Chapter 105 Rat in the Walls
(Apollo)
He fed her in slow, measured bites. Bread. A sliver of fruit that burst sweet and sharp over her tongue, juice running down to her chin. When it did, he chased it lazily with his thumb, wiping it away—then pressing that thumb against her mouth.
“Clean it,” he murmured.
She clenched her jaw. Then, very slowly, she flicked her tongue out and licked the pad of his thumb, eyes hard on his the whole time. Defiance dressed as obedience.
It felt like defiance, even in obedience.
“Good girl,” he said, and hated how much truth there was in it. The words landed between them with an ugly kind of permanence, like a rune pressed into soft stone.
He gave her the meat last. Tiny strips, rich and salty, protein sliding into an empty stomach. She chewed more slowly now, fatigue catching up as the first sharp edge of hunger dulled. Her eyelids fluttered, fighting the pull of sleep, as if her body didn’t trust rest in this room.
Between bites, he asked, “What do you remember?”
Her eyes flicked up to his face, suspicious. “Of what?”
“Of whoever dared stand where I stand,” he said, voice soft but lined with something razor-sharp. “Of the fool who reached into my chamber and didn’t lose a hand for it.”
She swallowed the meat, wincing as it scraped down her abused throat. “I told you. Nothing clear.”
“The cloth. The water. The easing of the bonds.” His gaze dropped briefly to her wrists, then back. “You do not wake with strangers’ mercy and remember nothing.”
She huffed a breath that might have been a laugh if she weren’t so wrecked. “If I’d had mercy, I wouldn’t still be here.”
His jaw tightened. “Answer the question.”
She stared at him, eyes dull and sharp all at once. Then her gaze unfocused, as if she were listening to something behind her own eyes.
“…Hands,” she said finally, voice low. “I remember hands.”
His fingers stilled around the next piece of bread. “Whose.”
“I didn’t see,” she said. “It was dark. I was half… gone.” She frowned, brow creasing as she dug deeper. “Cooler than you. Smaller. Not… claws. And… careful.”
Male, the bond supplied, translating impressions she wouldn’t have put words to herself. Steady. Careful. Terrified.
Not his.
Jealousy flared so abruptly that the lights in the chamber flickered. The rune-circle dimmed, then re-brightened, as if it had blinked.
He forced his hand to move again, pressing the bread to her lips. “And?”
She took it, chewed, swallowed. “Water,” she repeated. “Something bitter—the taste didn’t stay.” Her eyes closed briefly. “Then nothing. Just… the feeling that I wasn’t alone.”
He watched her closely, both with his eyes and the bond. No stumble in that. No deliberate omission.
Whoever had come had done so while she clung to the thinnest edge of consciousness. Had chosen the narrowest moment to touch her without being seen.
“Why risk it?” he asked, almost to himself. The question scraped out sharper than he intended.
Her lashes lifted. “Maybe he hates you enough,” she rasped, “that helping me was worth it.”
He smiled without warmth. “You give yourself too much weight in other people’s hatred.”
“Maybe not everything is about you,” she whispered.
His hand snapped up, claws curving around her jaw—not hard enough to bruise, but firm enough to hold her still.
“Everything in this realm,” he said quietly, eyes burning into hers, “is about me.”
For a heartbeat, neither moved. Her breath fanned over his wrist, shallow and fast. The bond hummed, tense as a drawn bow. In the corner of the room, a single ember in a wall-crack flared, then guttered, like a witness flinching.
Then, slowly, he let his grip ease. His thumb dragged along her lower lip, smearing a crumb away.
“This intruder,” he said, voice low and dangerous, “is brave.”
“Or stupid,” Adelaide muttered, barely audible.
“Or Emberborn,” he added.
Her gaze flickered uncertainly. “What’s an Emberborn?”
Apollo paused.
Not because he didn’t have the answer, but because she dared to ask the question with genuine confusion. He studied her face, the exhaustion, the hunger, the flicker of curiosity she couldn’t quite smother. Her innocence in that moment was almost… irritating. Almost offensive, like a hymn sung in a place built for screams.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said finally.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.” His tone sharpened, shutting the door on the subject. “Eat.”
