Chapter 155: Good With Words

Chapter 155: Chapter 155: Good With Words

Chapter 155: Good With Words

Around ten-thirty that night, Daphne Whitlock stood inside her apartment staring at her phone.

The call still would not connect.

Her brows drew together.

Cyrus should have been home by now.

On most nights, even when he worked a late shift at The Full Moon Lounge, he returned around this time. Tonight he was already more than ten minutes late, and his phone seemed unreachable.

Maybe Friday had been unusually busy.

That was the most reasonable explanation.

Daphne lowered the phone.

An uneasy feeling remained.

She tried dismissing it.

There was no point imagining something had happened simply because Cyrus was late once. She had more immediate concerns anyway.

Tonight had been the night she intended to confront him.

After reading the diary, she had spent the entire day thinking about how much Cyrus had hidden from her and how deliberately he had encouraged her guilt.

A faint smile appeared.

He liked studying other people and finding the right psychological pressure to use.

Fine.

Then he should also be prepared for the possibility that one of those people stopped behaving the way he expected.

Daphne returned to her apartment and waited.

By one in the morning, Cyrus still had not come home.

The hallway was quiet when Daphne stepped outside again with her key.

She reached his door.

The security chain she expected him to use was not engaged.

Daphne opened the apartment.

The room was empty.

She stood inside for several seconds.

Cyrus had not returned at all.

Did he have somewhere else he could stay now?

That possibility appeared unexpectedly and immediately bothered her more than tonight’s confrontation.

Daphne closed the door behind herself and crossed the familiar room.

She opened the nightstand.

The diary was still there.

She flipped through the newest entries.

The same careful calculations filled the pages.

There was no mention of moving out.

No new apartment.

No plan to leave the building.

Nothing suggested Cyrus had found another permanent place to live.

Daphne should have felt relieved.

Instead, the thought itself had already created a new concern.

If Cyrus decided someday that living beside her was dangerous, what actually stopped him from leaving?

Very little.

Daphne looked down at the diary.

The safest solution would be finding some way to make this apartment too useful for him to abandon.

Useful enough that Cyrus would continue living beside her willingly.

Her fingers rested against the paper.

Whatever thoughts passed through her mind remained there.

Saturday morning arrived elsewhere in Grayhaven.

Before Cyrus opened his eyes, he noticed the heat.

His brows tightened.

The temperature beside him was far warmer than he preferred.

Then he opened his eyes.

Rhea Maddox’s face was only inches away.

Cyrus stared blankly for a second before everything from the previous night returned.

He was still in his childlike Frostborn form.

He was lying in Rhea’s bed.

She had one arm wrapped firmly around him, holding his smaller body against her as if she had no intention of letting him move anywhere.

The previous night had been exhausting.

Rhea had pushed her Firebird heat too far, and Cyrus had eventually lost consciousness after his body regressed.

At least one thing was immediately clear.

While he had been unconscious in this vulnerable form, Rhea had not continued crossing boundaries.

That did not make him feel particularly generous toward her.

Warm breath brushed against the side of his face.

Cyrus shifted.

Rhea’s eyes remained closed.

Her arm tightened automatically and pulled him closer.

Cyrus frowned.

He tried pushing away.

Nothing happened.

In his normal body, he and Rhea had been surprisingly close in strength.

In this smaller form, there was no comparison.

Cyrus pushed harder.

Rhea did not move.

From where he was trapped, even getting enough room to speak properly was difficult.

Cyrus continued struggling.

What he could not see was that Rhea had already opened one eye.

She watched the small Frostborn boy fighting his way out of her arms and felt no urgency to release him.

He was pleasantly cool.

Not painfully cold.

Just cool enough that holding him felt comfortable against her naturally high body temperature.

After everything that had happened the previous evening, Rhea had also slept unusually well.

That made her feel somewhat vindictive now.

Cyrus had resisted every attempt she made to get closer.

Letting him struggle for another minute seemed like a reasonable punishment.

Cyrus, unfortunately, was not someone who quietly accepted being restrained.

Once pushing proved useless, he changed tactics.

He twisted enough to create a small opening and bit down on the nearest part of Rhea he could reach.

Rhea immediately released him.

She rolled away with a sharp inhale.

Cyrus escaped the moment her grip loosened.

Rhea looked down at him.

One eyebrow lifted.

"Are you secretly a dog, or are you trying to provoke me first thing in the morning?"

Her voice was slightly hoarse from sleep.

"If last night was not enough for you, you can change back and continue arguing with me properly."

Cyrus stared at her.

Only an idiot would change back right now.

Everything from last night replayed through his mind.

The locked door.

The fake alcohol.

The collar.

The sudden Firebird transformation.

The heat.

The restraints.

The fact that every attempt to talk had somehow made the situation worse.

Regret covered most of his reaction.

Meeting Daphne first had probably distorted his judgment.

Because Daphne’s behavior became more dangerous when he was physically vulnerable, Cyrus had automatically assumed returning to his adult body around Rhea would be safer.

That decision had been disastrous.

If he had remained small, Rhea’s own moral hesitation might have stopped the situation far earlier.

Human society was dangerous in unexpectedly specific ways.

