve become. But she’s already proven she won’t flinch. She faced her father’s revenant alone. She wielded the manor’s magic like a weapon. And she’s still here, naked in every way, her soul laid bare in front of me.
“You’re right,” I whisper. “You’ve been fighting this whole time. And I’ve been running. From you. From what I’m becoming. From everything.”
She softens slightly, reaching out to take my hand, our fingers threading together. “Then stop running. Let me help you find your way back.”
I squeeze her hand. “I’ll try.”
“Not good enough,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “There is notrying. There is onlydoing.”
I almost laugh at her bossy tone, but the emotion in my throat is too heavy to get past.
“I will,” I say. And I mean it.
I lie down again and tug her close, needing her to ground me.
She’s quiet for a long time before she finally asks, “What aboutwhat I did? Rapha? How did I do that? How was I able to use the magic in this place?”
“You called it,” I murmur. “The manor… I built it for you. It responded because it’s bonded to you now. It will always answer if you’re in danger within its walls.”
She blinks, silent.
“You saved yourself,” I say. “You didn’t need me to fight Cassian. You found your strength. The manor’s magic didn’t justletyou use it. Itobeyedyou.”
“I don’t want it if it means becoming likehim,” she whispers. “My father… he called me a stain. Said he would cleanse our bloodline of my sin.”
“He won’t touch you again,” I swear. “Lucifer can twist every rule he wants, but I’ll burn this entire plane to ash before I let that revenant get near you again.”
Her eyes fill, but she presses her lips to my chest. “Don’t let my father or Lucifer take you from me, Rapha. Please. You’re still in there. I know it.”
I wrap my arms around her, breathing her in like I need her scent to keep me tethered. “I don’t know how much of me is left,” I admit, “but what remains is yours.”
She presses her cheek to my heart, listening to the strange rhythm that no longer belongs to the living.
“I’ll fight for you,” she whispers. “For both of us.”
Only then does her breath slow and her eyes finally fall closed.
And I’m left holding the most dangerous thing in all the worlds: a reason to hope.
I stroke her hair and try not to think as she sleeps, curled into me, her breath soft against my skin. But my mind is already racing.
Because the itch, the greed, is still there.
I slip from bed and pace the room. I’m fraying at the edges. Man to vampire to demon to nothing. I press my forehead to the cool wall and exhale a breath I can’t hold on to.
Lucifer.
I need to speak to him.
The world rips open around me, and the manor vanishes. I land on the obsidian tiles ofGlutton Hall, where Lucifer looms on his throne above me.
“Well, well,” he drawls. “Look who’s crawled back. You know, I don’t appreciate you dropping in like this without an invitation.”
