Chapter 400: The Apology

"Grayson," Mailah called out softly.

Grayson turned his head to look up at her. "Yes, Mailah?"

Mailah leaned forward slightly, her gaze tender and serious. "You still haven’t told me everything. Why did you really leave four weeks ago?"

Grayson stilled. His dark eyes flicked down toward the fire, the orange flames reflecting in his pupils.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the crackle of the burning wood and the gentle patter of rain outside.

Grayson slowly raised his hand, placing his large, warm palm over hers where it rested on his shoulder. He turned around so he was kneeling beside her sofa. His posture remained tall and solid, but his gaze was heavy with deep, quiet seriousness.

He kept the disgraceful details buried deep inside—withholding the foolish hours he had spent at the small pub, drowning his sorrows in vintage alcohol, falling asleep on the bar counter, and stubbornly walking miles back on foot without his demon abilities, trying in vain to remember how he used to live among mortals.

Instead, he looked directly into Mailah’s eyes with steady, unflinching honesty.

"The night we had our argument..." Grayson began, his deep voice quiet and smooth, yet carrying a heavy weight, "...I let my arrogant temper rule me. I walked out of our home and refused to return. I left you completely alone."

Mailah listened silently, her hand resting against his shoulder.

"I stayed away through the night and into the next morning," Grayson said, his sharp jaw tightening. "I did not know that you had gone out into the freezing night searching for me because I hadn’t come home. When you missed your step, I was nowhere to be found. I failed to arrive on time when you needed me most."

He took a slow, deep breath, his thumb lightly brushing the back of her hand.

"When I finally stepped back into the house, the silence gave me a terrible feeling in my gut," Grayson continued softly. "I used my power to locate you, and I found you lying on that cold stone—injured, pale, and suffering while I was wandering foolishly in the cold."

His dark eyes burned with a solemn, intense remorse.

Mailah’s soft expression shifted, a quiet realization dawning in her eyes. "Grayson..."

"I was not there to catch you when you fell," Grayson continued, his deep voice trembling slightly as he forced out the words. "I was not there to lift you from the cold ground. You suffered because I chose to act like a petulant child. And when I brought you back here, I ran away again... because I could not look at the pain I had caused you."

He lowered his head, pressing his warm forehead against the edge of her palm, looking like a fallen king waiting for his executioner’s blade.

"I am a monster, Mailah," Grayson murmured into her skin, his heart pounding with bitter self-loathing. "I am a creature who fails the only person he swore to protect. My probation is a mercy I do not deserve."

Mailah sat in silence for a long moment, listening to the heavy, ragged sound of his breathing.

She looked down at the top of his dark head, at the sharp, broad shoulders that carried centuries of power, now trembling with quiet, desperate guilt. She didn’t know about the pub, and she didn’t know about his hungover walk through the fog, but she could feel the immense, crushing weight of the remorse eating away at his soul.

Mailah leaned forward. She reached down, placing both of her hands under his sharp jaw, gently but firmly forcing him to lift his head and look at her.

"Grayson," Mailah said softly, her dark eyes shining with absolute warmth and steady clarity. "Look at me."

Grayson met her gaze, his dark eyes vulnerable, dark, and filled with quiet dread.

"You made a mistake," Mailah stated clearly, her voice gentle but unwavering. "You let your anger get the better of you, and you left. It hurt me, and I was angry at you for weeks. But you brought me here. You made sure I was safe. And then you spent four weeks trying to learn how to be better for me."

"It does not excuse my absence—" Grayson began darkly.

"I am not excusing it," Mailah interrupted, pressing her thumb gently against his lips to quiet him. "That is why you were assigned to couch duty. That is why you are currently wearing a soft sweater instead of your sharp suits. And that is why your probation is still active."

She smiled softly, a bright, tender expression that made Grayson’s chest ache with pure, swoon-worthy relief.

"You don’t get to decide if you deserve me or not, demon prince," Mailah whispered, leaning down until her lips were brushed against his jawline. "I decide. And I decided to keep you."

Grayson let out a long, shaky exhale. His broad shoulders finally relaxed. He reached up, wrapping his long, powerful arms around her waist, pulling her down off the sofa and straight into his lap on the soft yellow rug.

He buried his face into the warm crook of her neck, holding her so tightly against his broad chest that not a single breath of air could pass between them.

