Page 81 of No One’s Daughter

Niko didn’t hesitate and moved straight through the room like he owned it, and commandeered us some seats by the bar. He’d clearly been here before. The man did like a drink, so it made sense.

I’d just about managed to get myself comfortable as Ailsa looked around the bar with disappointment.

“Urgh,” she complained as she shrugged her—my—leather jacket off her shoulders, revealing a tight fitting dress that hugged her curves perfectly. She wore a sheer long sleeved top of some kind beneath it and had completed the outfit with her usual steel toe leather boots. She’d made complaints about the clothing I had picked for her and insisted on letting me get her own, and for some reason, I let her. Though right now, I wished I hadn’t because she looked far too confident, and that only made her all the more tempting.

“This place is just as boring as Davien,” she continued, earning a laugh from Niko who’d already haggled for a bottle of the finest whiskey the place had to offer.

“We just got here,” he said, eyeing her in a way I really didn’t fucking appreciate. “Though I wouldn’t say no to taking you home.”

I almost spat out my drink as I threw dagger eyes at him. “Like fuck you will.”

“Calm down, Davien,” Ailsa interjected, laughing off the situation like she knew Niko was just trying to rile me up and get under my skin. But I didn’t miss the way her cheeks had flushed.

“Relax,” he said jokingly. “I’m just messing with you, but I do have an idea on some fun we could have.”

Before I could respond and tell him his jokes weren’t funny, he whirled around the room in a blur before settling back into the seat beside us.

“Attention, everyone,” he said looking at the punters, and his words settled over them like a blanket. That’s when I realised he’d compelled them all.

“Let’s have a bit of honesty, shall we?”

​Ailsa went still beside me, bar the way she toyed with her medusa piercing, her attention on him now in a way I didn’t want to analyse too closely.

​“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Niko asked lightly, as though he were making idle conversation.

​At first there was nothing but silence, but soon enough, one by one, they started talking. Quietly confessing, each more uncomfortable than the last. Petty things at first—little lies and betrayals—but then deeper darker truths began to surface.

​Niko listened, patiently and amused. Until he chose a man who was in his mid-forties by the look of him, rough hands, shoulders slumped under the weight of his confession. Niko stepped toward him slowly. “You.”

​The man’s head lifted, his expression blank as he waited for Niko’s instruction.

​“Tell me again,” Niko prompted softly.

​And the man did.

​Niko nodded, satisfied. Then without breaking eye contact, “Take this glass. Fill it with your blood.”

​Ailsa’s breath hitched beside me and Niko’s gaze flicked briefly to me before handing the man a knife and glass.

​Niko turned away before it was done, as though it bored him already, returning to us with that same easy, composed expression.

​“Waste not,” he said lightly, reaching for the glass and offering it out to us.

​Ailsa stared at it, then him.

​Then, unexpectedly, she huffed a quiet disbelieving laugh as she shook her head.

​“God,” she muttered. “You’re all completely unhinged.”

​Niko grinned.

​“Remind me to never get on your bad side,” she said, taking the glass from him.

​“Impossible,” he replied easily.

​Their hands brushed.

​Brief but intentional.