Chapter 164: Guarding Every Breath

Ravial went tense immediately. Leitana noticed the sudden rigidity in his shoulders and the way his hand stilled on her stomach. Her brow creased into a small frown of confusion.

“Because mi no understand how yu lift mi papa up like that,” she said, shaking her head, voice full of genuine bewilderment. “Like he was a rag doll. Mi never see anyone so strong before. How yu do dat?”

Ravial took in every tiny detail, the way her lips pursed, the little crease between her brows, the soft tilt of her head as she tried to make sense of it. He relaxed almost instantly, realizing she wasn’t being literal. She didn’t suspect the truth. She was simply fascinated by the raw physical power she had witnessed, the way any innocent human would be when confronted with something impossible.

“Mi been thinking about it,” she added, still shaking her head. She lifted her hand from her stomach and wrapped it around his muscled biceps, squeezing experimentally like a child testing the strength of a new toy. “Yu arm so hard… like iron. How is dat possible?”

A small, rare smile lifted the corner of Ravial’s lips.

He leaned in closer, voice low and velvet-smooth, the devil beneath the surface carefully leashed for her sake.

“Because I am stronger than any man you have ever met, my lamb,” he murmured, letting her continue to squeeze his arm. “I have spent a very long time becoming exactly what I need to be, strong enough to protect what is mine. Strong enough that no one can take you from me. Not even your father.”

Leitana blinked up at him, still holding his bicep, her fingers tracing the hard muscle curiously. “But… yu make it look so easy. Like lifting a pillow. Mi papa is not small man. Yu no even breathe hard.”

Ravial’s smile deepened, dark amusement flickering behind the blindfold. He covered her small hand with his own, pressing it more firmly against his arm.

“Breathing hard would mean I was trying,” he said calmly, almost gently. “I wasn’t trying. I was simply removing a problem that dared to touch my wife. If I had really wanted to, I could have crushed his skull with one squeeze. But you asked me not to. So I didn’t.”

Leitana’s eyes widened, a mix of awe and lingering worry crossing her face. She gave his arm one last experimental squeeze before letting go, cheeks flushing slightly.

“Yu too strong, mi Ravial,” she whispered, half-scolding but also half impressed. “Sometimes mi forget how… different yu are. But yu still mi husband. Yu still have to be careful. Mi no want yu hurting people just because yu can.”

Ravial leaned down and pressed a slow kiss to her forehead, then another to the top of her head, inhaling her scent like it was the only thing keeping the monster at bay.

“I am careful,” he murmured against her hair. “I am only as violent as I need to be to keep you safe. And right now, the only thing I care about is this mark on your face and making sure our child stays exactly where he or she is, growing strong inside you.”

Leitana sighed softly, leaning into his chest, her small hand returning to rub slow circles over her stomach.

“Mi still no like when yu get like dat,” she said quietly. “But… mi understand why. A little.”

Ravial’s hand covered hers on her belly, thumb brushing gently.

“Good,” he whispered. “Because I will always get like that when someone hurts you. Always.”

She giggled, the sound light and sweet despite everything that had happened today. “Yu always talking like yu from another world. Sometimes mi think yu really are.”

He didn’t laugh with her.

Instead he pulled her even closer, wrapping both arms around her small frame and resting his chin on top of her head.

“Maybe I am,” he whispered, so softly she almost didn’t hear it. “But this world is the only one that has you in it. So I stay.”

Leitana melted against him, her arms sliding around his waist as she nuzzled into his chest.

“Mi glad yu stay,” she murmured. “Even if yu scary sometimes.”

The silence that followed was soft, intimate, and heavy with everything he wasn’t saying.

Ravial closed his eyes behind the blindfold, holding her a little tighter.

He would stay.

He would burn, lie, kill, and destroy, whatever it took to keep her.

He was not human.

He never had been.

And one day soon, she would have to face exactly what that meant.

But not today.

Not while she still looked at him with those trusting, tear-filled eyes.

For now, the devil would keep pretending he was only a man.

Because the thought of a world without his lamb was the only thing that could ever truly terrify the devil himself.

And he would never let that world exist.

Ravial watched her sleep.

The blindfold lay discarded on the small table beside the hospital bed. His true eyes, those burning, infernal pools were open and unblinking, fixed on every tiny detail of Leitana’s face.

He knew her better than she knew herself.

He knew the exact shade her cheeks turned when she blushed, the precise curve of her lower lip when she pouted, the way her lashes fluttered when she dreamed. He had memorized the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose that only appeared in certain lighting, the small scar on her left earlobe from when she was six, the way her breathing hitched every seventeen seconds when she was deeply asleep.

He knew the rhythm of her heartbeat, 68 beats per minute when she was calm, 92 when she was excited, 114 when she was frightened. He knew the exact temperature of her skin at every point on her body. He knew the scent of her hair after she used their shampoo, the way her fingers curled when she reached for him in her sleep, the soft sound she made in the back of her throat right before she came.

He could sit here for hours. Days. Weeks. Simply watching. Memorizing. Cataloging every microscopic change.

Because she was his.

And the thought of losing even one second of her was unbearable.

Night after night he did this, long after she had fallen asleep in his arms. He would wait until her breathing evened out, then remove the blindfold and simply… watch. Because deep down, in the dark recesses even he rarely acknowledged, there was a fear that clawed at him:

One morning he would wake up and she would no longer be breathing.

The fragile mortal shell that housed the only thing he had ever loved.

He would allow no one to take her. Not the disease. Not God. Not death itself.

But he could not stop the fear.

So he watched.

He memorized.

He guarded every breath like it was the last.

The door suddenly opened.

Soft laughter floated in a nurse stepping inside but the sound died instantly when her eyes landed on Ravial’s uncovered face.

She froze.

For one terrible second she saw it.

The inferno.

Burning fields of flame. Souls writhing in eternal agony. Screams layered into one endless, horrifying howl. The weight of every torment he had ever inflicted reflected back at her in perfect, merciless clarity.

Her mouth opened.

Before she could scream, the door slammed shut behind her with a violent bang. The latch clicked by an invisible force, locking her inside.

Ravial was already behind her.

One arm snaked around her waist. His other hand clamped firmly over her mouth, muffling the terrified sound before it could escape.

“Shhhh…” he whispered against her ear, voice low, smooth, and terrifyingly gentle. “Let’s get this over with.”

The nurse’s eyes widened in pure horror as she felt the heat radiating from his body and the unnatural strength in the arm holding her immobile.

Ravial’s gaze flicked once to Leitana, still sleeping peacefully on the bed, unaware before returning to the trembling woman in his grasp.