Shadera blew out a breath.
“I’ll let you parade me around the Heart and sit at your father’s dinner table. I’ll play the part in public, for now. But the moment I see my way out, the moment I can safely leave here and the opportunity presents itself to kill you—I won’t hesitate to take it.”
She finally dragged her gaze from her hands to find his eyes already on her. They weren’t hard, they weren’t full of hate, but understanding, recognition. Respect almost.
“As long as you know I’ll do the same,” Greyson answered. His right hand slid over his chest, then wrapped around the left side of his neck as he stretched it, his fingers brushing over the cut of his jaw.
Shadera’s eyes followed the movement, watching as his thumb grazed the edge of his bottom lip. Heat burned over her skin, settling at the base of her spine.
“What’s it like?” he asked, snapping her out of her sudden trance.
She shook her head, clearing her throat. “What’s what like?”
“Living in the Boundary?”
She stilled, anger replacing whatever heat was just pumping through her veins. “You want a poverty tour? Poor little heir wants to know how the other half lives?”
“I want to understand—”
“No,” she snapped, cutting him off. “You want absolution. You want me to tell you it’s not that bad, that people manage, that there’s some kind of dignity in the suffering. So you can sleep at night in your silk sheets thinking you’re one of the good ones because you cared to ask.”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s not—”
“It’s exactly that.” She dropped from the counter, the remnants of vodka flaring back to life in her stomach as she grabbed the edge to stabilize herself. “You want to know what it’s like? It’s watching children fight over scraps. It’s choosing between medicine and food. It’s watching your family be shot on billboards for falling in love with someone in the Cardinal. It’s selling yourself in whatever way keeps you alive one more day. It’s—”
“Why?” The word exploded from him, sudden and fierce enough to make her pull back. “I’m trying to coexist with you. To find some middle ground where we can survive this arrangement without tearing each other apart. But you—” He pushed from the back of the couch and moved toward her. “Every word is a weapon. Every gesture is an attack. Is it physically impossible for you to have a conversation without turning it into an argument?”
“When the conversation is with you? Yes.” She squared her shoulders. “You don’t get to play tourist to my suffering.”
He moved closer now, close enough that her head tilted back as she maintained eye contact. Warmth flushed through her body—rage, she told herself, not the sudden awareness of how close he’d come, how his eyes had darkened with emotion, how his voice had dropped to a register that seemed to vibrate in her chest.
He took one last step toward her and his hands curled around the counter on either side of her waist, thumbs brushing against the curve of her hips.
“I may not know poverty, but don’t think for a second I do not know pain.” His words were a growl.
She could feel his breath against her face, slipping through her lashes. Her senses flared, hyperaware of every point where the space between them had collapsed.
They stood frozen, bodies touching, the air around them charged. Greyson’s eyes dropped to her mouth and she realized she was breathing too fast, that her lips had parted without permission. It was just the vodka. It made her notice things she shouldn’t—the heat radiating from his body, the way his chest rose and fell, the fact that if she tilted her head up just slightly . . .
She wondered what he tasted like. Whether the Executioner’s mouth would be soft or harsh. Whether he’d kiss with the same control and perfection he maintained. Her tongue swept across her lower lip without conscious thought, and she watched his pupils dilate.
The air between them went electric, the energy of it standing every hair on edge. He leaned closer, just a fraction, and even with every instinct screaming in her head, she wanted to feel his hand back around her throat.
He jerked back like he’d been burned, turning away from her so fast she nearly stumbled. His hands gripped the edge of the couch hard enough to turn his knuckles white.
“Go to your room,” he ordered, voice rough.
She didn’t need to be told twice. Her legs carried her down the hallway on autopilot, her skin prickling, oversensitized. The door to her room had been repaired—Chapman’s work, she assumed—and she pushed through it, closing it behind her with a soft click that sounded like judgment.
Shadera pressed her back against it, chest heaving like she’d been running. Like she was running now, from whatever had almost happened.
“Fuck.” The word came out as a hiss between her teeth.
She pushed off the door, pacing the length of the bedroom like something caged. Which she was. Caged with him. She fucking hated him, hated everything he was, everything he represented.
But her body didn’t care about his crimes.
She stopped at the window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. The city lights blurred below, and she could see her reflection laid over them—wild eyes, flushed cheeks, lips parted like she was still waiting for that kiss.
