It’s not sexual. Not even soft, not really.
It’s a mark.
“You’re ours,” he says quietly, like he’s searing it into my skin. “Keep your head up when you walk in.”
Bile hits the back of my throat, but I swallow it down. Now isn’t the time to lose it. “Okay,” I whisper.
He nods once, satisfied, and leads me out.
The dining room in the manor isn’t like the townhouse.
There, it was close. Low-lit and intimate and expensive. Here, it’s old blood dressed in new money.
High ceilings with exposed dark beams. Deep green walls, hung with old oil portraits whose eyes track you like they’re judging your life choices. Long table of heavy wood, scarred in places, polished in others. Candles instead of overhead light. The kind of room where powerful men have probably planned very illegal things for a very long time.
Tonight, all four are there, waiting.
And the second we cross the threshold, my stomach drops.
Saint’s at the far end, to Caelum’s left.
He’s in a black button-down, sleeves rolled — and his left wrist is splinted and wrapped in rigid black. The kind of brace you only put on after something was set and iced hard, fast, and not gently. The skin around it is faintly swollen. I frown.
The tendon at his throat jumps when he sees me, but he gives me that soft, almost amused smile anyway, like I’ve just walked into his church. “Little lamb,” he says, warm.
Mateo is across from him.
He’s slouched in his chair, one ankle up on his knee, fork twirling idly in his fingers like a knife. There’s a dark bruise flowering along his temple, a little too high to be from anything soft. It disappears into his hairline, but I can see the edge of it already purple at the rim. He looks bright-eyed, sharp, and a little unfocused around the edges — like there’s a thread of static buzzing behind his smile. “Hey, trouble,” he purrs when he sees me. “Miss me?”
I stare at his head. “What the fuck happened to you?”
He grins wider. “You should see the other guy.”
That is so Mateo that my chest actually loosens for a second despite the panic climbing my spine.
Then my eyes land on Caelum. He’s at the head of the table, of course. He’s in black. Black shirt, sleeves rolled, top buttonundone. No jacket. There’s a faint smear along his collar that looks like it was wiped clean but not entirely. His knuckles are split. Not badly. Just enough to sting when he flexes his hand around the crystal tumbler in front of him.
But it’s not the damage that hits me. It’s hisenergy.
Caelum is usually composed rage. All control. Coiled leash.
Right now, he’s electric. Alive in that way that makes the air around him feel dangerous. Like he’s mid-hunt. His eyes lock on me the second I step into the room. He doesn’t smile. He just goes softer around the edges in this way that makes my skin flush and my pulse stutter. “Ember,” he says quietly. “Come sit.”
AndAsh. Ash is at Caelum’s right.
He’s the only one without visible injury. He’s clean. Fresh shirt. Hair damp like he showered recently. No blood. No bruises.
But his eyes. His eyes are fever-bright. He’s thinking. Hard. Running through chains. Setting things in motion I can’t see yet. He’s not on his tablet for the first time since I’ve known him, which tells me he’s already finished whatever he needed to do and now he’s in the math space. He’s here, but part of him is still somewhere else pulling strings.
His gaze flickers over me. Cataloguing. Assessing. Relief. Then guilt. Then anger. “Red,” he says, voice low. “Hi.”
My chest tightens a fraction, relief slowly threading through me. “Hi,” I manage.
Wraith’s hand is on the small of my back, guiding me forward. He doesn’t take a seat until I’m in one. He puts me to Caelum’s immediate right — between Caelum and Ash. Wraith takes the chair beside me on the other side, crowding in so close his thigh presses against mine under the table. Mateo whistles low at that, amused. Saint just arches a brow and takes a slow sip of his wine with his good hand. Ash leans back a fraction in his chair like he’s making room for me in his orbit without thinking about it.Caelum rests his forearm on the back of my chair, hand ghosting along my shoulder like a claim.
It should feel suffocating, but it doesn’t. It feels like being braced.
“Okay,” I say, heart pounding. “Someone talk.”
