CHAPTER 66: CHAPTER 66: THE CONFESSION

"BETTER?" Grayson asked softly, his fingers combing through her disheveled hair with gentle strokes.

"Much," she admitted, then shifted in his arms until she could see his face clearly.

The firelight painted golden highlights across his sharp features, but she could still see the strain there, the careful control he was maintaining even after giving her such exquisite release. "But what about you?"

His body was still rigid with unfulfilled desire, his breathing carefully controlled in a way that suggested he was fighting his own battle against the needs coursing through him.

"I’ll manage," he said, though the roughness in his voice suggested otherwise.

Mailah moved to touch him, her fingers trailing toward his chest, but he caught her hand gently.

"Don’t," he said, his voice strained. "I won’t be able to hold back. Not after..." He gestured vaguely at the charged space between them, thick with the remnants of their intimacy.

She read the conflict etched into his features—raw desire straining against the unyielding control he had honed over centuries.

"Then what do we do?" she asked softly. "We can’t just lie here and wait."

Grayson was quiet for a long moment, staring into the dancing flames. When he spoke again, his voice carried a different kind of vulnerability.

"Ask me anything," he said suddenly, turning to meet her eyes. "About my world, about what I am, about things you’ve been curious about but afraid to ask. Consider it a free pass."

Mailah blinked in surprise.

Grayson had been carefully selective about what supernatural information he shared, always protective, always filtering what he thought she could handle.

"Anything?" she asked, settling more comfortably against his side on the thick rug.

"Anything," he confirmed, his arm tightening around her. "After tomorrow night, everything changes anyway. You deserve to know what you’re getting into."

The firelight cast dancing shadows across their entwined bodies as Mailah considered where to begin.

There were so many mysteries, so many things she’d wondered about but never dared ask.

"How old are you really?" she asked first, the question she’d been curious about since learning his true nature.

"Three hundred and forty-seven," Grayson replied without hesitation. "I was born during what humans call the ’Little Ice Age’—appropriate, considering how cold I’ve become."

Mailah propped herself up on her elbow to look at him better. "Are incubi only born and not made?"

"Most are born," he confirmed, his fingers absently tracing patterns on her bare shoulder. "But some, like my brothers and me, were exiled here as punishment. We’re demons who were cast out of our realm and forced to live among humans."

"We’re all different types of demons. I’m an incubus, as you know. Our exile was meant to weaken us by forcing us to survive on whatever human emotions we could find."

"What did you do to be exiled?"

Grayson’s expression darkened, and for a moment Mailah thought he wouldn’t answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy with centuries of guilt.

"We didn’t just fall in love with the wrong being," he said quietly. "We destroyed an entire demonic bloodline in our pursuit of her. The princess was meant to unite two rival courts through marriage, ending a conflict that had lasted millennia. Instead, we..." He paused, running a hand through his hair.

"We convinced her to break the engagement. In the chaos that followed, both her intended and his entire family line were wiped out. Thousands died in the renewed war."

Mailah felt a chill run down her spine. "Thousands?"

"The princess used our obsession with her to manipulate political alliances, playing different factions against each other while we competed for her attention. By the time we realized what she was doing, by the time we understood we were just pawns in a larger game, it was too late." His voice grew bitter. "Entire cities had fallen. Ancient bloodlines were extinct. The balance of power in our realm was shattered beyond repair."

"And she?"

"Survived, of course. Rose to power in the vacuum we helped create." Grayson’s laugh held no humor. "The courts couldn’t execute us without risking another war—we each had too many allies. But they couldn’t let such destruction go unpunished either."

"So they exiled you to Earth," Mailah said, beginning to understand the magnitude of what they had done.

"Stripped us of our true forms, cut us off from our realm’s power sources, and condemned us to survive on the weak emotions of humans. They called it mercy, but we knew better."

His eyes met hers, dark with self-loathing. "We were responsible for genocide, Mailah. The exile isn’t just punishment—it’s meant to ensure we can never again wield the kind of power that could destroy civilizations."

The confession settled between them like a physical thing, warm and precious in the flickering firelight.

