Chapter 86
Violet's POV:
Daemon's blood-red eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made Ember whimper. He didn't answer immediately, and in that pause I could hear both our elevated heartbeats, the sound of two wolves trapped in a metal cage trying desperately not to acknowledge what their instincts screamed.
"You seem very certain I pursued her first," he said finally, his tone carefully neutral in a way that immediately set off alarm bells.
My jaw tightened. Wasn't it? In my previous life, Evan had told me explicitly that Daemon had chased Celeste, that he'd been the one to initiate everything. And after my rebirth, I'd seen with my own eyes the messages on his phone, watched him track her movements, witnessed him arrange her father's surgery. All the evidence pointed in one direction.
But Daemon's question hung there, precise and surgical, cutting into assumptions I'd never thought to question.
"If nothing ever happened between us," he continued, his voice dropping lower, each word measured and deliberate, "no affair, no betrayal—would you consider reconciliation?"
"No." The answer came instantly, reflexively, before my conscious mind could even process the hypothetical. I met his gaze directly, refusing to flinch away from whatever emotion flickered there. "I don't care what did or didn't happen between you and Celeste. I only know what I saw—those images, those moments—they hurt me deeply enough that the damage is permanent."
Something shifted in Daemon's expression, a microexpression of pain that vanished so quickly I might have imagined it. His jaw clenched, the muscle jumping beneath his skin, and I watched him swallow hard before his face went carefully blank again.
The elevator lurched, then resumed its slow descent. Neither of us spoke as the doors finally slid open onto our floor. I pulled off his jacket and held it out to him, our fingers not quite touching as he took it. We turned simultaneously, walking toward our respective apartment doors.
I didn't look back as I slipped inside and locked the door behind me.
---
The moment the lock clicked into place, my knees buckled. I slid down against the door until I was sitting on the floor, pressing both palms against my temples as if I could physically hold my thoughts together. Daemon's question circled my mind like a predator: what if he hadn't pursued Celeste first?
No. That couldn't be right. I'd seen him ask that department head for her contact information at the university celebration. I'd watched his eyes track her across rooms.
But had I actually seen him initiate contact? Or had I only seen the aftermath, the established relationship, the interactions that occurred after something had already begun?
I pulled out my phone with shaking hands and opened the group chat with my friends.
Me: Need your thoughts on something. Daemon said tonight that he wasn't the one who pursued Celeste first.
The responses came rapid-fire.
Sienna: WHAT? Violet, you literally told us you saw him get her number from someone at the university.
Lily: Getting someone's number doesn't necessarily mean you're going to pursue them though. I mean, Daemon's a lot of things but I don't think he'd straight-up lie to your face about this.
Sienna: Whose side are you on???
Jade: From what you've told us about Celeste, she doesn't seem like the type who just sits back and waits for things to happen. Just saying.
Sienna: Fuck this is giving me a headache. Violet, you're already free of both of them—why dig into this? Nothing good comes from analyzing the details of a shipwreck after you've already swum to shore.
I stared at Sienna's message, recognizing the wisdom in it even as something stubborn and aching in my chest refused to let it go. Because if I'd been wrong about this fundamental thing, what else had I misunderstood? What other assumptions had I built my entire worldview around that might crumble under scrutiny?
My thumb hovered over Evan's contact. He'd been there, part of Daemon's inner circle throughout everything. If anyone knew the truth about how things had started between Daemon and Celeste, it would be him.
I pressed call before I could talk myself out of it.
He answered on the second ring. "Violet? Everything okay?"
"When do you have time to talk?" I asked, not bothering with pleasantries. "I need to ask you about something."
"I'm free right now if you want to meet in person."
Twenty minutes later, I was sliding into a booth across from Evan at an all-night diner. Evan had already ordered—black coffee for himself, chamomile tea for me that I hadn't asked for but appreciated nonetheless.
"Has Daemon ever told you how he started pursuing Celeste?" I asked, abandoning any attempt at subtlety.
Evan's eyebrows rose slightly. "Why are you asking about this now?"
"Just curious," I said, which was perhaps the least convincing lie I'd ever told. "Did he say anything specific about the beginning?"
He studied me for a long moment before shaking his head. "No. He never really talked about it in detail."
Of course not. I took a sip of tea, hiding my frustration. If Evan didn't know, then—
"Did Daemon say something to you?" Evan asked carefully, his green eyes sharp with something I couldn't quite identify.
In my previous life, I would have told him everything, would have treated him as a confidant because I'd assumed he was going through the same thing I was. But now, knowing that his interest had been in me rather than her, the dynamic had shifted entirely. The last thing I needed was to give him ammunition or hope.
"No," I said, matching his neutral tone. "Just a random thought that occurred to me."
My phone buzzed against the table—Sienna's contact photo lighting up the screen alongside a text: HOLY SHIT. Violet, I got some intel from Lucian that changes EVERYTHING.
My pulse spiked. "Sorry," I murmured to Evan, my eyes already scanning Sienna's message. "Just give me a second."
Sienna: Okay so remember how Lucian helped Daemon with strategies for pursuing girls? Turns out he knows WAY more about what happened between Daemon and Celeste than he let on.
Sienna: So yes, Daemon DID ask for Celeste's contact info—because she reminded him of Aurora. BUT he never actually contacted her first.
Sienna: Celeste somehow got Daemon's number from someone else and SHE reached out to HIM, asking why he'd requested her information. That's how they started talking.
Sienna: High-level hunter disguised as prey. Fucking brilliant actually. Lucian wouldn't tell me more after that—said the rest was Daemon's business—but I'm working on breaking him down. Will update if I get anything else!
