Page 34 of Thane's Demon
“Any luck with that?”
Again, his lips quirked at the edges.
“No, but I’m still sitting here, so I guess only time will tell if I’m willing to give it time to figure out.”
I nodded, trying to hide my grin as I went back to my food. But then, when the silence between us continued, he exhaled through his nose, the smallest crack in his shield starting to show. Then after a long moment, he said,
“I have been in Shanghai for eight years.” Something in his voice made it clear that those eight years were not simple ones.
“Do you… have family here?” I asked gently. His expression shuttered instantly.
“No,” he said, the word clipped clean.
“I have no family to speak of.” The weight of that sentence struck something tender inside me.
“What about friends?” His eyes darkened before replying, as if the concept of friends was a foreign one to him.
“I don’t have time for friends.”
My chest tightened at the cold honesty of it, and my expression must have reflected that, because his voice snapped suddenly sharper.
“Do not pity me.”
I straightened at the bite in his tone, surprised but not scared.
“It’s not pity,” I said quietly. “It’s just… we have more in common than you think.”
His eyes flicked to mine, something unreadable stirring there. Then, after a moment, he asked, “The boy you were with, is he not a friend?”
The faintest shadow of jealousy threaded through his voice, so subtle I might have missed it if I wasn’t staring directly at him. A tiny smile threatened to pull at my mouth.
“You mean Luca? He is friendly enough,” I said lightly. “But he’s not someone I’m willing to break the rules for.”
His gaze sharpened.
“Rules?”
I shifted in my seat, suddenly aware of how personal this was becoming.
“My father is strict…very strict,”I said, and Thane muttered something under his breath, something I couldn’t quite catch but felt heavy with meaning. “Something to share on that?” I asked, being bold enough to voice it.
“A father has a need to be protective,” he said, though it sounded like he barely believed it. A laugh escaped me, one quiet, bitter, and hollow.
“It’s not protectiveness, it’s control, simple as that,” I said, and his posture stiffened. Also, for a strange moment, his eyes burned with something dangerously close to fury, but not at me.
“We don’t get along,” I admitted. “Not since…” My throat tightened painfully. “Not since my mother died.”
Silence moved between us again, but this time it wasn’t awkward or cold. It was heavy and full of something raw and unfamiliar. He didn’t look away. He didn’t withdraw. Instead, he leaned in slightly, his expression shifting with a slow, subtle intensity, as if my words had struck somewhere deep. And then, unexpectedly, he reached for my hand. His fingertips brushed mine first, warm and tentative, before curling around my hand gently. His touch was careful, as though I was something precious he didn’t quite know how to hold.
“I am sorry for your loss,” he said, the words low and sincere, so sincere that for a moment I forgot how to breathe. The warmth of his hand steadied something inside me that had been trembling since the day I arrived in Shanghai.
“Thank you,”I whispered, the words catching in my throat as I held onto him just a little tighter. His thumb pressed once, softly, against the back of my hand before he let go, and the air between us felt changed. As if charged with something neither of us knew how to name. For the first time that day, the tight ache in my chest eased, replaced by something warm and frighteningly hopeful.
And beneath all of it, a quiet truth settled into the space between us…
I didn’t want to stay away from him.
And deep down I knew that, despite everything he tried to say…