"Do you ever regret it?" she asked softly. "Not the destruction—but the love that started it all?"

For a time, Grayson said nothing, the quiet pressing heavy between them until Mailah almost gave up waiting. At last, he spoke—his voice low, barely a breath.

"Every single day for the first century," he said. "The love felt real, even when we discovered it was manipulation. Even knowing she orchestrated everything, part of me still..." He shook his head. "It took me two hundred years to understand that what we felt wasn’t love at all. It was obsession, carefully cultivated and weaponized against us."

Something twisted painfully in Mailah’s chest at his words—a sharp, unexpected stab of jealousy that took her completely by surprise.

The thought of Grayson loving another woman, even centuries ago, even knowing it was manipulation, made her feel possessive in a way.

"You really loved her," she said, trying to keep her voice neutral but hearing the slight edge creep in anyway.

Grayson’s eyes snapped to hers, clearly picking up on the change in her tone.

"No, it’s fine," she said quickly, though the tightness in her chest suggested otherwise.

A slow smile spread across his features. "Are you jealous of a demon princess I haven’t seen in over three hundred years?"

She didn’t say anything but her cheeks burned with embarrassment at being so easily read.

She pushed past it to ask the question that had been nagging at her.

"What supernatural powers do demons have exactly? Beyond the feeding, I mean."

"Grayson’s expression grew more serious, though she could still see the satisfied gleam in his eyes from her jealous admission.

"In our true realm, we had abilities that could reshape reality itself," he said, his fingers resuming their absent patterns on her skin."We could shift across space in an instant, mold matter to our will, sway the thoughts of entire nations. Some commanded the elements; others gazed through the threads of time and space."

"And here on Earth?"

"Greatly diminished," he said with a note of bitterness. "The exile stripped us of most of our power. What remains is... limited. Enhanced strength and speed, supernatural senses, the ability to influence. Some other abilities, though nothing like what we once possessed."

Mailah absorbed this information, trying to imagine the scope of power he’d once wielded. "Is that why the other courts feared you enough to exile rather than execute you?"

"Partially. But also because true death for our kind is... complicated. We don’t die the way humans do. Execution would have required ancient rituals that might have destabilized the entire realm." His voice grew quieter. "The exile was meant to be a slower death sentence. A gradual fading away from lack of proper sustenance."

The jealousy that had flared earlier was still simmering beneath the surface, making her bold in a way that surprised even her. "How many wives have you had? Before Lailah, I mean."

"Seventeen," he answered without flinching. "All marriages of convenience, all carefully distant. I perfected the art of being a husband without truly being present."

"Did any of them know what you were?"

"None," he said firmly. "I became an expert at being exactly what they expected—wealthy, cold, conveniently absent for long periods. Most were happy with the arrangement."

Mailah hesitated, her voice barely more than a whisper. The jealousy that had been simmering finally pushed her to ask the question that had been burning in her chest. "Did you ever feel the need to... engage with any of your wives? Physically, I mean?"

His eyes met hers, steady and unflinching. "No," he said finally. "Never."

She swallowed. "Not even once?"

Grayson turned his gaze toward the fire, the flames painting his sharp features in gold and shadow. His voice was calm, but firm. "The first two centuries, I wasn’t even attracted to humans. I found your species too fragile, too temporary. The thought of physical intimacy with a human held no appeal whatsoever."

Her chest tightened as she searched his face, desperate for any hint of hesitation. There was none.

"And the next century?" she pressed softly.

A faint, almost bitter smile curved his lips. "By then, I had grown accustomed to the cold. To emptiness. I trained myself not to feel, not to hunger. I convinced myself I was above such base needs."

His hand traced her arm with a gentleness that steadied her heart, a reassurance she didn’t know she craved. "I never wanted them. Never needed them. Until you."

Mailah’s heart thudded painfully in her chest. "So I’m the first?"

"The only," he said without hesitation, his voice low and steady.

"In every way that matters," he said, his eyes never leaving hers.

She straightened, needing the extra strength to force the question out.

"If the feeding failed tomorrow... and you had to choose between saving me or saving yourself... who would you choose?"