And just as I’m trying to force it down, the door slides open with a gentle hiss.
He walks in.
Aebon Rexx. Seven feet of calm menace and feral seduction. Today he’s dressed almost casually—soft black shirt, open at the throat, sleeves rolled to expose forearms etched in scars and shadow. In one hand, he carries a paper-thin tray with two cups of Vakutan coffee steaming, rich and dark. In the other… flowers.
Not the synthetic kind. Not the diplomatic-bouquet kind. These are real. Hand-cut. Vivid blue and silver, native to Glimner’s southern continent. They smell like stormwinds and crushed sugar.
“You’re awake,” he says, voice honeyed gravel.
I hate how much I like that voice.
“Unfortunately.” My throat is hoarse. I hate that too. “What happened? I remember you saving me, and then we were walking…”
I try to recall what came next, but it’s just blank.
“I was careless,” he growls, his brow knitting into a roadmap of concern. ‘I failed to finish my foes, and one of them nearly…” he shakes his head. “I am glad you are all right. I had one of the Family bonesaws look you over. He said there was no permanent damage.”
“So you carried me here?” I ask.
“Indeed,” he replies. “The Family owns many properties…some registered and some not, if you catch my drift.”
His odd juxtaposition of swaggering gangster and unstoppable rabid beast is getting familiar. Maybe even growing on me. I can’t help but feel gratitude, even as he is clearly riddled with guilt.
“At least I’m not dead,” I say. “Don’t beat yourself up too bad”
He raises a brow, saunters closer, and sets the coffee down first. Then the flowers, angled just right on the side table like he’s staging a holodrama.
“Brought you something,” he murmurs, gesturing lazily.
I give him a look. “Is this supposed to be some kind of apology?”
“No,” he says. “This is me trying not to piss off the woman who files legal injunctions for a living.”
I huff. That damn smile—devilishtoday, cocked to one side with a flash of teeth. Not all of them human.
I should throw the flowers at him.
I should tell him to leave.
Instead, I take the coffee. The heat sears my palms, and I sip anyway, letting the bitter edge cut through the fog in my head.
He watches me like I’m a puzzle he wants tosolve,not break.
“You didn’t have to stay,” I mutter. “Or bring… all this.”
“I didn’t have to take a plasma blast for you either. But here we are.”
I meet his eyes then. Red, simmering, and so goddamn intense. There’s no mockery in them now. Just focus. Hunger, maybe. For what—I’m not brave enough to name.
“It was shock,” I say, mostly to myself.
“Sure.” He leans back in the chair he pulls up, long legs splayed, arms folding like the throne suits him. “Tell yourself that.”
I take another sip, even though I’ve stopped tasting anything but him.
I’m screwed.
His silence stretches long enough that I start to think he might leave without another word. But then, just as I reach for the blanket to shift away, his voice cuts through the air like velvet over a blade.
