She stepped directly into Greyson’s path, one hand landing on his chest with familiarity. Her head tilted up toward him. Whatever she said made Greyson pause, his posture shifting subtly as he replied.
The woman’s hand slid from his chest to his shoulder, then around to the back of his neck, the touch lingering, possessive. She leaned closer, her body curving toward his like a flower seeking the sun. There was history in that gesture, in the way she claimed his space like she owned it.
Shadera’s grip tightened around the bottle, an unwelcome heat flaring in her chest. It wasn’t jealousy—it couldn’t be jealousy. That would require caring, and she couldn’t give less of a fuck who Greyson touched or who touched him.
Yet her eyes remained fixed on them, watching as the woman’s fingers slid over his body, tracing patterns on Greyson’s arm, her laughter carrying faintly above the music. Greyson hadn’t stepped away, hadn’t created distance. But he hadn’t touched her back either, hadn’t leaned toward her.
Then his head turned, eyes finding Shadera’s through the crowd. Shadera quickly looked away, bringing the bottle to her lips and taking a large swallow.
When she risked another glance, the woman had linked her hand through Greyson’s and was leading him up the stairs. They disappeared around the curve of the staircase and her teeth clenched.
“Who was that woman?” she asked, leaning over the bar so the woman behind it could hear her without yelling? “The one with the Executioner.”
The bartender didn’t bother looking up at her as she crushed a lemon for a drink. “Maya, she’s a regular.”
“Maya,” Shadera muttered under her breath as she turned back to the crowd, the name bitter on her tongue. She took another drink. “A regular. Of course.”
Shadera pushed away from the bar, bottle in hand, and turned toward the dance floor. The crowd seemed to pulse with the music, a living entity of masked faces and swaying bodies. She could disappear into it, could find someone for herself, someone to help her forget, if only for a moment, the nightmare that her life had become.
She took two steps toward the dance floor when a hand closed around her upper arm, jerking her backward with unexpected force. She twisted, swaying on her feet, alcohol sloshing over her hand as she prepared to unleash hell.
But the words died in her throat, the liquor making her tongue heavy as she found herself staring at the reflective faceplate of a Veyra officer. Her heart stuttered, then raced. The Veyra weren’t supposed to be in here. Greyson told her his father’s men weren’t allowed in Callum’s clubs.
Before she could speak, the officer pulled her away from the crowd, toward a door marked with a small red light—an anti-scan room, where the Heart elite could conduct business without fear of surveillance. She jerked against his grip, but his fingers only tightened, digging into her flesh hard enough to bruise.
“Let go of me,” she hissed as the music swelled, drowning her voice beneath its relentless beat.
She didn’t have any weapons. Didn’t have anything to protect herself. She’d have to fight her way out of this.
No one around them seemed to notice or care. To them, she was just another patron being escorted away by security. No one would intervene, not against a Veyra officer, not for a woman wearing a skull mask that marked her as something outside their carefully ordered world.
The officer shoved her through the door into the anti-scan room, following immediately after. The door closed behind them with a pneumatic hiss, sealing out the noise of the club and plunging them into relative quiet. The room was large, with soundproofed walls and a single recessed light that cast everything in a dim blue glow.
Shadera spun to face him, fury replacing fear. She wasn’t going quietly, wasn’t going to be another victim of the Veyra’s brutality against women. If he wanted to take her, he’d have to kill her.
“Touch me again and I’ll tear your fucking throat out,” she snarled, dropping into a fighting stance.
The officer tilted his head, regarding her through that expressionless faceplate. He chuckled—a low, familiar sound that stopped her heart in her chest.
Then, the next thing she heard was Jameson’s voice.
“Did you miss me?”
Chapter twenty-four
Jameson Fucking Vine
Shadera’sworldnarrowedatthe sound of those four words. A voice.His voice. The liquor in her veins turned electric as she stared at the reflective faceplate, her own distorted reflection looking back at her. Time stretched and compressed around her as her mind struggled to process what her heart already knew. Jameson was here. In the Heart. Inside the beast’s den.
Something cracked inside Shadera, a dam breaking to release a flood of emotion so powerful she could barely breathe through it as Jameson pulled the helmet from his head. She launched herself at him without conscious thought, arms wrapping around his neck as her body collided with his. He caught her, arms encircling her waist and lifting her off her feet in a crushing embrace against the unfamiliar hardness of the Veyra armor. She didn’t care. It was him underneath.
It was Jameson.
“You’re here,” she gasped against his neck, inhaling his scent. “You fucking idiot, you’re actually here.”
His arms tightened around her, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of her head as a laugh slipped from his lungs. “Did you think I wouldn’t come for you?”
Shadera pulled back just enough to see his face, her hands framing his jaw as if to confirm he was real, solid, present. That this wasn’tsome alcohol induced hallucination. His eyes searched hers through her mask, drinking her in with equal relief.
