The penthouse felt different now—no longer the cage she'd hated or even the fortress she'd understood, but something closer to a sanctuary that had been violated. The staff had already begun cleaning up the damage from the second attack, but evidence remained: repaired walls, new security installations, the ghost of violence that lingered in spaces where men had died.
Kael guided her past it all with a hand at the small of her back, his touch gentle but constant—like he needed physical confirmation she was still there, still real, still his.
"You need to shower," he said quietly as they entered the master suite. Not her wing anymore, she noticed. His room. Where he could see her, watch her, confirm her continued existence. "And sleep. And—"
"Kael." She stopped, turning to face him. "You need those things too."
He looked at her like she'd said something profound rather than obvious. In the harsh bathroom lighting, she could see him clearly for the first time since the warehouse: blood still streaked across his throat, ash smudged on his cheekbone, exhaustion written in every line of his face.
"I'm fine."
"You're not." She reached up to touch his face, and he flinched—actually flinched—like gentle touch was more shocking than violence had been. "When's the last time you slept?"
"Doesn't matter."
"It does matter. You can't—" She stopped herself, recognizing the futility of telling him he couldn't protect her if he collapsed from exhaustion. "Let me help."
Something vulnerable flickered across his features. "Help how?"
"Let me clean you up. Then we both shower, we both sleep, and tomorrow we figure out what comes next." She kept her voice gentle, non-threatening, like approaching a wounded animal. "Together."
He nodded slowly, moving to sit on the edge of the bathtub with the careful movements of someone whose body was finally registering the abuse it had endured. As Elara wet a washcloth with warm water, she noticed her reflection in the mirror: filthy, bruised, the cut on her arm still bleeding sluggishly.
"Wait." Kael's voice stopped her. "You're hurt."
"It's nothing. Just a scratch from—"
"It's not nothing." He stood with renewed purpose, gently taking the washcloth from her hands. "Let me see."
The cut wasn't deep—maybe two inches long on her forearm, probably from debris during Viktor's protective tackle. But the way Kael looked at it, you'd think she'd been mortally wounded.
"This needs to be cleaned properly." His voice held that clinical detachment, but his hands trembled as he guided her to sit on the counter. "Infection risk is—we need to make sure it's—"
"Kael." She caught his shaking hands in hers. "I'm okay. It's just a scratch."
"I know." But he was already pulling out a first aid kit from beneath the sink, movements precise despite the tremors. "I know it's just a scratch. But I need to—I need to do this. Please."
The 'please' broke her heart.
She nodded, letting him take her arm with devastating gentleness. He cleaned the wound with antiseptic that stung, his touch impossibly careful as he dabbed away blood and dirt. Each movement was focused, deliberate—like this small act of care was the only thing holding him together.
"I couldn't stop them." The words came out soft, almost inaudible. "When they took you from the penthouse. I was right there, I had the door open, I could see you—and I couldn't stop them."
Elara stayed quiet, instinct telling her he needed to say this more than she needed to respond.
"I've killed people for less than looking at you wrong. I've burned down empires for threatening what's mine. But in that moment—" His voice cracked. "In that moment when it actually mattered, I was too slow."
"You saved me." She said it firmly. "Tonight, you came for me and you saved me."
"After you'd already been taken. After they'd already had time to hurt you, scare you, make you feel—" He stopped, jaw clenching. "I was supposed to protect you. That was the entire point of the cage, the rules, the control. And I failed."
The first aid supplies blurred through her tears. "You didn't fail. I'm here. I'm alive because you came for me."
"Sixty-three people died tonight." He applied butterfly bandages with steady hands that belied the chaos in his voice. "Sixty-three. And Lucien still got away. Some victory."
"You saved me," she repeated. "Everything else is—"
"Everything else is the reality of what loving you costs." He finished bandaging her arm, but his hands stayed on her skin, thumbs tracing gentle circles on her wrist. "Every enemy I have now knows you're my weakness. Every person who wants to hurt me knows exactly how to do it. I've made you the most endangered person in this city."
"Then we'll deal with it."
"How?" His dark eyes met hers, and she saw something she'd never seen before: defeat. "How do we deal with it, Elara? I can't lock you away forever. I can't kill every person who might threaten you. I can't—"
He stopped, his careful control finally shattering completely. His forehead dropped to rest against her shoulder, his entire body shaking with exhaustion and whatever emotions he'd been suppressing since the moment she'd been taken.
"I almost lost you."
The admission came out broken, raw, costing him everything to voice. "I almost lost you and I don't know how to survive that possibility. I don't know how to keep you safe without destroying you. I don't know how to love you without turning that love into a cage you'll hate me for."
Elara's arms came around him, holding him while he fell apart against her. "Then we figure it out together. Not you imposing rules on me, not me running from your protection. Together."
"I don't know how to do together." His voice was muffled against her shoulder. "I only know how to control or be controlled. I don't know the middle ground."
"Then we learn." She pulled back enough to make him look at her. "You learn to trust me with some autonomy. I learn to accept that your world is dangerous and some protection is necessary. We both learn to communicate instead of you locking me in wings and me meeting with your enemies."
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "When you put it that way, we both sound terrible at this."
"We are terrible at this." She touched his face, tracing the lines of exhaustion around his eyes. "But maybe terrible together is better than perfect apart."
He was quiet for a long moment, just looking at her like he was memorizing her features. When he finally spoke, his voice was so soft she almost missed it.
"I almost lost you." He said it again, like the words needed to be repeated to be believed. "When I saw them carrying you away, when you went limp from the sedative—I thought you were dead. For ten seconds, I thought you were dead and I—"
His voice broke completely. No more words, just the trembling reality of someone who'd touched their worst fear and hadn't yet recovered from it.
"I'm here," Elara whispered, pulling him closer. "I'm alive and I'm here and I'm not going anywhere."
"Promise me." His arms came around her waist, crushing her against him. "Promise me you'll never meet with my enemies again. Promise me you'll tell me when you're scared or angry instead of running. Promise me—"
"I promise to try," she interrupted gently. "I promise to communicate instead of running. But Kael, you have to promise too. Promise you'll include me in decisions that affect my life. Promise you'll explain instead of just controlling. Promise you'll see me as a partner, not just something to protect."
"I don't know if I can." His honesty was devastating. "I don't know if I'm capable of seeing you as anything other than the most precious, vulnerable thing in my world that needs absolute protection."
"Then start trying." She tilted his face up to meet her eyes. "Because I can't survive being locked in smaller and smaller cages every time something scares you. And you can't survive the guilt of what your protection does to me."
He stared at her for a long moment, and she saw the war happening behind his eyes: the Ghost who demanded total control warring with the man who loved her enough to know that control was destroying them both.
"Okay," he finally said. "I'll try. I'll fail, probably catastrophically, but I'll try."
"That's all I'm asking."
He pulled her into his arms again, and this time there was nothing possessive about it—just exhaustion and relief and the terrible vulnerability of someone who'd almost lost everything that mattered.
"I almost lost you," he whispered one more time into her hair, and the admission cost him everything he'd spent five years building.
The Ghost was gone, at least for tonight.
What remained was just a man who loved her too much to know how to do it right, holding the woman who loved him despite knowing exactly how wrong it all was.
And in the quiet of the penthouse, surrounded by evidence of violence and protection and obsession, they held each other and tried to figure out how two broken people could possibly build something whole.