I amnegotiating.
Chapter 8
Vale
The house is quiet.
Not silent — this place is never silent — but quiet in the way of men who didn’t sleep because they were guarding a choice they shouldn’t have made.
Wraith left before dawn. I heard the front door, heavy and low, heard the rumble of his voice on a call in the foyer, something about ports and contracts and “try it, I’ll take your teeth.” Gone after that.
Ash is still awake somewhere, because Ash is always still awake somewhere. I can feel the hum of his presence downstairs in the den, tech equipment whispering through the floorboards, that soft data-swarm you start to hear if you live long enough beside ghosts and wires.
Saint took his coffee and his quiet apology of a conscience to the back garden right after sunrise. He does that — goes out where the ivy strangles brick and whispers scripture like he thinks the roses are going to forgive him.
And Caelum?
Caelum’s gone cold.
He didn’t say it, but we all felt it when he left the townhouse this morning. I watched the change go through him when the ink dried last night, all five signatures lined at the bottom of the page like a pact we’ll have to murder to keep. He’s steady again. I know what that means.
It means he’s hunting.
Which leaves just me in the kitchen.
Andher.
It’s late enough that the London light has started to seep in low through the tall townhouse windows, that gray-yellow sludge of morning that never commits fully to being day. I’m leaning back against the counter, mug hooked in my hand, one ankle crossed over the other, tattoos on my forearms catching the light in strips.
She’s at the table—alone. No one’s cuffing her. No one’s hovering over her chair like she’s going to make a run for it. No one’s aiming a gun at her throat.
We’re past that now.
I watch her while she pretends not to watch me.
Little thief.
She’s curled over the table, elbows planted, one hand wrapped around a mug, the other tearing the corner off a piece of toast and not eating it. Copper-red hair is down, messy, unbrushed, curls everywhere. She didn’t bother to tame it. Good. I like her with edges.
There are faint purple shadows under her eyes, the kind that come from not sleeping, not crying. She doesn’t look fragile. She looks used up. Paper-under-fire used up.
And that mouth.
Split on one side. Swollen. Pink.
I did not do that to her. Wraith caught her jaw against the wall when she tried to drive her knee through his ribs.Doesn’t mean I don’t plan to enjoy the view. “Gonna eat that,” I ask mildly, “or you just performing starvation for attention?”
Her jaw ticks, just a little. She doesn’t look at me. “Bite me.”
I smile slow around the rim of my mug and take a drink. “Breakfast first,cariño. I like my girls conscious when I bite.”
That gets her eyes. They flick up, quick and hot and annoyed. Ice blue. Those eyes arelethal. They’re not gentle, not pleading. They don’t do soft. They cut.
“Don’t call me that,” she snaps.
“You don’t like cariño? You preferred trouble, was that it?” I tilt my head, pretending to think. “Or was it sweetheart? I remember you blushing. That was sweet. Do that again.”
Her nostrils flare. “In your dreams.”
