But she doesn’t belong among the horns and veils, the lacquered smiles and hungry glances. She stands out in this house of poison like something living and uncorrupted, something that shouldn’t have wandered into a place designed to devour.
The irony is cruel. The costume should make her invisible in a crowd this theatrical—just another masked figure in a sea ofexcess. Instead, heads turn. Eyes linger. Curiosity sharpens into interest. Into hunger.
She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s already been noticed. Already marked.
And the sight of it makes my jaw tighten until I swear I can feel my teeth grinding, enamel threatening to give way to bone.
Miguel is stationed at the main entry with two other men, all of them built like the kind of warning sign people pretend they don’t read. He clocks her too. I catch the smallest tilt of his head, the subtle shift of his gaze toward the mezzanine where I’m posted.
I don’t need a signal.
I already feel the wrongness of her being here like a splinter under my skin.
Rowan slides up to the bar and plants herself with a stubbornness I recognize. She scans the crowd like she’s counting exits, faces, patterns. Not admiring or indulging, but hunting.
The sight of her doing that in this place is enough to make my temper flare.
Because the Slay Pen isn’t a club; it’s a marketplace with better lighting.
And men with money and appetite come here to pretend they’re untouchable.
Rowan doesn’t understand the kind of hands that reach for a woman like her when the music is loud enough to drown out conscience. Or maybe she does, and that’s why she looks like a wound pulled tight.
Either way—she shouldn’t be here alone.
I wait until she’s settled. Until the crowd swallows her just enough for the illusion of safety to form.
Then I move.
I take the stairs down, slow, unhurried, letting the mask do what it was made to do—erase the man underneath. Tonight it’ssimple, sleek, expensive. A dark half-mask that cuts my face in two and leaves the rest to the imagination.
I don’t like wearing them.
But I like what they permit.
When I reach the bar, I don’t slide in beside her immediately. I order a drink. I let the bartender acknowledge me. I let the room register my presence as something normal, expected.
Then I pivot.
“Drink?” I ask, nodding once toward the bartender, voice smooth enough to be mistaken for casual.
Rowan doesn’t even look at me. “No, thank you.”
Polite. Flat. Final.
The refusal hits like a slap I didn’t see coming. Not because it’s rude—because it isn’t. Because it’s effortless. Automatic. Like she’s already decided I’m irrelevant.
I take the stool beside her anyway.
She stiffens so slightly most people wouldn’t catch it. I do. Her shoulders don’t rise; her chin doesn’t lift. She doesn’t flinch the way frightened women do.
She simply becomes… less accessible.
A vault sealing itself.
I hate how familiar that is. Hate how much it makes me want to pry.
“You don’t look like you’re here for the company,” I say, careful. Light.
