Maeve and Oberon sat side-by-side at the kitchen threshold. Oberon, a study in dark stillness, pinned Goldie with a flat, unblinking stare. Maeve, ever the dramatist, let out a soft,wounded sigh and began to meticulously groom a perfectly clean shoulder, refusing to even look at her.
“Oh, don’t you start,” Goldie warned, her voice lighter than she felt. She tried to step past them, but Maeve didn’t move, forcing Goldie to detour around her. “Is it so wrong to have a little fun?”
Oberon’s only reply was a slow, deliberate blink. Maeve flicked the very tip of her tail against the floorboards.Tap. Tap. Tap.
Goldie rolled her eyes with a theatrical flourish of her own and made for the kettle. “Fine. Hate fun. See if I care.”
She busied herself with the water, moving with a practiced ease that didn’t quite reach her shoulders. They were drawn tight, a familiar tension. Her muscles still held the pleasant ache from Ezra’s attention, yes, but a colder, deeper strain was setting in—the exhaustion that came from playing the part of the “walking good time” just a little too convincingly.
Her body had been in overdrive. She’dalmostcalled Jonah, her thumb hovering over his name, pulse racing with the thought of what it might mean.
But in the end, she’d called Ezra instead, swallowing the flicker of disappointment as she did. Not because he was right for her, but because he was easy: broad shoulders, warm body, and the emotional availability of a bar tab: fine until it’s time to settle up, and then suddenly it’s your problem alone. Complicated, yes, but in the most uncomplicated way.
And he’d come over. Of course he had. Ezra never turned down a mess with good legs and an open door. He’d shown up in thirty-seven minutes flat with a bottle of Pinot Noir and his signature smirk, as if he were granting a royal favor.
And godsdamn it, he had been. Because he was good. He knew the exact, wicked rhythm she liked, knew how to push herbuttons until she sparked. By all accounts, it wasfantastic. It should have done the trick.
But it had only made things worse. It was like trying to put out a forest fire with a glass of wine. The act itself was glorious, but the source of the heat remained untouched. The fire inside her hadn't been quenched; it had been fed.
At least, she consoled herself with a sip of tea, she wasn’t currently sleepwalking into the Grove Core. Sig’s sigils on her door held firm. Apparently, whatever was propelling her was no match for the magic of a former Harbinger.
So, yes, she was a horny, buzzing mess. But at least she was a horny mess safely confined to her own apartment, instead of one staggering through the midnight streets of Bellwether. That would’ve been a disaster of truly epic proportions.
A knock on her apartment door split through her thoughts.
Goldie groaned, setting down her teacup with a theatrical sigh. She padded to the door, tugging the velvet robe tighter across her waist as if she could cinch her own chaos.
“Do you miss me already?” she called, plastering an amused smirk on her face as she swung the door open. “Or did you forget your?—”
It wasn’t Ezra.
Splice stood on her entry mat, his silhouette sharp and utterly wrong against the ordinary frame of her door. He wore a deep green coat over a gray shirt, the dark fabric doing nothing to diminish his supernatural intensity.
Goldie reflexively yanked her robe tighter, but the velvet only slipped against her nightie, highlighting all the places she wasn't covered and dragging her attention right back to the insistent, unmet pulse between her thighs.
Splice’s gaze swept down her for half a heartbeat, then jerked back up as if he’d been scorched. He looked, for all the world,like a sentient tree trying desperately not to look at the axe swinging toward him.
“Have you uncovered anything?” he demanded. Without waiting for an answer, he stepped over the threshold and into her apartment like gravity itself had seized him and would not let him stop.
“Hey, wait a second!” she protested, the words catching in her throat as he moved past her. She spun, waving a hand in exasperation. “Oh, okay, sure, come on in. It’s not like I’m half-naked.”
He turned on her, words grinding out sharp and uneven. “I went to the lawyers, but the clause is binding. No loophole.” His hands flexed, restless, vines twitching at his collar.
“They told me I can name an inheritor, but that won’t solve it. It’s the magical clause itself. It bleeds him. It strangles him. If I can’t break it—” He cut himself off, jaw working, as though the rest was too dangerous to speak aloud.
A harmonized pair of yowls rang out. Maeve and Oberon came strutting from the kitchen like twin feline socialites arriving fashionably late to the main event. Maeve, who had treated Ezra with icy disdain, immediately twined herself around Splice’s leg. Oberon bumped his head against Splice’s shin with a reverence so forceful it was nearly a tackle. Splice flinched, a sharp, full-body recoil.
“Oh,” Goldie said, one brow rising slowly. “So they likeyou.”
As if to prove her point, Maeve began to purr, the sound loud enough to vibrate the air. Oberon, not to be outdone, launched himself at Splice’s trouser leg again, determined to merge with his calf.
Splice finally tore his gaze from the cats and looked at her. His nostrils flared. His pupils, already the color of dark secrets, dilated until they swallowed the green of his irises. He wasn’t just looking at her; he was reading the story of her morning inthe air—eucalyptus, honey, her own arousal, and underneath it all, the unmistakable trace of Ezra.
A low, guttural sound rumbled in his chest, almost too quiet to hear, like distant thunder or a warning from something ancient and territorial.
Goldie’s breath caught. Wetness bloomed between her thighs, a hot, shameful, instantaneous response to his silent fury. She locked her knees together, hard, to keep from swaying.
And beneath the hum of want, anger began to boil.
