I wait for the rest.
It never comes.
No bow. No awe. No nervous apology.
Just acceptance.
“I’m Orpheus,” I say. “This is my club.”
She meets my gaze evenly. “Okay.”
That single word lands harder than it should.
“You’re not impressed.” I chuckle softly. Everything she’s done so far is bewildering to me.
She shrugs. “You saved me. That matters more.”
Silence stretches between us.
I don’t ask her name.
Not yet.
For the first time in a very long while, something’s shifted in my world.
She has no idea she’s the reason.
Chapter
Four
Cassia
I don’t know how long we’ve been standing here.
Long enough for my heartbeat to slow. Long enough for the fear from earlier in the night to settle into something else. Something warmer. Something dangerous. Something I shouldn’t even be entertaining.
His office feels nothing like the rest of the club. No pulsing music. No bodies pressed too close. Just quiet, shadows, and walls covered in art that look old enough to have survived entire lifetimes. There’s a coldness to it that I guess should be expected from someone who is a king.
Realistically, I know I should be cowering in fear. After all, I saw this man toss someone across the hall without so much as a grunt. But I’m too interested in my surroundings. I move around the room without really thinking.
Paintings. Sculptures. Fragments of history captured in oil and stone. Some of them are violent. Others are intimate in a way that makes my throat tighten. Lovers frozen mid touch. Blood caught in motion. Faces twisted with devotion or grief.
“They’re beautiful,” I say softly.
I hear him behind me. Still. Watching.
“They weren’t collected for beauty,” he replies. His voice is controlled, but there’s an edge to it, like he’s still wound tight from earlier. “Most of them were taken as trophies.”
I glance back at him. “That doesn’t mean they can’t be both.”
He looks almost caught off guard by that.
I turn back to the wall, studying a piece that appears to depict a battlefield at dawn. It should be haunting. The pain and anguish painted on the canvas are enough to be memorable, but I can’t take my eyes away from the subject. A single figure standing at the center, untouched.
“How long have you had these?” I ask.
“A long time.”
