“May I cut in?” The familiar voice slid through, all too smooth.
I turned, and my chest cinched. “Reve?”
He smiled, too bright, too damn polished. Not flat like mortal but predatory and sharp.
Duke’s chest brushed against my spine as he shifted closer while Reve only dipped his head in casual greeting.
His presence hit with force.
He was taller now, broader, muscles straining against a flaxen shirt fitted to his form. The sunburnt, sea-rough boy I remembered was gone. His skin had faded to an even bronze. His hair, once wind-tossed, was bleached and slicked back, each strand disciplined.
The crooked bump that had marked his nose was smoothed out, leaving symmetry so perfect it seemed sculpted as his blue eyes sparkled like gems cut to catch the light.
And then I saw them—his ears. They were elongated, tapered.
Pointedat the tips.
A chill slicked down my spine. Oh, fuck.
“You look,” the word snagged in my throat, “different.”
Understatement of the fucking year.
Reve’s chuckle should have been comforting; it wasn’t. The sound landed flat, off tempo, as he rubbed the back of his neck. A familiar movement carried on an unfamiliar body.
His hands were larger now, the tendons pronounced as he slid them into his pockets. Even the way he stood was altered—looser, but coiled, like a feral thing trying to mimic a man.
“Yeah.” He gave a small shrug. “It’s a long story.” A pause. “I don’t know if you heard, but they found my mother and sister’s bodies the other day.”
My gut clenched. Double fuck.
Of course I’d heard. Everyone had. Once their corpses were dragged from the edge of the Firen Forest, the whole village had been summoned to identify them, desperate souls combing through horrors, searching for familiar faces.
Whispers said their veins were black, their features unrecognizable. And now he was here, wearing someone else’s skin, smiling with too-sharp teeth.
I swallowed. “I did. I’m sorry, Reve. They didn’t deserve that fate.” And I meant it.
His head bowed, eyes slick with sorrow. When he lifted his hand, three black rings caught the light.
“This,” he gestured at the immortal frame the Gods should never have allowed him, “thisis how I’ll get my revenge.”
Beside me, a sound caught in Duke’s throat, too soft to be called a cough. “I’ll get us some water,” he muttered, already flagging down a servant. But his eyes stayed locked on to Reve until the very last moment, before he forced himself away.
Reve didn’t watch him go. His focus stayed pinned to me, the weight of his stare pressing uncomfortably close where Duke’s absence had left nothing but cold air.
A hum shifted under my skin, scales rasping against my bones as I rocked on my heels. Whatever magic used to be traded by blood bargains in exchange for an immortal life had been outlawed for centuries. Yet here he stood.
The way his eyes dipped felt forced, and when they shot back to me, he extended a hand. “Dance with me.”
I stared, at the hand, at whatever hid behind the boy I once knew. We had shared summers and laughter, secrets and the kind of memories that lived. But the man before me, he was not summer anymore.
On instinct, my head shook, retreat already coiling in my body. Then, faint, subtle, there was a tug brushing against the edges of my mind.
It’s just one dance,it thought.
And some part of me wondered if I owed him that.
Reluctantly, my hand found his, and he drew me close, his palm bracketing my waist, his fingers threading through mine as the ballroom blurred into motion.