"I will spend every day of my immortal life making up for my mistakes," Grayson vowed softly against her skin, his deep voice rich with absolute, unwavering devotion. "I will never walk away again. Not for a single second."

"Good," Mailah murmured, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders. "Now take me back into our pink fortress. My leg is tired, and my husband owes me a very long night of holding my hand."

Grayson didn’t hesitate. He scooped her up into his arms with smooth, effortless strength, carrying her into the glowing, rose-colored warmth of the blanket fort. He laid her down gently on the mountain of feather pillows, crawling in beside her and pulling the heavy pink blanket up to their shoulders.

He didn’t use any magic. He simply wrapped his long legs around hers, tucking her head safely under his chin, and held her hand tightly in the dark until sleep took them both.

When the morning sun rose over the glass roof of the sunroom, Mailah woke up feeling remarkably mischievous.

Her knee was barely aching today, but as she looked over at Grayson—who was already awake, lying on his side and watching her with quiet, intense devotion—she decided that it was time to put her probation powers to the ultimate test.

If her dramatic, centuries-old demon husband was so eager to indulge her to ease his hidden guilt, she was going to give him a morning he would never forget.

Mailah sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes, and looked at Grayson with a very serious, demanding expression.

"Grayson," Mailah announced, crossing her arms over her pink blanket.

Grayson sat up instantly, his back straight as a sword, his dark hair pleasantly messy from sleep. "Yes, Mailah? Is the knee inflamed? Do you require pain remedies?"

"No," Mailah said, pouting slightly. "I am hungry. And since your probation is still active, I have a very specific, highly complex human breakfast request."

Grayson reached into his pocket, pulled out his black field notebook, and clicked his pen with sharp, imperial focus. "Specify the parameters. I shall execute the menu immediately."

Mailah suppressed a smirk. "I want French toast. But not regular French toast. I want it made from thick brioche bread, toasted to a perfect golden crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. It must be cut into perfect, identical triangles."

Grayson wrote feverishly in his notebook. "Brioche triangles. Noted. What else?"

"I want freshly squeezed orange juice," Mailah continued, leaning closer to him. "Squeezed by hand. And it must have zero pulp. If I find a single speck of orange pulp in my glass, your probation score drops by two points."

Grayson’s dark eyebrows pulled together in deep, dramatic concentration. "Zero pulp. A rigorous physical filtration process. Understood."

"And finally," Mailah added, her eyes sparkling with pure evil, "you must wear the bright yellow duck apron while serving it, and you must feed me the first three bites yourself using a silver fork."

Grayson stared at her. His dark, handsome face was a battleground of regal pride and absolute, helpless devotion. A lesser demon lord would have burned the kitchen to ashes at such humiliating demands.

Grayson simply closed his notebook with a sharp snap, stood up gracefully, and bowed low from the waist like a dark prince taking an oath before his queen.

"Your culinary decrees shall be fulfilled with absolute perfection," Grayson declared solemnly.

Twenty minutes later, the grand kitchen of the estate sounded like a battleground.

Grayson stood in front of the marble island, his black shirt sleeves rolled up to his broad elbows, the bright yellow duck apron tied firmly around his waist.

In front of him sat a wooden cutting board, a loaf of brioche bread, a heavy silver ruler he had fetched from his study, and a mountain of fresh oranges.

Grayson picked up the silver ruler and placed it against the brioche bread. He held a sharp chef’s knife with intense, terrifying precision, measuring the exact angle of the slice.

"A forty-five-degree diagonal cut," Grayson analyzed aloud, his brow furrowed as if he were calculating orbital trajectories. "If the angle deviates by one millimeter, the triangle will be asymmetrical. Asymmetry is unacceptable for Mailah’s palate."

Slice.

He cut the bread with surgical perfection. He created four identical, flawless brioche triangles.

Next came the oranges. Grayson refused to use dark magic to extract the juice. Instead, he picked up a fresh orange, placed it over a glass bowl, and squeezed it with his bare hand.

His physical strength was so immense that he accidentally pulverized the entire orange into a wet, sticky pulp in less than half a second.

Grayson froze, staring at the squished fruit in his palm.

"Unacceptable," Grayson muttered gravely. "Excessive force applied."

He picked up a fine mesh silk strainer from the drawer. For the next ten minutes, the powerful, dangerous prince of the dark realm stood over the kitchen sink, meticulously pouring orange juice through three layers of fine silk, holding the glass up to the morning sunlight to inspect every drop for rogue specks of pulp.