“Why are you being so vicious? I’m just trying to be here for you, Aria. Like I’ve always been.”
“I never asked you to be.” The words come out defensive, because that’s the problem with Rowe. He sees broken things and tries to fix them. I refuse to be his next rehabilitation project.
“No,” he says quietly. “You never ask anyone for help, do you? Not even when you’re drowning.”
“You know what’s funny? The fact that you still think I’m drowning. Maybe if you spent less time trying to heal broken things, you’d understand why no one wants your help in the first place.”
He nods slowly. “I wish I didn’t still care.” And then, softer, just for me. “But I do.”
Something in me cracks, but I glue it back together with rage.
He means well. He always does, and that’s the problem. The same steady presence that made him safe also makes him dangerous.Because Rowe escaped while I stayed chained to expectations, and I can’t forgive him for finding freedom and leaving me behind.
A low chuckle cuts through the tension. “I see you brought your claws tonight, love.”
My heart stops, then starts again too fast, as two months of silence fracture in a single breath. Dom steps into view, lean and lethal in tailored black. His gray eyes lock onto mine, amusement curling at the corners of that devastating mouth. Of course he saw everything. Dominic Blackwood never misses the opportunity to watch someone bleed.
“Though I must say . . .” His gaze slides over me with slow, indulgent calculation, taking in the way crimson silk clings to every line of my body. “I forgot how exquisite you look when you’re going for the kill. Almost makes me wish I was your target.”
“She’s not a game, Dominic.” Rowe grits out. “You don’t get to break her and call it nostalgia.”
“Always so noble, Rowe.” Dom’s smile sharpens. “Tell me, how’s the view from that moral high ground? Must be lonely up there.” He doesn’t wait for an answer. His focus returns to me with unshakable ease. “Dinner’s about to be announced, and you’ll find your place card’s been moved to my table.”
I catch the way Rowe’s jaw clenches, and the slight tremor in his hands before he buries them in his pockets. But he says nothing. Of course he doesn’t. Because that’s Rowe, always taking the higher road, even as it bleeds him dry.
Dom extends his hand, the silver rings on his fingers catch the light. Those same rings that once left cold, shivering trails across overheated skin. “Come now, darling. For old time’s sake?”
I place my hand in his, a jolt sparking up my arm as he pulls me closer than necessary, his free hand settling low on my back.
But something’s off.
His touch is too careful, his fingers flexing once as if testing whether I’ll flinch. His usual confidence is there, but it feels like a mask stretched too tight.
“If you think this means I’ve forgiven you,” I murmur, hating the way my body still leans into him, aching despite the fury caged in my chest, “you’re more delusional than I remember.”
Dom laughs softly, the sound rumbling through every thread of contact between us.
“Oh, Aria.” He leans down, lips brushing my ear, and desire punches through me. “Forgiveness was never the point. You talking to me, looking at me like I still exist—that’s more than I’ve had in months.” His hand flexes at my back. “And I’ve been starving for it.”
As he leads me through the crowd, our reflection flickers across the enchanted mirrors, caught in shifting light and shadow. His gaze finds mine in the glass, dark with something that makes my pulse stutter.
“Welcome back to the game, love.” Dom’s voice is smooth, but his jaw is tight, and the tremor in his fingers betrays something rawer beneath the charm. Then he adds softer, “I wish to God we didn’t have to play.”
The words splinter something I’d been holding together with sheer spite. Dom’s still smiling, still touching me like we’re another scandal in motion, but there’s a crack beneath the performance.
But this is Dominic Blackwood. He says things like that sometimes. Deep things. Dangerous things. Then grins and acts like it was all part of the show. Maybe this is just a new twist on the same old game—the push, the pull, the carefully orchestrated unraveling.
He said it himself. He’s starving for my attention. Maybe that wasn’t a warning, but bait and I’m too messed up to tell the difference.
So I do what we always do. I smile. I play. I bleed prettily in public, and pretend it’s by choice.
Dom’s fingers trail heatalong my spine, slow and possessive, each graze a silent act of reclamation. Two months of distance should’ve severed this. Should’ve dulled the way my body still betrays me. Yet I lean into him before I can stop myself, already cursing the hunger he resurrects with a single brush of skin.
“I was starting to think that I’d have to burn half the city to draw you out of hiding.” His fingers press harder into my back. “Though we both know how much you love watching things fall apart.”
The worst part is, he’s right. We’re addicted to destruction. Have been since that first night in the Academy lab, when he found me deliberately breaking equipment just to feel something shatter. He didn’t stop me. Just handed me another beaker and watched it splinter, understanding written in every line of his posture. That’s when I knew I was lost.
The weight of a hundred restrained stares pushes against my skin, heavier than Dom’s touch. Their laughter is measured, movements rehearsed, but I feel the scrutiny. And there, rising above them all, the Founding Families’ table curves in a crescent of black glass and gilt, a celestial body dictating the orbit of everything beneath it.
