After the bloody fiasco with Levi the other night, Cain had been just about ready to put a pistol to his skull if it meant seeing Ella the next day. Not that it had been a particularly unusual fiasco, but just about everything Levi touched with slick fingers and fetid breath was a bloody nightmare that left Cain with crawling skin and a sky-rocketing blood pressure.

It was, for once, only someone Levi mentioned rather than Levi himself that had had Cain scraping together another hit when he got home at five in the morning. It was a wonder he got up for work by seven, and a bigger one still that he got anything done.

He never saw Ella. Nothing but a phone call where Cain nodded and hummed and pretended to the best of his single-syllable ability that he cared while Ella blathered on about how deathly worried she was about Jack.

That was cruel, but god, Cain had never cared less about someone’s wellbeing in his life than he did about Jack’s. And he’d literally perpetuated the apocalypse.

He took up a lot of her time these days, Jack. Apparently, him and Casper’s feud had become more than the usual spat Cain expected from them. It stirred in him some vague sensation of unpleasantness. Guilt again. He kept feeling it these days.

The ‘Are you alright?’ remained unsent. Last time Cain had asked while he and Jack argued, Casper had just laughed at him.

Recently, Casper had vacated Jack’s flat, so at least Jack didn’t stay at Ella’s so much. But Casper had of course left, so that just made the worm all the more miserable.

He bloody missed her. Missed her light and her energy and the way she smiled and the sound of her laugh, but today, at least, they were doing this bloody party planning crap in person rather than over text, which was really not what he’d signed up for.

Twilight already haunted the streets by the time Cain reached the spot. Dim stars twinkled in a violet sky and the soft orange glow of the streetlights brushed the rain-slick streets. Ella smoked something on a bench, her head tilted back to watch the stars, an untouched miracle of stillness in amongst the churning streams of people and garish life.

For a minute, he froze just down the street. Just watched her with his lips parted like an idiot as she blew a cloud of amber-tinted smoke out into the air. Beautiful. So bloody beautiful it ached deep in his chest to see, both for the fact that such a wonder existed and for the fact that this wonder lay so painstakingly close yet eternally out of his grasp.

A shoulder slammed into his and dragged him out of his reverie. The roar of noise on the street pinged back, and Cain flared his aura at the prick who’d knocked into him, bathing the street in a flash of rotting cold. Idiot. If only he knew who Cain was. He shook his head and rubbed his fingers against his temple as he pushed through the crowds over to Ella.

Was. Key word. Was.

When Cain reached Ella on the bench, his words came almost without thinking. “It’s your favourite time of year, isn’t it?”

Ella lifted her head and beamed at him, her brown eyes bright and so full of life it took his breath away anew. Her breath clouded as she talked, misting in the chill air. “It’s your favourite time too.”

Cain inclined his head and stepped back to give her room to stand up. “True.” He must look like a total idiot with the size of his smile just seeing her, but he could hardly do much about it. Let her see how happy he was. It had been a long time since he’d upheld the mask of indifference with her. “What first then? Coffee or industrial vats of lube?”

Her laughter sent plumes of mist into the air as they fell into step, heading deeper into town. “Coffee after. And I’ve decided that if Six wants his Christmas party to be an epic orgy, he can buy his own lube. I’ll do decorations, I’ll do food, I’ll do music, I’ll even invite the people for his orgy, but I am not”—she jabbed her finger at the air—“buying him sexual sundries.”

“Thank god for that. I was worried you might suggest my vendor for all that lube and find out all the devious fetishes I’ve been keeping under wraps.”

“You’re not fooling anyone about all your weird fetishes, Kitty.” Ella slid through a gaggle of teenagers and waited for him in a clear spot with the streetlight shining on her. “No one as proper as you doesn’t have some seriously weird stuff going on if you’re hanging out with the likes of us.”

Cain rolled his eyes as if the sight of her combined with what painfully accurate things she might be assuming about his kinks wasn’t making his stomach turn in knots. “And my megalomaniacal god complex isn’t enough?”

A cheeky grin curled her lips as she fell back into step with him. “Absolutely not. You’re just a regular evil businessman now.” Ella pointed at a store set in an alley just off the street, cosy with fairy lights strung through the fascia and a star-spangled Christmas tree in the window. “How about there? It looks pretty.”

Anywhere you like, Ella, so long as I’m with you. “It does look rather cosy. Are you sure cosy is the vibe Levi was after?”

“I don’t care what Six was after. It’s my party and it’s going to be cosy and magical.” Her smile as she looked up at Cain was dazzling. “Those are the best bits of Christmas after all.”

She headed off to the store, weaving through the crowds like a dancer, and Cain went after her, tracing the way the lights twinkled across her hair.