He pressed the last piece of food to her lips. She took it without protest this time, chewing slowly, eyes still narrowed in suspicion. The cloth rose and fell with her breath, a quiet reminder that someone else had already made a choice in this room.
Silence stretched between them — thick, heavy, weighted with everything he wasn’t saying and everything she was beginning to realise she didn’t understand.
When the plate was empty, he lifted the cup again, letting her drink until the shaking in her arms lessened and her breathing steadied. The bond warmed, not with desire, but with the simple, stubborn continuity of life. It annoyed him more than fear ever had.
Her head sagged back when he pulled it away. She looked marginally less like a corpse and more like a very tired, very angry girl nailed to his cross.
“There,” he said softly. “Stronger.”
“So you can break me better?” she croaked.
He considered that. “So you have no excuse,” he said. “When you refuse to tell me what I want to know.”
Her eyes closed. “I told you—”
“I know what you told me,” he said. “And I know what you do not know.” The admission tasted like ash. He hated saying it. Hated that her ignorance made the hunt messier.
He set the cup back on the conjured table. With a wave of his hand, the food vanished, stone reabsorbing it. The table remained, stubbornly physical, as if the room wanted evidence that something ordinary had happened here.
Then he stepped closer again, until his body boxed hers against the cross, and there was nowhere for her to look but at him.
His hand came up, hovering over the brand on his arm, the echo of its twin at her neck.
She stiffened.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
He smiled—small, cruel, almost tired. “Not tonight.”
Her shoulders sagged with a relief that was not as deep as it should have been. She knew now what that gesture meant.
“I fed you,” he said. “I gave you water. I let you talk.” His gaze raked her face, cataloguing every mark, every tremor, every flicker of rebellion that refused to die. “Tomorrow, we see what you remember when you are less exhausted.”
“I won’t give him to you,” she said.
“You won’t have to,” he replied. “If he is what I think he is, he will come back.” He let the words hang like bait in dark water.
He leaned in, his horns framing her face, his mouth close enough that she felt the heat of each word on her lips.
“And when he does,” Apollo murmured, “I will be waiting.”
He pressed a brief, punishing kiss to the corner of her mouth—not tender, not gentle, just a hard seal of possession. She flinched, teeth grazing his lower lip, but he pulled back before either of them could make more of it. He could feel the tiny spark of her defiance snap against him, and it only sharpened his resolve.
The cloth slipped slightly as he moved, and he adjusted it almost absently, tucking it tighter around her shoulders. His fingers paused for a fraction too long, as if the fabric itself had taught him the shape of restraint.
She stared at him, confusion flickering through the haze.
“Sleep,” he ordered. “You’ll need what little strength you can steal.”
His magic brushed her. The bond gentled—not yanking now, but smoothing, coaxing the edges of her battered consciousness. A hand on the back of the neck. A push toward darkness.
She wanted to fight it. He felt the impulse—the stubborn refusal to surrender to anything he commanded. The ember in her chest flared once in protest, then dimmed, swallowed by exhaustion.
But exhaustion was a heavier hand.
Her eyes slid closed. Her body sagged in the bindings, head lolling forward. The food, the water—and whatever bitter drop the intruder had slipped her—all pulled together, dragging her down into a darkness a shade less cruel.
He watched until her breathing evened. Until the small lines around her mouth eased. Until the bond softened into that slow, steady ember again. The same rhythm that had pulled him out of bed. The same note that still sounded wrong.
Someone had been here. Someone had laid hands on what was his.
He turned away from the cross, the temperature in the room dropping a degree with his movement. The rune-circle’s glow steadied, as if it approved of his decision to postpone violence.
Tomorrow, he promised the empty air.
Tomorrow, he would start pulling at every loose thread in his palace.
And if the rat in his walls cared enough to tend his Emberborn prisoner, then eventually, inevitably, they would make a mistake. Mercy always left fingerprints.
When they did, Apollo intended to be there.
And he intended to make sure that whoever was foolish enough to give Adelaide hope learned exactly how the Devil repaid trespass. Because if someone could stand where he stands, even for a breath, then the prophecy wasn’t only about crowns and chains. It was about challengers. And Apollo had never shared a throne.