People think I’m calm.

That’s the funniest lie in the room.

I’m leaning against the wall like I’m a casual accessory—California charm, loose shoulders, easy grin—like I’m not a vicious vampire warlock with a vendetta sharp enough to cut through gods.

They see the smile and assume softness.

Ra never has.

She’s standing there with Erik and Lion like she’s hosting a gala instead of balancing the gravitational collapse of every male ego in the Milky Way. Her pets circle her feet like tiny loyal bodyguards. Cute. Adorable. As if affection is going to anchor a woman who was born to be a cosmic event.

She laughs.

And my whole nervous system goes, Oh. There she is.

That laugh isn’t innocent. Ra doesn’t do innocent. That laugh is a dare wrapped in velvet. The kind that says, I know I’m being watched. I just want to see who flinches first.

Spoiler: not me.

Mehen is here. I feel him the way you feel pressure before lightning. The air gets heavier. Shadows get cocky. Ra’s posture tightens by half a breath.

That’s the thing about Parabatai.

I don’t need her to turn around. I don’t need words. I feel the shift in her body like it’s happening inside my own ribcage.

People call it soulmates, like it’s romantic.

It’s not romantic.

It’s permanent.

I’ve bled with her across lifetimes. I’ve died with her. I’ve crawled out of ruins with her name still burning in my mouth. Death never separated us. Time never diluted it. Gods never erased it.

So, when Mehen stands too close in the dark, acting like inevitability is a personality trait?

I almost laugh.

Almost.

Because I know his type. Ancient hunger. Divine entitlement. The kind of god who thinks waiting makes him merciful.

Cute.

I tilt my head, relaxed as hell, and watch Ra’s chin lift—subtle, unconscious—like she’s answering something she refuses to admit.

She’s enjoying the edge.

Of course she is.

Ra doesn’t want safe. She wants honest. She wants the kind of desire that doesn’t perform politeness. She wants the moment discipline fractures, and she chooses anyway.

That’s why she told Mehen—very calmly, very clearly—that Erik and I cannot be barred or harmed.

That wasn’t romance.

That was law.

Because she knows what I am.

I’m not the man who begs.

I’m the man who executes.

I’ve studied the old rites. The ones priests pretend don’t exist. Voodoo that doesn’t ask sweetly. Black magic that doesn’t care about reputation. I am a warlock with a memory longer than most empires.

And my agenda is simple.

Not power.

Not wealth.

Ra.

Mehen thinks he’s competing with men.

He’s not.

He’s competing with something stitched into her soul so deeply it survived annihilation.

Ra glances at me—quick, private—and the bond hums like a blade being drawn.

Stay, her look says.

Always, mine answers.

I smile wider, because I’m petty.

And because Mehen can watch all he wants.

But I was here first.

And I’ll be here last.