Page 117 of Fractured Devotion
When I step into the bedroom, I leave the door cracked.
I fall asleep with the soft hum of the city pressing in through the windows.
And when I wake in the middle of the night, I catch the faint sound of his breathing from the other room, slow and even, like a metronome grounding me to something solid.
For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel afraid.
Chapter 37 – Kade - Soft Mouth, Sharp Teeth
I don’t sleep. I don’t need to. Not when her breathing is still echoing in the back of my skull like a heartbeat that doesn’t belong to me.
She left the bedroom door cracked. I haven’t moved from the couch in hours, not even to shift. I keep my body perfectly still, not because I’m afraid of waking her, but because I don’t want to break the spell. Her presence pulls the atmosphere into alignment. Without her, the room feels static. With her nearby, it feels like gravity.
I’ve turned off every sensor in this wing. No digital monitoring, no neural mapping. Just memory, raw and imperfect. Human. It’s the only form of control I have left, the choice to stop watching.
But I remember everything. The way she shook in my arms, her spine curling inward like her body was trying to protect something already broken, the way her voice caught when she said yes, and the trust implied in that one, single syllable.
Now, in the dark, I replay it in my mind. Again, and again, and again.
My chest tightens.
I haven’t been touched in years, genuinely touched. Not as a transaction and not as leverage. And never like that. Never like I was something worth holding without a motive.
I stand slowly, careful not to make the couch creak, and stretch the stiffness from my limbs without sound. I walk to the kitchenette, pour water from the glass pitcher, and drink it down in a single pull. It tastes like copper.
The window reflects my face in moonlight. Hollow eyes, stubble creeping back across my jaw. There’s a cut near mytemple. I don’t remember getting it. Maybe it’s from earlier. Or maybe I scratched myself during a moment I’d rather forget.
I sit back down and pick up the audio device I left on the table. It’s an old receiver, with analog wiring and no digital trace. I’ve been recording her voice.
But not her words. Just her breathing.
The last time she cried, she made this small exhale between each sob, like a metronome marking every fracture. I’d played that loop until I knew it better than my own pulse.
Now, I press play on a new clip.
She’s asleep in the room down the hall. But I listen to her through this anyway. Her breathing is slower now, steady and calm. Like she finally feels safe.
A tremor works its way down my spine.
What the fuck is happening to me?
I should be dissecting this, analyzing her EEG data, checking for anomalies in her REM cycles, and charting neurochemical reactions. Hell, I should be doing the damn assignment Rourke hired me to do. Instead, I’m sitting in the dark like some penitent monk, worshipping her with silence.
This isn’t control anymore.
The floor creaks behind me.
It’s not loud and not hesitant.
Just the sound of a footstep purposefully taken, like a decision already made.
I turn before I even know why. She’s there.
Celeste.
Her hair spills loose around her shoulders, and her shirt hangs oversized, slipping off one collarbone. Her eyes are rimmed with exhaustion, but there’s something burning there, something older than desire and closer to resolve.
She doesn’t speak.