Still, Cyrus refused to accept a loss without extracting something useful from it.

Rhea was a Firebird.

That mattered.

If Cyrus could turn her into a reliable safeguard, then someone with a bloodline naturally suited to countering his own might also be useful against Isolde.

That possibility alone meant completely cutting Rhea off would be wasteful.

He needed to repair the relationship.

More importantly, he needed to understand exactly what Rhea thought their relationship was now.

Cyrus looked up at her.

His expression softened deliberately.

A faint trace of grievance entered his eyes.

Then he tilted his head.

"The uniform you wear at work does not make you uncomfortable after everything you did?"

Rhea studied him.

"My personal life does not change whether I can do my job."

Her answer came easily.

"As long as I handle my responsibilities properly, there is no contradiction."

She shifted onto her side.

"There is also no rule saying that putting on a police uniform means I stop being a person when I take it off."

Cyrus remained quiet.

Rhea reached out and lightly touched his cheek.

His skin was cool beneath her fingers.

"I trusted you."

Her tone became more serious.

"You kept acting like you did not trust me back."

Cyrus almost objected.

Rhea continued before he could.

"I handled it badly. I know that."

That admission surprised him slightly.

"But what I wanted was for you to understand me instead of immediately treating that part of me like something you needed to avoid."

Cyrus listened carefully.

Rhea was much better at explaining herself this morning than she had been the previous night.

Perhaps being sober helped.

Then Cyrus remembered the fake cocktail.

She had already been sober.

That was somehow worse.

Rhea’s fingers remained against his cheek.

"I do not care if you lose your memories someday."

Cyrus’s eyes shifted toward her.

Rhea continued calmly.

"No matter what happens to your memory, I can stay beside you."

Her expression looked dependable again.

The same expression that had originally made Cyrus consider her one of his safest options.

"If you decide you do not need me, then you can throw me away."

Cyrus stared at her.

The wording sounded generous.

Something about it did not feel generous at all.

Rhea’s eyes revealed nothing more.

She had no intention of actually allowing Cyrus to discard her without consequences.

That part did not need to be spoken aloud.

Cyrus considered her answer.

So this was what she wanted.

A permanent place beside him.

The problem was that Cyrus could not simply reject that possibility.

He still needed her.

If Isolde returned and Cyrus lost enough memory to become vulnerable, having a detective who knew what he was and possessed Firebird abilities could be extremely valuable.

He was not about to throw away that kind of protection because Rhea had terrible judgment about personal boundaries.

Instead, Cyrus needed to redirect her.

He looked at her more seriously.

"Why me?"

Rhea smiled faintly.

"Do you remember the first time we met?"

Cyrus did.

Before he could answer, Rhea continued.

"I saw you working at the lounge."

Her expression softened.

"You were calm, distant, and obviously trying not to attract attention."

Rhea gave a quiet laugh.

"You failed at that part."

Cyrus said nothing.

"Your appearance caught my attention first. I am not going to pretend it did not."

At least she was direct.

"But that was not the part that kept me interested."

Rhea looked at him steadily.

"What interested me was the contradiction."

Cyrus’s expression changed slightly.

"You were carrying something heavy even then."

Rhea continued.

"I did not know about your memory loss yet. I did not know what bloodline you belonged to. I did not know why you looked at exits whenever someone got too close."

Cyrus remained still.

"But I could tell you valued freedom more than almost anything."

Her voice lowered.

"Later, when I learned more about you, that became even clearer."

Rhea lightly brushed a strand of white hair away from his forehead.

"You know something is wrong with your memories. You know people are looking for you. You know something from your past may catch up eventually."

She smiled.

"And you still want an ordinary life."

Cyrus listened.

"You want to work, go to school, eat whatever you feel like eating, earn your own money, and decide for yourself where you sleep."

Rhea’s description was annoyingly accurate.

"That is what attracted me."

She paused.

"You keep choosing freedom even when freedom is harder."

Cyrus’s thoughts moved quietly.

Of course he wanted freedom.

The alternative involved being treated like a bloodline resource and spending the rest of his life under someone else’s control.

There was nothing admirable about choosing freedom when captivity was that bad.

Even a fool would run.

Cyrus added one private correction.

Some people apparently would not.

Rhea, for example, seemed to enjoy giving up control voluntarily.

That remained incomprehensible.

Still, her explanation had been more thoughtful than Cyrus expected.

He let some uncertainty appear in his face.

"Then can I really trust you?"

Rhea answered without hesitation.

"You can."

Her smile was beautiful enough to look completely reassuring.

Cyrus watched her.

Rhea watched him back.

Neither said anything for several seconds.

Cyrus knew better than to accept words alone.

Rhea had already demonstrated that what she called trust could include locking him inside an apartment.

Yet completely rejecting her would gain him nothing.

For now, the better choice was continuing to pull her toward his side.

He would keep listening.

Keep evaluating.

Keep preparing.

If the day came when Isolde found him again, Rhea might become one of the few people capable of standing between them.

That possibility was too valuable to abandon.

Cyrus finally relaxed slightly.

Rhea’s smile deepened.

Whatever else could be said about her, the detective certainly knew how to talk.

What she had hidden behind those beautiful words, however, remained known only to her.