"You've told me this."
"I want to make sure."
"Maximus." I turn to face him. "I've got it. Either I'm ready, or I'm not, and going over it again won't change anything."
He's quiet for a moment. His jaw works. "You're right."
"I usually am."
The corner of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but close.
The car takes another turn, and my knee brushes against his thigh. The contact sends a jolt through me. I don't move away. Neither does he.
We ride in silence for a few minutes. The city slides past the tinted windows, lights, buildings, humans going about their evening without any idea that monsters move among them. That monsters are driving past them right now, on their way to a political negotiation that could determine the fate of Atlanta's vampire population.
I'm acutely aware of his body beside me. The way he's sitting, angled slightly toward me. The way his hands rest on his thighs, those elegant fingers that I know so intimately now.
"When we walk in," Maximus says, and his voice is tighter than before, "stay close to me. Not behind me, beside me. They need to see you as my equal, not my subordinate."
"I thought the ring already tells them I'm yours."
The word hangs in the air between us.Yours.
His eyes cut to me. Dark. Hungry.
"It tells them you're under my protection. Your bearing tells them whether you deserve it."
I absorb that. "And if someone challenges me directly?"
"Then you handle it. I won't intervene unless there's a physical threat." His jaw tightens. "Which I don't expect. These are civilized vampires. They use words as weapons, not fists."
He turns to look at me fully. His gaze drops to my lips, then lower, to the neckline of the dress, to the ring resting between my breasts. When his eyes return to mine, they're burning.
The air in the car feels thick. Charged. I want to close the distance between us. Want to climb into his lap and finish what we started in the war room.
"After this is over," I say quietly, "you owe me a debt."
His eyebrow rises slightly. "A debt?"
"You made me promises." I hold his gaze. "I intend to collect."
Something flares in his expression. Hot and possessive and barely leashed.
"I remember exactly what I promised you." His voice has dropped to something low and rough that makes my skin prickle. "I remember every word. Every sound you made. Every way you felt around my fingers."
My breath catches. My thighs press together involuntarily.
"And I intend to deliver." He turns back to the window, but I can see the tension in his shoulders. The effort it's taking to maintain control. "After."
The word is a promise and a threat all at once.
I spend the rest of the ride trying to remember how to breathe.
The Whitley Hotel looks like it's been abandoned for decades.
The facade is crumbling, windows are dark, and weeds are pushing through cracks in the circular driveway. A human passing by would see nothing worth investigating, just another relic of a city that builds faster than it maintains.
But I'm not human anymore. And I can see the subtle signs of maintenance beneath the decay. The strategic sight lines. The shadows that move in ways shadows shouldn't.
