Her house comes into view, tucked back from the street with string lights glowing faintly along the porch railing. Warm, lived-in, nothing like my penthouse mausoleum. For a split second, I let myself picture what it would be like to step inside, to belong to something like that.
Willow slows as we reach her bottom steps leading up to her front door. The quiet between us is heavy, thick with the kind of tension you could cut with her daggers. My pulse hammers in my throat. I want to kiss her. Fuck, do I want to kiss her. I want to grab her by the waist and kiss her so hard and deep, she half does a backbend, and she feels it tomorrow. It’s the kind of want that makes my whole body lean toward hers without my permission.
She looks up at me, her lips just barely parted. I don’t miss it when her eyes slide down from mine to my lips. Her gaze lingers there for a long moment, and she doesn’t have to say a word for me to know she’s thinking about kissing me, too. The neon spill from the Strip paints her cheekbones in pink and blue. The air between us is molten.
My heart is thundering in my chest when I dip closer, close enough to smell her perfume under the smog and city grit. But then I see it. The flicker.
It’s not disinterest. It’s not rejection. It’s something different, something worse, because I don’t know how it can have anything to do with me. That’sshamein her eyes. That’s her shrinking inward. That’s fear grabbing her by the throat.
I stop. Pull back. Because forcing this, even a little, would make me the same as every man she’s killed.
Instead, I let my mouth curve into a grin and murmur, low and teasing, “I’ll see you soon, Dagger Kitten.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. I didn’t push. I didn’t ask for more. And I watch that shame morph into relief, for just a moment, before her eyes narrow. Sarcasm flicks up like her shield. “Thanks for the ticket to your show, Shade. You’re so subtle.”
I grin like the arrogant son of a bitch I am. Mission successful, heavy moment diffused. “Any night you want to watch me dangle half-naked from the ceiling, the ticket is yours.”
She literally rolls her eyes. “Whoever would have guessed Saint Shade is so full of himself?” she smirks. “But really, thank you. It actually was amazing.”
“Thank you,” I accept the compliment without firing back sarcasm. Because I do appreciate it. I love what I do, every second of it. So, to be complimented on something that I’ve worked so hard for, it means something to me.
“Night,” she says softly as she takes her shoes from me. She turns to her door and puts her hand on the doorknob.
“Night, Dagger Kitten,” I call to her as I watch her disappear inside.
I have to force myself to walk away. I can’t just stand outside her house all night, being the obvious stalker that I am. I can’tturn back, barge inside and kiss the fucking life out of her. I can’t wreck this fragile blackmail truce right from the beginning.
So, I force myself to head back down the sidewalk.
By the time I hit the end of her street, I’m grinning like an idiot. My chest feels lighter, stupidly hot, like she lit a fire under my ribs.
That night, I dream of her. Of her laughter in my socks. Of her body pressed against mine. Of blood and silk, knives and kisses. Violent. Sexy. Tender. All at once.
And when I wake, I know I’m a fucking goner.
chapter seven
WILLOW
Phoenix fucking Marrow.
Every time I see his name trending, a part of me wants to drive a knife straight into my phone.
The internet calls him a healer. A visionary. A walking miracle with six-pack abs and a smile perfected in Turkey to make women weak in the knees. Me? I call him what he is: a parasite dressed in white linen, leeching off the desperate until there’s nothing left but hollow worship.
I know I shouldn’t click. I know it. I tell myself every damn time that I’ll scroll past, that I won’t give him the view. But I do. I always do. And there he is—standing barefoot in the desert at golden hour like some biblical painting come to life, a microphone clipped to his pristine collarless shirt, hair styled just so, like God Herself tousled it for him before the shoot.
“If you’re watching this, you were meant to hear what I have to say,” he begins, his eyes and lips soft, inviting, like a fucking saint. “Maybe you’ve been told there’s nothing left to try. Maybe you’ve heard words like chronic, terminal, incurable. And maybe you’ve started to believe them.”
He leans in closer to the camera, his voice lowering, his tone turning almost conspiratorial. “But your body isn’t your enemy.It’s your ally.” He rubs his hands together like he really believes that what he has to say—it’s getting good. “It’s been trying to protect you your whole life. You just stopped listening.”
My grip on my phone tightens. My jaw clenches harder.
“The truth is, your body already knows how to heal. Science forgot it, denied it, but nature didn’t. When we remove interference—the poisons, the doubt, the noise—the bodyremembersitself. Every cell knows what to do. It just needs permission.”
The view cuts to a woman lying on a mat on the floor. She’s breathing deeply, tears streaking down her face. Phoenix hovers his hands over her abdomen, his eyes closed serenely. His words continue in a voice-over. “What I do isn’t magic. It’s alignment. I help people quiet the story of sickness long enough for their bodies to start writing something new.”
He’s back on camera again, his tone fucking hypnotic. “If you’ve been told you’ll never be whole again, come see me at the Phoenix Marrow Wellness Institute. Your body wants to live. You just have to let it. If you’re ready to heal, really heal… I’ll show you how.”
