Page 28

I like that he stays.

Close enough now to feel the heat of him. I watch his throat work as he swallows around whatever this is doing to him. His breathing has gone shallow. The band at his wrist flickers amber before my gaze drags back to his face.

I lift a hand and drag my fingers slowly through the hair at his temple. The soft pale strands catch over my knuckles. He shivers hard enough the note almost breaks. The sound stirs something low in my chest I decide to file away for later.

He keeps playing anyway. Jaw tight, bow steady.

I lean in until my mouth grazes the shell of his ear.

“That’s it. Give me all of it.”

His breath stutters, but he plays on, hands precise, his whole body lit with the effort of holding himself together. I hold my ground. I let him feel exactly how little room I’ve left him. Let him wonder what I’ll do with all that control the second it slips.

“There’s a secret in the way you play, Rowan. I’m going to enjoy taking you apart until I’ve heard all of it.”

The bow goes still.

For a second I think I’ve pushed too far. That he’ll bolt after all. Instead he turns his head, close enough now that I feel his breath catch, and meets my eyes.

“Then you’ll be waiting a while.” His voice shakes. He says it anyway. “I don’t come apart for people who corner me in the dark.”

Something in my chest sharpens to a point. There it is. The spine under all that flinching.

“We’ll see, pretty musician.” I straighten. Let the silence stretch a beat too long. “Careful. Don’t go wandering off where I can’t keep an eye on you.”

He holds his silence this time. Just grips the Noctis against his body, jaw set, done handing me anything else.

I hold his gaze one last second and smile just enough to make it worse. “Thank you for playing for me. Goodnight.”

Then I leave him there with the silence, the instrument, and whatever the hell his heart is doing now.

Upstairs, the party is loud enough to shake the floor. I take the steps slow. The shiver that ran through him when I touched his hair comes up them with me. The amber flash at his wrist. The sound of him trying to play through it.

It means nothing, of course. He’s a job.

A pretty one.

But a job, regardless.

Dad said to watch him.

He never said what to do once I started enjoying it.

5

CIARAN

Twenty-four hours later, the smell of sweat and alcohol welcomes me back to the Undercrypt, the fight ring buried beneath the Black Chapel.

We like hanging out here and watching other people get beaten to a pulp. So? Call me a sadist, I don’t care. Sometimes I’m the reason the floor needs cleaning.

Most people know the Black Chapel for the cards, the liquor, and the kind of money that changes hands without anyone raising their voice. The Undercrypt is where those evenings end when somebody loses.

The crowd is already pressed against the rail when I get downstairs. Rafe is in the pit, living out his lifelong love affair with violence while everyone keeps calling me the psycho.

I stop at the edge of the marked stone, press my shoulder against the iron rail, and look down just as he slips a hit that should’ve taken his jaw off. “Five says he drops him in under thirty.” I glance sideways at Lucan. “Speaking of bad decisions, how did that poor guy escape your clutches last night?”

Lucan snorts into his drink. “Fuck off. His name is Damaris.”