She should have left.
Any sensible mortal would have.
She did not.
And thank fuck that she hadn’t.
My jaw tightened as the footage continued. I saw the way she was dismissed, redirected, and brushed off. I saw her refuse to be intimidated, saw her stand her ground far longer than reason dictated. The way she had slipped past Vor, my attention narrowing with every step she took deeper into the club.
“She was… persistent.” Torin huffed a short breath.
That was one word for it.
The camera followed her movements through the main passageway toward the club’s entrance. My fingers curled slowly, pressure building as I watched her hesitate, then continue anyway. It was reckless. Foolish. And yet, something in the way she carried herself spoke of necessity rather than bravado.
She wasn’t there out of curiosity.
She was desperate.
And then I saw it.
The pause.
The way her head tilted slightly, her gaze tracking something that wasn’t there. She spoke again. Words lost to the absence of audio. Her expression shifted as though she were engaged in conversation with empty air.
I leaned closer.
“Stop it,” I said.
Torin froze the feed.
She stood alone in the frame, one hand lifted as if gesturing toward nothing, her mouth mid-word, eyes focused on a presence the cameras could not perceive.
“What is she speaking to?” Torin murmured.
“Something that doesn’t want to be seen,” I replied.
The goblin did not appear on any feed. No distortion. No shadow. No sign of supernatural interference at all. And yet herreactions were unmistakable. Whatever accompanied her had been careful.
Careful to hide from me.
But whoever it was, there was one thing for certain…
Its days with my Siren were numbered.
14
THE LAW OF FATE
The tablet creaked beneath the pressure of my grip, the casing fracturing as my anger sharpened into something colder and more vicious. After which, I barely even registered the damage. Objects could be fixed with nothing but a thought.
My Siren could not.
Whoever had attached themself to her could be a threat. One that I would soon eradicate. But for now, I replayed the footage again, slower this time, only stopping when I got to the part where a demon caught her scent. The subtle change in its posture, the predatory turn of its head displaying an instinct that overrode restraint. She hadn’t understood what was happening at first; that much was clear. She’d frozen for half a breath too long, ignorance buying the demon time it never should have been afforded.
Because something in my club had pursued her.
Because she had been exposed, vulnerable, bleeding, in a space that bent entirely to my will. A domain layered in wards, watched by this Enforcer who made his own rules. Rules that were older than most of the creatures who drank and dancedbeneath my ceiling. She should never have been prey here. Not even for a moment.
