She glares at me and does it.
When I lift my hand and settle my palm lightly over the inside of her wrist mid-draw, she freezes — not in fear. In readiness. I can feel the tight snap of muscle under skin, the raw, coiledimpulse to finish the movement. Good. She’ll fight through contact.
“Now,” I tell her quietly, “imagine my hand is Damien’s.”
Her lashes flick up. Her eyes go cold. Venom masked in glacial pools of blue.
Before I can blink, she twists. It’s fast, vicious, efficient. She traps my thumb against the slide, turns in, pins my wrist to her chest so I can’t angle the barrel back at her. Her knee comes up like she’s going for my ribs.
I block it, because if I don’t,fuck—she’ll actually do it.
We’re breathing close now. My grip on her wrist. Her fingers on mine. Heat where our bodies almost touch.
Her voice drops. “You think I haven’t been held against a wall before, Lysander?”
Something ugly and protective snarls up my spine at that. I know her file. I know parts of what she did before Owen died. I know, clinically, what handlers sometimes do with assets who aretechnicallyoff-book, technically expendable and technically someone no one would miss.
I don’t like knowing any of that, and it doesn’t change the deep and gut wrenching hurt I see buried there.
I peel her off me gently and reset her stance. “Good,” I say, and my voice comes out tighter than I prefer. “Again.”
We run it. Over and over. Me grabbing. Her breaking. Me blocking. Her adjusting. I force her to repeat until she stops thinking about the movements and starts letting muscle do what it was asked to do.
She remembers fast. Ember Calloway was never just an informant. She was built. Forged and shaped under iron will. Pointed and aimed at their enemies in a way they’d never see it coming. Whoever thought they could program someone like her and keep their fingers unburned was clinically….Stupid.
Her breathing is starting to roughen. Sweat beads at her hairline. She’s flushed — high color in her cheeks, damp at her throat. She looks alive in a way that makes something ugly and selfish in me want to keep her locked in this room and away from everyone else.
I step back.
“Water,” I tell her, nodding at the bottle I set on the table.
She doesn’t move. Her eyes are still on me. Studying. Mapping.
“What,” I say.
“You’re angry,” she says.
Not a question. I go still. “No.”
“Liar,” she says, soft and sure.
I hate that, too — that she reads me. Rook reads me because he’sRook. Wraith reads me because he watches everything like a hunter. Vale reads me because he’s a cruel romantic and likes to taste blood. Saint reads me because it’s his job to hear confession. Ember reads me because she just does.
“It’s not anger,” I say finally. My voice sounds steady. Clinical. Good. “It’s probability.”
Her eyes narrow. “Explain.”
I grab the handkerchief off the table and offer it to her. She blinks, then uses it to blot her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, the back of her neck. I force myself not to track every motion.
“Probability,” I repeat. “We’re running numbers. Damien is cautious. Vindictive, even. Damien is smart enough to stay alive this long, which means he’s paranoid. But paranoid men get sloppy around familiar faces. Seeing you will either make him try to claim you back in front of whoever he’s meeting — or try to erase you to prove he can.”
“So,” she says quietly. “Fifty-fifty.”
“No,” I say. “Sixty-forty.”
Her mouth curves. “And which side am I on?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I say.
