Chapter 149 From The Shadows
(Adeliade)
Adelaide jolted awake with a scream.
Her lungs seized first. Air tore into her throat like knives. Her heart slammed so hard it rang in her ears, each beat loud and frantic, drowning the room.
Her breath ripped from her lungs, sharp and shaking. Her whole body jerked, muscles seizing as if she’d actually been falling. Sweat slicked the back of her neck despite the cool air, her pulse galloping against her palm when she pressed it to her chest. Her hand rounded on her sternum, feeling her pounding heart, half expecting fingers of fire still curled around it.
“Apollo—” The name tore out of her before she could stop it. Raw. Instinctive. A plea and a curse tangled together.
Her hand slapped the mattress behind her, fingers searching, panicked—empty. The sheets were warm but vacant.
Silence answered. Cold air kissed her bare shoulders. The chamber felt wrong without him—too quiet, too still. Even the wards hummed softer, like a church after prayer had ended.
Moonlight—Hell’s strange imitation of it—slanted across the bed. Pale, unreal light silvered the dark stone, catching on the faint curl of steam still lingering from the heated floors. The room smelled of smoke, bath salts, and him. Always him. Like a sanctified sin. Her mouth tasted faintly of cinder. She swallowed, half-expecting ash.
The pain she braced for… didn’t come. Relief was sharp and strange, so foreign it almost unsettled her. No bruising. No deep aches. No tearing. No fire-scorched wounds. Just… faint fingerprints on her hips. Shadows of touch rather than violence. Her body felt used, yes—stretched, humming—but not ravaged.
She brushed them with tentative fingertips, breath catching as memory flooded her—the way he’d moved inside her, slow and careful. The way he’d whispered against her skin. The way he’d held her afterwards, like she wasn’t a captive, but something breakable. Heat crept up her throat, shame and longing knotting together until she couldn’t tell them apart.
Her throat tightened. The Queen’s words echoed behind her eyes, clashing with the remembered gentleness of the Devil’s hands. Devour. Protect. Tear the world for you. Her heart didn’t know which version to believe. Maybe both were true.
Then— The room shifted. Not sound—pressure. The way a predator knows it’s no longer alone.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose. Someone was watching her.
A shape in the corner of the room. Still. Silent. Half-dissolved into shadow. The shadows there were too deliberate. Too patient. For a heartbeat, fear thundered through her. Her mind supplied chains, claws, and new torments waiting for the moment she looked away. She tasted copper on her tongue, her body already tensing to flinch. Then the shape shifted, resolving into a tall, familiar form.
Cael.
Her heart jumped painfully. She yanked the sheet up to her chest with a small, startled gasp. The fabric rasped over her skin, suddenly too thin, too insubstantial to feel like real protection. Heat flushed across her cheeks and down her neck.
“Gods—Cael?” Her voice cracked embarrassingly.
“How long have you been—were you just—” She swallowed, flustered. “Watching me sleep?!”
His eyes glinted faintly, ember-bright in the dark. He stepped forward just enough that the shadows loosened their grip on his face. He moved like smoke given shape, silent and controlled, the edges of his form still blurred by the remnants of shadow clinging to him.
“Your king ordered me to remain,” he said quietly. “You were… restless.”
Her cheeks burned hot. “Restless? I was—dreaming! A-and you shouldn’t—this is—Cael, why are you here?”
Her voice sounded high, breathless, unravelling at the edges. She hated how small she sounded, how human, how not in control of anything—not her body, not her dreams, not even who was allowed to watch her sleep.
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stood there, grey skin shifting softly with curls of smoke, eyes unreadable. There was a stillness to him that made the room feel more solid, as if the stone itself approved of his presence.
“Because you are not safe,” he said. “Not from this realm. Not from him.”
A beat. “And not from what you told him.”
Her stomach dropped. Ice chased the heat in her veins, leaving her cold and clammy under the sheet. The Queen’s warning and Cael’s quiet accusation tangled in her chest, squeezing.
“I—I didn’t tell him your name,” she rushed out, panic spilling over. “I swear I didn’t. I—I couldn’t stay on that cross, Cael. I couldn’t—if I hadn’t said something, I would’ve—” Her voice broke. “But I tried to protect you.”
Images slammed into her: the rough bite of rope, the burning stretch in her shoulders, the way her fingers had gone numb while her lungs clawed for air. The memory made her whole body curl in on itself.
Cael’s gaze softened the smallest fraction. “I know.” His voice was steady. Quiet. Almost… pained. “But it changes little.”
She gripped the sheet harder around her chest, panic crashing through her in waves. Her fingers ached with the force of her grip, knuckles whitening around the fabric as if she could hold him in place, hold the situation from getting worse, by sheer will.
“What did he do?” she whispered. “What did Apollo say to you?”
For the first time, Cael looked away.
And that—more than anything—terrified her. Cael had stared down the Devil’s chains and her own agony without flinching, and yet now he couldn’t hold her gaze. Dread dripped slowly down her spine like cold water.
Her breath hitched. “Cael… what did he do?”
Cael exhaled slowly, a careful, controlled release of air. “He commanded me,” he said at last. “In front of his throne. In front of the realm. I am to remain at your side.” A beat. “Always.”
Her heart plummeted. The word always landed like a stone dropped down a well, no bottom in sight. Her chest squeezed, torn between relief that she wouldn’t be alone and horror that Cael had been dragged into her orbit permanently. “Because of what I said.”
“Because you said something,” Cael answered softly. “Not your fault. But it is done now.”
Shame punched her low in the stomach. “I didn’t betray you,” she burst. “I swear I didn’t—I kept your name, I kept everything that mattered. I—I couldn’t stay on that cross, Cael. I was dying. I was…” Her voice shook violently. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”