Chapter 49: A THORN OF OBSESSION

ELIJAH

There was no peace in my room.

Not in the walls that once shielded me from the world. Not in the silence that used to feel like control. Now it was just… noise. Her noise.

Celeste.

The name was a curse on my tongue—bitter, invasive, impossible to forget. I tried. God, I tried. She wasn’t supposed to matter. She was supposed to be a fix, a variable in an old equation I’d spent centuries solving. And yet she’d infected everything—thought, breath, sleep. She was everywhere.

And it was unacceptable.

The idea that she—that this girl—was the key to ending my torment? Laughable. Cruel. A joke from the gods, if I still believed in them. But the worst part? I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Couldn’t stop feeling her, even when she wasn’t around.

No. I had to cut her out. Erase her.

With that decision settling like steel in my chest, I stood, adjusting the cuffs of my shirt like armor. Enough brooding. Enough of playing the haunted man in the shadows of his own damn house.

There was something else I had to handle first.

Medina.

I reached for her through the thin thread of old magic that still ran hot in my veins. The connection snapped into place—a cold, quiet channel between us.

“Her power’s getting unstable. Handle it.”

Silence. Then a reluctant murmur in response.

“As you wish, my lord.”

My jaw locked. She always called me that. “My lord.” Like she still believed I was the man I used to be. It didn’t comfort me anymore. Nothing did. Not while Celeste still walked these halls like a ticking bomb.

I left the room, footsteps sharp, the tails of my coat trailing behind me like storm smoke. When I reached Phillip’s door, I didn’t knock. Just turned the handle and walked in.

Of course.

There he was—spread across the bed, shirt half-open, women draped around him like human jewelry. One of them giggled, clearly amused by his attention until she realized I wasn’t him.

“Five minutes,” I said, calm but sharp enough to slice through the room like a blade.

Phillip groaned theatrically. “Now? Really?”

“Now.”

I let the door fall shut and waited outside. Arms folded. Expression flat. The kind of silence that makes people uncomfortable.

A few moments later, the women scurried past me, giggling under their breath. Phillip followed, hair a mess, coat barely buttoned.

“You’re lucky I enjoy chaos,” he muttered.

I didn’t reply. I just started walking. He kept up.

“You’re dressed,” he noted. “So this isn’t about wine or women. Damn. What’s eating you?”

“I’m going to the construction site tomorrow.”

Phillip blinked. “You?”

“Yes, me.”

“You hate noise, dust, sweat, humans…”

“I hate being idle more.”

He studied me. “This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the magical girl you’ve been avoiding, would it?”

I hesitated.

Only for a second.

But Phillip caught it.

“She’s gotten to you.”

“She’s a problem,” I said through my teeth. “A necessary one. I need her to break the curse, and then I want her gone.”

“Not what I asked.”

My fingers curled at my side. The truth clawed under my ribs like something feral.

“It’s not love,” I said finally. “It’s… something else. A fixation. The way you can’t stop staring at a wound, even when it makes you sick.”

Phillip smirked. “But you do keep staring.”

“She pisses me off,” I snapped. “She talks back. She gets in my head. She—” I stopped, breath catching. “When she touched me earlier, I didn’t flinch.”

That was the part I couldn’t explain.

Phillip raised an eyebrow. “You’re not scared of her. You’re scared of what she makes you feel.”

“I’m not scared,” I snapped, louder this time. “I’m trapped. And I need to break free.”

He let out a low chuckle. “Obsession always wears the mask of hate. You should know that by now.”

I turned away before his words could settle too deep.

That’s when it hit me.

A scent.

Barely there—like wildflowers after a storm. Familiar. Intrusive.

Her.

She was nearby.

I didn’t think. I moved.

Fast.

Out of the corridor. Through the archway. Across the inner courtyard where the sun was bleeding out behind the stone. The air was thick with that scent again—earthy and electric. My pulse quickened without permission. I hated it.

She always found somewhere to be, wandering about like the restless child she was.

And there she was.

Wandering through the halls like a ghost who didn’t know she was dead. Straight-backed, still, her gaze fixed somewhere far away. She didn’t even turn when I approached too busy finding something, walking clouding her mind.

She knew I was there.

I should have said something—should have ordered her to finish what she started, to rip this curse out of me and leave.

But I didn’t.

I just stood there.

Watching.

The way her hair caught the fading light, the curve of her spine, the way her steps weren’t loud but resolute like a queen who demanded attention, so careful yet so loose, no one would think she was a prisoner.

What had I let into my home?

What had I let into my head?

She should’ve been a pawn. A key. Just another step in the plan.

But something was shifting.

In me.

Something dangerous.

Human.

My boots crunched over gravel as I stepped closer. Her presence hit harder the nearer I got—like stepping into a storm you thought you could walk through without getting soaked.

She kept moving, not stopping.

She didn’t have to.

She knew the war she was waging just by breathing.

And I—damn me—I walked right into it.

So haunting. She haunted my very being and I hated her. Loathed her presence. Fuck, she would be the end of me.

My steps carried me forward, slow and deliberate, each one echoing with the weight of what I was about to demand. The silence curled around me like a warning, but I pressed on. Her scent grew stronger, intoxicating and infuriating. I clenched my fists.