The door just clicks and swings and his body fills the frame — broad shoulders, dark shirt, forearms crossed. He doesn’t wear the mask this morning. That makes something cold and volatile go off in my stomach.
Last night, he was a skull with a voice.
Now he’s a man.
And he is…unfair.
Massive. Built like a wall built a second wall. Dark brown hair shaved close at the sides, longer and rougher on top. Jaw cut in hard angles. Mouth plush in a way that makes no sense on a face that severe. Bronze ring through his bottom lip. A glint of metal in his eyebrow, another threaded along the edge of his ear. Tattoos climb up his throat and spill over his collarbones in black and gunmetal gray, script and animal and scar patterns layered until it’s impossible to tell where ink ends and scar tissue begins.
His eyes are what get me. They aren’t cold.
Deep brown. Warm, steady, almost gentle. Eyes like he’s already forgiven you for whatever you’re about to do to him, and he’ll break the world anyway to keep you from having to do it.
It’s infuriating.
“Morning, little fox,” he rumbles.
My voice is still gravel when I answer. “You drug me and then call me a cute little nickname?” I scoff. “That ispsychobehavior.”
At the corner of his mouth, something almost like a smile. “Didn’t drug you this time.”
“You say that like I should thank you,” I snap, rolling my eyes for dramatic effect.
“Didn’t say that, either.”
It’s a dance. I know a dance when I hear one. He’s not here to hurt me. He’s here to move me.
I push myself up from the bed, every muscle protesting low and mean. My joints feel tight. My throat feels raw. My shirt is rumpled and twisted from a night of bad sleep. I tug it straight and push my hair back with shaky fingers. The room smells like me again instead of cedar and bourbon. That feels like a small victory.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Breakfast.”
“Not hungry.”
His brows go up slowly, arms crossing over that massive chest in disbelief at my attitude. “Didn’t ask if you were hungry.”
I stare at him.
He shifts his weight and hooks two fingers into one of the belt loops of his jeans, casual, loose, like he’s leaning in a doorway of any normal flat, not standing in a controlled perimeter holding a stolen girl. His voice stays quiet when he adds, “King wants you downstairs.”
My stomach tightens. He means Caelum. He won’t say Caelum. He says King. They all do. But I heard the way he said it last night in the hall.
Kingwants her secure.Kingsaid.King’sorders.
That’s not a nickname. That’s a language.
“Is it just him?” I ask. “Or is this going to be a… group activity?”
That almost-smile ticks up again.
“All five,” he says, grinning from ear to ear.
My pulse stutters. I try to hide it, but those damn warm brown eyes flicker like they caught it anyway.
All fucking five.
So this is what I am, then… asituation, not a person. Worth assembling the men who run the city’s underbelly before noon.
