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While hidden in the trees, I watch the Bolton house glow from within. Light spills from the kitchen windows, staged and inviting, meant to make people believe goodness lives inside.

I know better.

I can see Zaiya clearly, her pale shape moving through the room, cleaning up after dinner as if she’s the help.

Evelyn circles her with calculated tenderness, always finding an excuse to touch. Fingers smoothing her hair. A hand at the center of her back. An adjustment to her sleeve that lasts a little too long.

She touches what’s mine with obscene entitlement, and Zaiya lets her.

Evelyn says something that makes Zaiya smile, and the sight twists a blade into my chest. She’s being absorbed into their little domestic performance, softened under their oppressive warmth. Evelyn treats her like a stray dog primped for display.

How generous.

Across the room, Calista stands stiffly, resentment plain on her face as she stares at them through narrow eyes. Good. Let it fester. Zaiya doesn’t belong in that house, and that girl might be the only one who knows it.

There’s something off about the Boltons. Not the obvious wrongness of someone like me. Mine has elegance. Theirs is scrubbed clean under their holiness.

Even the last reverend didn’t feign piety. He scared off every boy who came to see his daughter with a shotgun, and he wasn’t afraid to use it.

Maybe that’s why his daughter slit her wrists in a bathtub.

Purity paints a target on your back here. Sooner or later, something sinful always stretches out a hand.

I stay where I am in the trees, letting the minutes stack up as I watch Zaiya move through their house like she’s trying not to leave fingerprints.

Order business can wait. Ophidia can explode for all I care.

I am here because she is here.

Because she became the reason the future looks less like a coffin and more like a door.

The lights turn off throughout the house one by one until everything goes still.

Then her bedroom window slides open.

I straighten, concealing myself in the darkness.

She climbs out with careful urgency, the hem of her dress sliding way too high before she drops onto the grass. She moves fast, staying low, circling around to the front where Calista waits with irritation carved onto her face. Calista starts walking before Zaiya fully catches up, forcing her to hurry to keep pace. Whatever argument Zaiya used to get herself invited, Calista clearly regrets agreeing to it.

Keeping my distance, I follow as they head towards a car idling at the curb.

I know exactly where they’re going.

And tonight, with the Order in town and hunger thick in the air, that is the most dangerous place she could be.

CHAPTER 26

EDWIN

The club is alive when I step inside. For a midweek night, Ophidia is thriving. Not so slow when the Serpents are around. Sin follows a schedule here.

I push through the crowd, forcing people to part for me. They’re learning the habit when they see me coming. Right now I don’t care about any of them.

The mere thought of Zaiya sends blood rushing to my cock. The way she looks when she’s overwhelmed. The way she tries to hide it. She doesn’t understand yet what that innocence does to men like me.

I need to claim her before every pair of eyes in the Order sees her spread open as something to sample.

I scan the room. The Serpents are everywhere, though most of the patrons would never know it. Men with polished manners and dirty interests.