Chapter 56: Apparently It Had Fucking Lore or The Sleeping Prince

"Wow." She actually looked impressed. Impressed, at him, for not knowing something that had apparently happened to his own body. "The rumors are true, then. Lilith is insanely overprotective of you. More than her own daughters, even. That’s kind of sweet, honestly."

"What the fuck happened." He was serious now... and even more fucking terrified of the crazy girl before him.

"Nothing happened," Celeste said, sounding genuinely wounded by the accusation. "That’s what I’ve been saying for years. They caught me in your room while you were dead asleep, everybody lost their entire minds, there were police everywhere, somebody called my parents, your mother looked at me like she was doing math on whether the East River had room for one more, and then there was the whole restraining-order thing."

Damon stared at her so hard it started to physically hurt.

"The what thing."

She waved a hand like she was shooing a fly. "Restraining order. Temporary at first. Then lawyers got involved and started using long words and everybody got boring about it."

"My family put a fucking restraining order on you?"

"Such an overreaction." She sighed, genuinely put out, like this was still an open grievance she was litigating in real time. "I wasn’t trying to eat you or anything."

Damon looked slowly at the ceiling, like it might have answers, or at least the decency to fall on him.

Somewhere in that house, for years, there’d been a running joke about how hard he slept. Lilim had made it. Vespera had made it, constantly. Even Lilith, once, dry as a martini, had told him somebody could probably climb through his window, rearrange the furniture, and be gone before he so much as rolled over.

He’d always assumed that was just them roasting him because he slept like the actual dead.

Apparently it had fucking lore.

’They weren’t joking. It was a family in-joke about an actual documented home invasion and nobody thought to mention the documented part. I have been the punchline of a felony. That is my brand now.’

Somebody had genuinely broken into his room.

Celeste fucking Bellamy had broken into his room.

And instead of waking him — the simplest possible option, the one that involved zero felonies and zero cover-up — his family had quietly removed the intruder, called lawyers, handled her parents, filed a restraining order, and then collectively decided their sleeping prince didn’t need to be informed that a stranger had once stood over his bed at 2 a.m. studying his face like a museum exhibit.

’I could have died. I could have died in my sleep and the last thing anyone told me about it would’ve been a joke at Thanksgiving. Pass the turkey. Remember when a girl watched Damon breathe. Yes Aunt L. Very wholesome.’

He lowered his gaze back to her, flat. "How the fuck did I sleep through all of that."

"You sleep really hard." She smiled, fond, like she was recalling something precious.

"I wasn’t asking you, Bellamy."

"It was adorable, honestly. One of the security guys picked you up a little while they were checking under the bed and you barely even moved." she went on like she didn’t hear him.

"They picked me up?"

"Just your shoulder, yes."

Damon pressed two fingers hard between his eyebrows.

"Oh, and your mother carried you after."

His hand dropped. "My mother did what?"

"You weren’t waking up." Celeste shrugged, entirely reasonable about it. "She moved you to another room while they searched yours. You kind of grabbed onto her shirt, too. Very cute. I’d honestly forgotten that part until just now."

Damon looked genuinely, physically ill.

Celeste’s smile widened: "You’re fucking cute when you’re asleep. I’ll die on that hill."

"You’re fucking deranged."

Her whole face lit up like he’d handed her a gift. "Why, thank you."

He stared at her like she was a car accidents — helpless, morally obligated, unable to look away in time to save herself.

She noted the expression with real professional satisfaction.

’That face.’ She’d earned that face.

Some girls collected shoes but Celeste collected exactly this — the specific look on a gorgeous, over-guarded rich boy’s face right before he realized he was completely, structurally unequipped to deal with her, and there was nothing his family’s money could do about it, because you couldn’t sue your way out of a girl who genuinely didn’t care and had dirty on you too.

"That wasn’t a compliment."

"It felt personal, I’m keeping it."

He scrubbed a hand down his face. "Why the hell were you even outside my window."

"I wanted to see you."

"While I was asleep."

"You were avoiding me."

"I didn’t know you."

"You’re basically my ex and I wanted to see you."

"I was never your ex, and you think breaking and entering are normal? Much less stalking me or even blackmailing me into a relationship?"

"Semantics!" She jabbed a finger at him, then seemed to lose interest in the finger halfway through and let it drop. "I never said it was normal. But in my case it was understandable. There’s a difference. It’s a whole different word."

Damon opened his mouth, considered whatever was about to come out of it, and shut it again before it could get him arrested by association.

’Do not argue legality with Psycho Bellamy. Do not breathe interesting. Just stand here and be furniture. Furniture does not get restraining orders or get blackmailed. Now that she has leverage on me.’

Her gaze drifted downward while he stood there rebooting, settling with total, unashamed patience on the tent his hastily fastened pants were doing a genuinely terrible job of hiding.

Her eyebrows lifted.

Then that smile again; a bad one.

"Actually," she said, thoughtful, eyes lingering there on his cock a full extra second before dragging back up to his face, "now I kind of get your mother."

He followed her gaze and adjusted himself immediately, sharply. "What."

"The overprotective thing." She nodded toward his pants like she’d just solved a proof. "If she’d already seen what genetics did to you, keeping girls away from the house suddenly makes a lot more sense as a policy."

"Jesus Christ."

"I’m serious."

"That’s makes sense ton you? You broke into my room, of course she’d have to keep you away from my."

"Also," Celeste continued, breezing past him entirely like he’d just said gibberish, "for the record, I didn’t actually see anything that night. You were under the blanket. Mostly."

Damon went very, very still.

Her eyes sparkled.

"Mostly."

"Your leg moved."

"Celeste."

"Relax. I behaved."

"You were illegally standing beside my bed while I was unconscious."

"Exactly." She smiled, proud, chin up, like she’d just been commended for good behavior on a battlefield. "And yet... I behaved."

Damon stared at her for a long, silent moment while several old pieces finally clicked into a shape he genuinely wished they hadn’t.

’Those bastards have been playing with me.’

Every single one of them had known, and had chosen a bit over a warning.

He stared off into the middle distance, watching an entire childhood’s worth of memories curdle in real time. "That fucking joke."

Celeste tilted her head, genuinely curious now. "What joke?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me."

"Absolutely fucking not."

Her smile came right back, wide, bright, thoroughly entertained, the smile of a woman who already knew refusing her information had just guaranteed she’d have it inside a week, one way or another, legally or not, because legality had never once been the deciding factor in anything Celeste actually wanted.

She watched him spiral like he was something rare in the wild — and thought, with the specific fondness of like she was admiring her own handiwork, that:

’He’s even prettier when he was horrified... mhmm, something about the jaw.’

She was going to have so much fun ruining this boy’s entire semester, and some small, quiet, extremely inconvenient part of her chest had already decided that ruining him was just the socially acceptable version of what she actually wanted, which was considerably worse and none of his business yet.

’Great.’ He thought thinking about it all.

His childhood, it turned out, had side quests.

And apparently, so did his future.