I lean back, and squint at him as he suggests the very thing I told Belle we were going to do. “You mean we should try to get Deli to violate Talia’s public declaration?”
“Yes,” he murmurs with a fangy grin. “I do.”
“If we get proof, it might even end their little ‘Pride.’ They would be ripe for the picking.” My gaze narrows, waiting to see if he’s on board with that.
My primary nods, and I see a predatory glint in his eye, and the anticipation of a hunt half-won. He comes to stand behind me, his fingers spreading across my scalp to knead gently. Whether the gesture is meant to calm me or to reinforce my submission, I don’t bother to parse.
With Wilde, every gesture has layered intent anyway.
“I believe this has the best chance of finishing this distasteful business,” he says. “We will reunite everyone, and life will be perfect once more.”
He knows nothing is ever that simple. Regardless, this is the plan I’m already working on, so I give him what he wants—agreement. “If I’m right about Talia spilling the beans too soon, it won’t be hard to get Deli to make a mistake. She’s always been the weakest link—she can’t keep her impulses in check. If we put enough pressure on her, she’ll crack. She always cracks. You know how she gets when the emotions pile up.”
“She is quite unstable when she feels like she cannot find a moment of peace.” Wilde’s tone is admiring, as if describing an exquisite clockwork toy with a design flaw that only makes it more precious. “It won’t take much if the right levers are pulled.”
I grin, letting it curl up wolfishly. “I’ll start stirring the pot with the community, get everyone worked up about different inconsequential shit. If we incite enough discord, it’ll destabilize her. She can’t handle chaos—all her bravado is just scaffolding.” I pause, thinking about how to include Wilde in the current plans. “You should help whip Amanda into a frenzy so she’s happy to participate. She’ll have to set things up without Constantine knowing—he won’t go quietly into this.”
His hands drop from my hair to my shoulders, squeezing with a pressure that borders on painful. “You do not give yourself enough credit,” he whispers. “You are so very skilled at getting what we want, beloved.”
“If I let myself get cocky, I’ll miss something.” I think about Deli and her elaborate self-deceptions, the way she’s always on the verge of collapse but manages to hold her pose just longenough to pass for functional. “It’ll have to be fast. She’s already paranoid—if we wait, she’ll sense the noose tightening.”
He smiles, fangs flashing in the reflected lamp-glow. “Then we act tomorrow. I will find Amanda and lay the groundwork. You begin with the others—subtle, but urgent.”
I nod, and before I can rise, Wilde pushes my head gently forward, pressing his lips to the back of my neck in a benediction. The gesture is both possessive and oddly protective, as if he somehow believes he can shield me from the fallout of what we’re about to do.
He can’t, but we both know that.
Once he lets go, I walk to the bathroom and study my reflection. The face is mine, but the eyes are someone else’s—someone clever and a little bit cruel, someone who will do what’s necessary even if it means burning down the whole edifice just to see what emerges from the ash.
I think of Deli, and Talia, and the beautiful, flawed architecture of all our relationships.
As I clean my face, I consider what it means to be loyal. How Deli and Rafe betrayed that when they ran to Taurus and Talia with reckless abandon. I think about what will happen when the pot finally boils over. It will hurt them, but that’s what needs to happen for Wilde and me to get our mates back. They’re too strong to reclaim at the moment, and this will bring them back to a moldable place.
After all, neither of us is willing to share the throne with our lovers and they need to recognize just who’s in charge.
The Cat Is Dirty
DELILAH
The bass from the speakers is weaponized, a low-frequency assault that turns the gym into a throbbing, pulsating organism. Each beat reverberates up the arches of my bare feet, through the sticky, battered mats, and into my shins. My sweat is a river, sluicing down the ridge of my brow, and I push the back of my gloved wrist across my forehead, smearing it.
I need this to get rid of the ick inside of me—the pain cleanses me.
Our newest heavy bag hangs from a chain that won’t survive this bout of anger. I throw a combination of punches quickly—a left jab, a right cross, and then a tight uppercut that buckles the thing sideways. The bag swings and twists, tugged by the violence of my fury. My knuckles have split, the tape half-peeled away by friction and fatigue, but I don’t care. This is a repetitive, mechanical demolition of my body, orchestrated to a playlist that’s as hostile as I am.
As much as I don’t want to admit it, I’m fading fast. Every muscle is saturated with lactic acid, on the cusp of cramping, but I keepup the rhythm. Dispelling my anger is the real workout, and it’s not nearly complete. I have to get this shit out of me or I won’t be able to face myself or the people I love.
I feel a shift of electricity in the air—the sudden jolt that means my husband’s home. Taurus doesn’t announce himself; he simply fills the doorway with his scrutiny. He’s wearing tailored slacks, but his belt is unbuckled, and his shirt untucked and slung over his shoulder. The dark energy coming from the gym must have lured him in the middle of changing from work clothes to comfortable home ones.
His eyes follow me as he lifts a water bottle to his lips. Arms crossed, Taurus leans his weight against the doorframe silently. My husband is the kind of agent who studies a situation before bursting in—most of the time. He stands on the threshold and waits for his target to miss a beat, just so he can see how they recover. That’s why he’s so fucking good at the sort of jobs he takes, and it’s why we work together as well as we do.
I’m the chaos, and he’s the well-prepared professional; the combination is unbeatable.
I keep moving around the bag as I feel the heat of him watching. He’s waiting for me to flinch so he can try to talk me down. I’m not going to; I need this punishment to balance out the pain of what my former friends are doing to me. Switching my stance, I loosen my shoulders and snap out a sequence of low kicks.
The bag absorbs each one with a dull, yeasty thud. My shin slides across the surface, and I hiss between my teeth as the contact reopens a cut. I let it. It’s Muy Thai day, and the point is to work until the pain consumes me. Taurus’s gaze intensifies, but he still doesn’t speak. He just tracks my movements, clocks every wince.
As I circle the bag, I catch his reflection in the gym’s mirrors with each pass. His expression is deliberately unreadable, which I’d normally joke about, but right now it’s annoying as hell. I know he’s judging me from that spot, and I know why—but he will not engage until I say something.
