“No.” I moved beside him. “I think you are better than me. Better than this world deserves.”
“I'm not better. I'm just tired of death.” He looked at me. “Toomany people have died already. If we can save one. Just one. Maybe that means something.”
“Maybe it does.”
“Or maybe I just condemned us both by letting him live.”
“Then we deal with it. Together.”
His hand found mine. Laced our fingers together. Both of us still covered in Thomas Miller's blood. Both of us hoping mercy wouldn't be the thing that killed us.
“Let's go,” Sebastian said. “We're done here.”
We left the farmhouse behind. Rode back through rain and darkness. Toward the palace. Toward whatever came next.
But for once, we rode knowing we'd chosen something other than violence.
And maybe that mattered.
Maybe it was enough.
19
VELVET AND GUNFIRE
SEBASTIAN
The mirror didn't lie. I'd made sure of that years ago when I'd stopped trusting anything else.
Lamplight caught the gold thread in my formal jacket, the kind of tailoring that cost more than most people made in six months. Velvet lapels. Silk lining. Every stitch measured and deliberate and suffocating. My hands moved on autopilot, adjusting cufflinks that didn't need adjusting, straightening a collar that was already perfect.
The opera gala. Of course it was an opera gala. Because what said “we're fine, everything's normal” better than watching tragic love stories play out on stage while pretending you weren't living one yourself?
I ran my fingers through my hair for the third time. Still looked like I'd just rolled out of bed, despite twenty minutes of trying to tame it into something respectable. The scar along my temple had finally faded enough that makeup could hide it. The bruises from last week's “training accident” were gone. The split knuckles had healed.
All evidence erased. All lies maintained.
Perfect prince. Perfect smile. Perfect mask.
I looked at my reflection and saw a stranger wearing my face.
The door opened behind me. No knock. He never knocked anymore.
Viktor stepped into my dressing room like he owned the space, and something in my chest went tight at the sight of him. Black formal suit, tailored to his frame with the same ruthless attention to detail as my own. The jacket fit his shoulders like it had been poured on, concealing the holster I knew was there, the knife strapped to his ribs, all the violence he carried like breathing.
His hair was slicked back. Clean-shaven. The scar above his eyebrow was visible tonight, a thin line of silver against tanned skin. His steel-grey eyes found mine in the mirror, and for a second neither of us moved.
He looked... dangerous. Not in the way he usually did, all controlled threat and coiled muscle. This was different. Polished. Refined. Like someone had taken a wolf and dressed it in silk and somehow made it more lethal, not less.
“You clean up well,” I said.
His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. “You look dangerous.”
I turned from the mirror, facing him properly. He'd stopped just inside the doorway, like he was waiting for permission to come closer. Like we hadn't spent the last three months in each other's pockets, breathing the same air, learning the rhythm of each other's movements.
“Dangerous,” I repeated. “That's what you're going with?”
“Da.” His accent thickened slightly, the way it did when he was trying not to say something. “Is accurate.”
