Chapter 57 Sweet Dreams
(Apollo & Adelaide)
The moment he settled, she stirred.
Her hand reached blindly toward the warmth—toward him.
He froze.
She curled into his chest like she’d done it a thousand times, pressing her face against his skin, her breath warm against his sternum. Her thigh brushed his hip. Her fingers fisted lightly in the sheet between them.
She sighed. A soft, peaceful sound. As though she had finally found something safe. The sound slid under his ribs, lodging there like a blade made of light.
Apollo’s entire body went rigid.
His heart slammed against his ribs so violently, he wondered if she could feel it. The bond thrummed in response, tightening around them like a silken noose.
He didn’t breathe for several seconds.
Couldn’t.
Then—slowly, cautiously—he exhaled.
His arm moved on its own, sliding around her waist, pulling her an inch closer. Not enough to wake her. Just enough to feel the heat of her skin through the fur and the sheet. His fingers brushed the small of her back. Her body responded instantly, melting into him like liquid heat.
His throat tightened. He didn’t understand this. He didn’t understand her. He didn’t understand why his entire body loosened the moment she touched him in her sleep. Why the fire inside him dulled. Why the rage quieted. Why the hunger twisted into something softer. Something he hated.
Something that terrified him more than losing control.
He lowered his forehead to hers. Their breaths mingled—hers softer, his ragged.
“Little Flame,” he whispered, voice breaking against the words. “What are you doing to me?”
She didn’t answer. She only curled closer.
And for the first time in a thousand years, the Devil lay awake beside someone… and didn’t know if he was more afraid of touching her—or of letting go.
⸸
Heat.
That was the first thing she felt.
A steady, enveloping heat pressed against her back, sinking into her spine, warming her skin in a way that no blanket, no fire, no sun ever had. Something solid rested along the curve of her hips, something that radiated enough warmth to make her toes tingle. A breath—deep, slow, heavy—poured across the nape of her neck. It smelled like smoke and spice and something darkly sweet, threading through the remnants of her dream until the line between memory and reality blurred.
She drifted somewhere between sleep and waking, caught in that soft, blurry place where dreams still cling to the edges of reality.
And in that haze, in that half-conscious moment fuelled by exhaustion and memory, a single thought bloomed through her fogged mind:
Liam.
Her heart fluttered with a fragile ache.
She felt a body behind her—strong, warm, familiar in all the ways her young heart remembered. In sleep-drunken instinct, she pressed her back into him, seeking more of the warmth. His arm tightened around her waist.
A tiny, contented sound slipped from her throat. The long hard length jerked against her bare backside pressing into her like it demanded something.
She shifted again, her body arching softly back into the heat of him, wiggling her ass so that his length could slip between her cheeks. Wetness pool between her thigh and dreamy giggle brushing her lips.
“Mm… Liam…” she whispered, the name falling out of her with the innocence of someone still half-dreaming.
The body behind her went rigid. Completely, utterly rigid.
The warmth changed—no longer soft and embracing, but sharp. Tense. Coiled with the sudden, explosive stillness of a predator hearing a threat. The hand at her waist tightened a fraction, claws threatening at the edge of skin.
Her sleepy mind didn’t register the danger.
Not yet.
She only felt herself being moved—suddenly, swiftly—her back hitting the mattress as strong hands flipped her onto her spine. Before she could gasp, a heavy weight settled over her, caging her in.
Her eyes flew open.
Apollo’s face hovered above hers—shadowed, furious, beautiful in a devastating, merciless way. His hair fell forward in dark waves, his eyes molten and wild, his breath hitting her lips in ragged, seething bursts. His horns hadn’t broken through, but the threat of them lived in the sharp lines of his jaw.
Her stomach dropped. Her heart slammed. Apollo. Not Liam.
Cold terror and hot confusion collided like two storms inside her chest.
“A—Apollo—?”
His hand seized both her wrists, pinning them above her head in a single effortless grip. His other hand pressed into the mattress beside her shoulder, trapping her completely beneath him.
His voice was a growl dragged from the deepest, darkest part of hell: “Who. Is. Liam?”
She blinked, dazed, breathless. “What—? No… I—I thought—”
“Who,” he snarled again, leaning down until their noses nearly brushed, “is Liam, my Little Flame?”
Her pulse thundered in her ears. Her lips parted, trembling. “He was—someone from the village. Someone I knew. I didn’t mean—”