Lerron recited the sacred verses in a voice barely above a breath. Each syllable was measured, careful—his tongue hovering, never pressing too firmly against the roof of his mouth. The old teachings demanded precision: holy words, when spoken carelessly, could scorch the impure.

He could not afford carelessness.

Not with you there.

You did not live in his mouth in the way a thing lives in a house. You inhabited him—nested, entwined, clinging to the warmth of his breath and the echo of his prayers. A presence folded into his body like a secret he could never cough out.

The scriptures would have named you a parasite. A demon that fed on vitality, on sanctified energy, on the thin divine current that demon hunters cultivated through years of discipline and pain. And they would have been right.

You took from him in small, almost merciful ways. A dullness on his tongue, where flavors once bloomed. Moments of blindness when you shifted too close to his eye. Breath stolen when you curled within his sinuses, heavy and unyielding. A sudden silence when the world cut out, his ears ringing as you drank from the nerves behind them.

He endured it all without protest.

This, too, was a choice.

Once, long ago, he had loved you openly—when you still wore a human name, when your warmth felt familiar instead of invasive. When the truth surfaced, when holy light revealed the shape of what you truly were, the order had expected him to raise his blade without hesitation.

He had exterminated demons for less. Instead, he became your shelter.

Better a living host than sacred ash scattered across consecrated ground. Better chains than annihilation. He told himself this often, especially on nights when the book of purification felt heavier in his hands than his sword ever had.

He bound you to himself not with spells, but with proximity—an unspoken agreement enforced by dependence. You could not stray far without weakening. Invisible restraints tightened whenever you tried, tugging you back to him like gravity. He would never chant holy verses at you.

Never finish the incantations that would peel you from his body screaming. Never open the page that bore your true name.

If that made him a traitor, so be it.

Faith had taught him that evil was absolute. Life had taught him otherwise. Even a demon hunter was still human—still capable of attachment, of compromise, of choosing one life over doctrine.

His love for you was warped, yes. Twisted into something that neither the church nor the abyss would recognize. But it was deliberate. Conscious. Owned.

He accepted the decay it brought.

When the verses ended, Lerron closed the book and exhaled slowly. You stirred, content, quiet for now. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the uneven rhythm of a heart that beat not just for him anymore.

“I won’t regret this,” he murmured—not to you, but to the ghosts of every demon he had purified without mercy.

And if that was a lie, he would live with it.