I set the phone down slowly, my hands steady despite the way my entire understanding of the past two lifetimes had just inverted itself. Across from me, Evan watched with obvious concern, but I couldn't focus on his expression, couldn't process anything beyond the implications cascading through my mind.
Celeste had made first contact. She'd been the initiator, the one who'd reached out and asked that perfectly innocent-sounding question that had opened the door between them. And because I'd never known that crucial detail, I'd interpreted everything that came after through a distorted lens—Daemon as the aggressor, Celeste as the victim of his obsessive pursuit.
But if she'd reached out first, if she'd been the one to engineer that initial connection, then what else had she orchestrated? That overly solicitous concern when she'd found me crying in McDonald's—had that been genuine sympathy or calculated positioning? That moment when she'd sent Daemon a message and then performed anxiety when he replied? The entire narrative of her being overwhelmed by Daemon's attention—had all of it been theater designed for a specific audience?
Me.
"Violet." Evan's voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. "What's going on?"
I looked up at him, this man who in another life had fought Daemon for Celeste's affection, who had ended a decades-long friendship because he'd believed her story of being pursued and pressured by someone who couldn't take no for an answer. And I realized with stark clarity how she'd done it—how she'd played on his protective instincts, his resemblance to Aurora that made him predisposed to see her as someone who needed saving from the same fate.
"I'm wondering," I said slowly, "what kind of person Celeste really is. Do you think she was genuinely forced into a relationship with Daemon? Or is it possible she planned to get close to both of us from the very beginning?"
The question hung between us, and I felt a chill crawl up my spine as I considered the implications. If Celeste had deliberately approached me in McDonald's with that apple pie, knowing exactly who I was... if she'd carefully cultivated my sympathy while simultaneously inserting herself into Daemon's awareness... if every moment of seeming vulnerability had been calculated...
It was terrifying in its complexity.
"I don't know," Evan said quietly, and something in his tone made me look at him more carefully. "But she's definitely not simple. I didn't pay much attention to these dynamics before, but after you and I talked that time, I started watching her more closely. She's very good at performing whatever role the situation requires."
Performing. Yes, that was exactly the right word. And I'd given her a standing ovation for five years without ever realizing I was part of the show.
A bitter laugh escaped me. I have to hand it to her. If I had half of Celeste's strategic thinking, I wouldn't have spent ten years unable to win Daemon's heart.
"I should go," I said, already reaching for my bag.
Evan stood as well. "I didn't drive here. Could you drop me at my apartment?"
I hesitated for a fraction of a second before nodding. What else could I say? We walked to my car in silence, and I was hyperaware of him in my peripheral vision as I drove, the way he kept glancing over as if trying to read my thoughts from my profile.
Ember stirred uneasily in my mind. "He smells nervous. And hopeful."
Not now, I told her firmly, keeping my eyes fixed on the road. We have enough complications.
The drive back to our apartment building felt simultaneously too long and too short. When I finally pulled into a visitor spot near the entrance, Evan unbuckled his seatbelt but didn't immediately move to exit. I could feel the weight of whatever he was about to say settling in the air between us.
"If you discover the truth," he said quietly, still not looking at me, "and if that truth changes how you see what happened—if most of it turns out to be misunderstanding rather than betrayal—would you consider trying again with Daemon?"
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. "No. Because the scars are already there, Evan. It doesn't matter if the knife turned out to be fake—the wound still bled, and it still hurts."
He finally turned to face me fully, and there was something achingly gentle in his expression that made my chest constrict. "If you did decide to try again... I would support you."
I stared at him, genuinely shocked. "You'd support me?"
"I know what I said." A small, self-deprecating smile crossed his face. "And I meant it. But that doesn't change the fact that I want you to be happy, even if that happiness doesn't include me. Before you make any final decisions about your future, though, I'm still going to try. I'm going to do my damnedest to show you what it could be like with someone who actually sees you and values you. But if you ultimately choose him..." He shrugged. "Then I'll step back."
He got out of the car before I could formulate a response, offering a small wave through the window before heading toward the building entrance. I sat there for several minutes after he'd disappeared inside, trying to reconcile this version of Evan—mature, self-aware, genuinely generous—with the man from my previous life who had fought Daemon with single-minded intensity over Celeste.
---
When I finally dragged myself upstairs and into my apartment, I was too mentally drained to do anything productive. I barely managed to change into sleep clothes before collapsing into bed, but sleep itself proved elusive. My mind kept circling back to the same questions, the same images.
Morning came whether I was ready for it or not. I woke near noon with gritty eyes and a headache that pulsed in time with my heartbeat, immediately reaching for my phone to text Kael.
Me: Need a mental health day. Taking today off.
His response came within seconds: Take two if you need them. Want me to bring food?
I smiled despite myself at his mother-hen tendencies, but declined the offer. After a long shower that did nothing to unknot the tension in my shoulders, I made myself a late breakfast—instant noodles dressed up with a fried egg, cherry tomatoes, and baby spinach, plus a glass of milk. The baby needed proper nutrition even if I felt like subsisting on air and spite.
After eating, I crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over my head like a child hiding from monsters, except the monsters were all memories and revelations and the growing certainty that I'd been operating with incomplete information for longer than I wanted to admit.
The sound of my phone vibrating pulled me back to reluctant consciousness. I groped for it blindly, eyes still closed, thumb finding the answer button through muscle memory alone.
"Hello?" My voice came out rough with sleep and residual emotion.