Chapter 5
There was, unfortunately, an epilogue to all of this.
Qingyao Town should have resolved something.
Instead, it made everything worse.
It was as if returning from that place shattered the last layer of restraint the three of them had left. Whatever hesitation they had before was gone. They stopped pretending. Stopped circling. Stopped keeping their intentions hidden.
They became shameless.
I became tired.
Very tired.
The problem was not that I couldn’t see what they wanted.
The problem was that I could.
Too clearly.
And I had absolutely no desire to answer any of it.
Choosing one would make the other two lose their minds.
Choosing all three—
No.
My body was still human, thanks.
So I did the only thing I could think of.
I kept my distance from every single one of them.
That strategy lasted until the morning I woke up and found myself trapped in Julian’s arms.
He was nuzzling against my neck like an oversized cat, his expression hazy, his body suspiciously warm.
I grabbed a fistful of his hair and glared at him through half-open eyes.
“It’s barely dawn. What are you doing?”
He looked up at me through dark lashes and said in a low, wronged voice, “Someone in the Demon Realm wants me dead. I was drugged. I feel awful. Evelyn, help me?”
I looked at him for a long moment.
Then said, “Who exactly tries to assassinate a Demon Lord with an aphrodisiac instead of poison?”
Julian ignored that entirely and leaned in.
“Let’s skip the analysis and start with a kiss.”
I slapped a hand over his mouth and rolled, pinning him under me.
“Julian Ash,” I said, “are demons really this idle? Don’t you have a realm to manage?”
Under me, he went perfectly still.
No resistance.
No struggle.
Which, if anything, was more suspicious.
His silver hair spilled across the pillow. His robe had slipped loose sometime in the night. His collarbone and throat were flushed. From where I sat, I could see the faint line of his mouth against my palm, the flash of red in his eyes half-hidden beneath his lashes, the demonic mark at his brow barely restrained.
For one strange second, my heartbeat skipped.
Then something wet brushed my palm.
I froze.
Then jerked my hand back in disbelief.
“Did you just lick me?”
Julian looked completely unashamed.
From my angle, he looked even worse now—clothes disordered, neck flushed, lips slightly parted. It would have been dangerous on anyone else.
On him, it was catastrophic.
For one deeply cursed instant, I actually understood how people made terrible decisions.
Then there was a crash outside the door.
I snapped back to my senses and shoved him away just as the room burst open.
Kira stood there.
Shane stood beside her.
Both looked murderous.
Their eyes landed on the bed first.
Then on Julian beneath me.
Then on me.
The silence that followed was terrifying.
Finally, they both spoke at once.
“What are you doing?”
Kira’s gaze slid to my mouth, then to Julian’s, then back again.
Her voice was dangerously soft.
“Senior Sister, that’s not fair. Didn’t you say you were keeping equal distance from everyone?”
Before I could answer, another arm wound around me from behind.
Shane had crossed the room without me noticing.
He bent near my ear and said quietly, “If they get pity, shouldn’t I get some too?”
I closed my eyes.
This was hell.
Pure hell.
And somewhere, very far away, I was certain my dead ancestors were disappointed in me.
The truth was simple:
I didn’t know what to do with any of them.
Kira was the girl I had raised and nearly lost.
Julian was the friend I had failed when he needed me most.
Shane was the man the counterfeit me had trapped in a marriage neither of us had truly chosen, and yet now he looked at me as though I had become the center of his world.
None of it was clean.
None of it was simple.
And despite what all three of them seemed to think, I was not some prize waiting patiently to be claimed at the end of a story.
I was tired.
Angry.
Still cleaning up the ruins of three stolen years.
Still trying to remember who I was without a foreign voice in my head.
So I took a slow breath and pried Shane’s arm off me.
Then I looked at Kira.
Then Julian.
Then Shane.
And with all the calm of someone standing in the center of a disaster she refused to own, I said,
“Get out.”
None of them moved.
Julian, of course, actually had the nerve to smile.
Kira’s lower lip tightened in immediate grievance.
Shane lowered his gaze like a dog about to be scolded.
I pointed at the door.
“Out. All of you.”
Julian sat up, leaning lazily on one hand. “Together?”
“Immediately.”
Kira was the first to react. She stepped closer instead of farther.
“Then where am I supposed to sleep tonight?”
“In your own room.”
“It’s cold.”
“No, it isn’t.”
She blinked at me, deeply betrayed.
Shane spoke next, low and careful. “Can I at least stay nearby?”
“No.”
Julian pressed a hand to his chest dramatically. “And after everything I’ve been through?”
I stared at him.
He sighed and stood.
One by one, with varying levels of reluctance and shamelessness, they finally moved toward the door.
Kira stopped in the doorway and glanced back. “Senior Sister.”
“What.”
Her eyes softened.
“You won’t disappear again, right?”
That took the edge off me at once.
I looked at her for a second.
Then shook my head.
“No.”
She relaxed.
Shane went next.
He paused too, expression complicated.
“I know the person from the last three years wasn’t you,” he said quietly. “But I still…” He stopped himself, jaw tightening. “Rest well.”
Then he left.
Julian lingered longest.
Obviously.
He stood at the threshold and looked at me over his shoulder.
“You can push me out as many times as you want,” he said. “I’m still not giving up.”
I folded my arms.
“Then you’re wasting your time.”
He smiled.
“That’s fine. I’ve waited this long already.”
Then, at last, he went too.
The room fell quiet.
I sat there for a long time after the door shut, staring at the empty space they had left behind.
The truth was, they were all wrong about one thing.
I wasn’t cruel enough to toy with feelings I couldn’t return cleanly.
And I wasn’t brave enough to accept even one and watch the others break.
So for now, distance was the only mercy I had to offer.
Maybe that was cowardly.
Maybe it was practical.
Maybe it was both.
Either way, it was what I had.
I lay back down at last and stared at the ceiling.
Outside, I could already hear bickering in the corridor.
Kira’s sharp voice.
Julian’s mocking laughter.
Shane saying something low and dangerous in return.
I covered my eyes with one arm.
Unbelievable.
Absolutely unbelievable.
I had survived possession.
Burned down an entire nest of soul-thieves.
Caught a mirror demon.
Dragged a Demon Lord out of the battlefield alive.
And somehow the hardest part of my life now was managing three impossible people who refused to leave me alone.
Maybe this really was divine punishment.
Still—
when I thought of Kira’s trembling apology, Julian wiping my tears with shaking hands, Shane recognizing me beneath the lie—
my chest softened in a way I didn’t like admitting.
Not love.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
But not indifference either.
And that, more than anything, was why I kept my distance.
Because once a heart started bending in too many directions, someone always got hurt.
This time, I wanted to choose my own fate.
Even if I chose slowly.
Even if I chose nothing at all.
Outside, something heavy hit the wall.
Then came Kira’s furious voice.
“Touch her window again and I’ll cut your hand off!”
Julian laughed.
Shane swore.
I dragged the blanket over my head.
And for the first time in years, the chaos around me was mine.
My choices.
My mess.
My life.
Honestly?
That was enough.
For now.