In the last few weeks, as Caelum had integrated into her daily life, Tessa had found her nervousness at the job she had to undertake had evaporated. Nights spent chatting over the bar, conversations that seemed to last longer and longer, laughter and learning more about each other slowly seemed to come naturally now to her. This was the new normal. The pounding heart she used to have to will to steady was no longer an issue. No longer did she worry about that roar giving her away, nor her expressions, or the nerves she was so aware of, even if no one else was. It no longer felt like an act (this, she told herself, was a result of her settling into the role, it becoming ingrained into her everyday life - wasn’t that what undercover was?). In fact, nights when he didn’t frequent the bar felt strange, leaving her feeling like something was missing at the end of her shift.
Tonight- well, tonight was no exception to that. As she pulled the door closed behind her and pushed her keys into the lock, she assured herself the disappointment she felt was purely that a night without him meant a night without furthering the case.
(Though, honestly, deep down somewhere in the pit of her stomach, he startled her. The side to him she saw, it startled her. Some nights, she couldn’t find the person whose terrible organisation she’d been sent down to infiltrate. An admission to herself on sleepless nights she hated. A thought she quickly squashed down with a reminder to herself; it’s just one of his many faces. Sometimes that was harder to do than others.)
She’d just put her keys back into her bag when she heard him; his voice easily recognisable to her now. When she’d first met him, she had to force herself not to flinch, his face bringing to her mind the awful things he’d done. Not now. Now she just smiled, gently to herself, keeping the smile on her face as she turned slowly. The night wasn’t lost after all. “You have a watch, I know you know you’re too late for a drink,” she teased. “And I’m not quite at a level here where I can keep the bar open when it ought to be closed.”
“I’m not here for the drinks,” Caelum stated, his blue eyes locking with her own. She was smart. She would quickly figure out what that meant without him explaining himself, but that didn’t stop him for speaking. “I came here to walk you home.” It may have been smarter to offer, instead of bluntly state, but for a man used to get mostly anything he wanted, he found it hard to ask when he had already troubled himself to be there in the first place.
“This can be a rather rough area of town. I figured you could use an extra set of hands. Not that I think you incapable of defending yourself, but you’re still new.” You still haven’t been touched with the pitch black ink that now coats everyone else. You still have a glint in your eye that means hope, instead of the of murder.
Caelum quickly surveyed the area around them, rather more dramatically than what was necessary. He knew very well that for him, this was the safe zone. Any attack on him meant all out war, and with the resources he had accumulated, that wouldn’t make for a very fair fight. His father had made sure of that, and his mother’s intellect only compounded that fact. They left him an empire that had no fear of crumbling.
If only he wasn’t breaking off, bit by bit, piece by piece. The road would soon be littered with chunks of Hades, the all powerful God of the Underworld. The shattering statue.
