Lit by the embers of a dying fire, Lys looks just like a boy—cheeks pinked and eyes clear, the predator driven out of him by the rush of Shea’s blood to his head. Just how she wanted him. Just how she planned. She’s learned, in the past six months in his company, that he’s always his sweetest after a feed. She’d planned to ask him then—to negotiate a new deal, one that didn’t end up with Asher dead. It won’t be enough. Not like this, with an audience leering in at them.
Not when he’s putting on a show.
“I can’t decide,” he muses, “if you’re very brave or very stupid.”
“I guess we’ll find out.” One eye swelling steadily shut, Asher peers up at Lys. “You’rethe guy who has everyone around here so scared? You’re a little scrawny for a devil.”
A rustle goes through the crowd. Lys’s smile isn’t friendly.
“You’re funny.”
Asher doesn’t smile back. “I can be.”
“We’ll see how long that lasts.” Lys drops into a squat, elbows braced over his knees. With his hands inked in blackwork bones, he looks positively skeletal in the firelight. A nightmare from the forest deep. “Let’s try this one more time. Tell me who sent you.”
“No one.” Asher shifts as best he can, restrained by his bindings. “I’m not acting on anyone’s orders, I came on my own.”
Lys’s head tips to the side. “That makes you a fugitive.”
“It does.”
“I’ve seen what the watch does to deserters. It’s not pretty.”
“It isn’t.”
“You won’t survive being caught.”
“I won’t.”
“And yet here you are anyway.” Lys rises to his feet, cuffing the sleeves of his jacket. “Highly unusual behavior for a watchdog. You can’t blame me for not believing you. Hit him again.”
A figure breaks away from the crowd. A Mercy Boy, his eyes overeager. He makes his way toward Asher, popping already bloodied knuckles against the flat of his palm. On his knees, Asher braces himself for another blow.
Shea knows better than to intervene. She knows Asher is only in this situation because of his own obstinance. He’d threatened her to bring him here. He’d ignored her instructions to wait out of sight. But the way Lys is looking down at him makes her feel accountable.
And so, she steps out into the circle, breaking from the crowd.
“He’s telling the truth.” Her voice draws every glittering eye in the room. Lys’s stare is hard enough to pit her stomach. “Don’t hurt him.”
The ensuing silence rings like a struck bell. Nobody moves. Nobody breathes. Lit from behind, Lys looks less like a boy and more like a god. Ageless and imposing, the lines of him sharp enough to impale. He says nothing. Does nothing. He only stares right at her, haughty and cold.
She can’t look away, even now, when she wants to be furious with him. She’s drawn to him—so thoroughly captivated that she can no longer discern what’s natural and what’s chemical. Which feelings are a byproduct of her own brain, and which are a lingering effect of the feed.
She thinks of Cyrus’s sneering face, his threat in the ballroom:He doesn’tlikeyou, Parker. This is just how he hunts.
Upon the hearth, the last of the embers cool to black.
There’s no light left in Lys at all.
“Everyone out,” he orders. “I’d prefer to continue this meeting in private.”
It never fails to astound Shea just how perfectly Oliver Lysander holds the whole of Mercy Ridge in the palm of his hand. The exact moment he gives the order, the hard clot of bodies begins to break apart. Mercy Boys and their guests disperse as though released from a thrall. No one grumbles. No one dissents.
With the venom of Lys’s bite slowly metabolizing, Shea’s head has begun to clear. With it comes pain. A headache builds behind her eyes. There’s a sharpness to the pain at her wrist. Her veins feel as though they’ve been packed with sand.
Lys’s eyes remain fixed to Shea’s as the room empties out. As her own euphoria fades, so does his. Already, the color has begun to bleed out of him. Shadows gather in the hollows of his cheeks, turning him gaunt.
“You stay,” he says.
