“Room.”
He looks up at me. Whatever he sees in my face makes him set the fork down carefully and follows me down the hall.
The moment we get inside my room, my eyes widen a fraction. Oisín steps toward my bed and then kneels near the foot of the bed with his hands on his thighs and his head slightly bowed, curls falling forward enough to shadow his face. It isn’t pretty in the polished, performative way some people make submission into theater. He chose the floor before I put him there, and now I have to stand over a man who keeps giving me things I don’t ask for and pretend it isn’t something I want.
“Is this an apology for last night?”
His fingers press into his thighs. “I don’t know.”
I step closer, and he tips his head back slowly. His eyes are tired and wary, still carrying the bruise of whatever Varina said to him. I can work around lies. I can break through deflection. This quiet, wounded honesty is harder because it makes me want to touch him before I know whether I’m reaching to comfort or control.
“What did she say to you?”
His mouth tightens at the corner. Varina cut him somewhere soft, and he has spent a day hiding the blood.
I thread my fingers into his curls, his lashes fluttering in response. The reaction should satisfy me, and part of it does, but my hand starts to shake before I can turn the satisfaction into anything useful, a tremor small enough that most people would miss it.
Fuck.I drag my hand back to my side, Oisín’s gaze lifting to my hand, then my face. “She wanted to talk,” he mumbles as his shoulders rise with a slow breath. “I don’t think my family is using this as an alliance. Not really. Varina was supposedto marry you because Canon wanted her close enough to learn Obsidian from the inside. Routes, people, pressure points. XR3, if she could get near it.”
There it is.
The shape of the knife.
I suspected it from the beginning because Canon Ward is too proud to crawl unless the crawl brings him close enough to bite. Varina always looked more like a blade than a bride. What matters is Oisín saying it out loud, kneeling at my feet while he hands me the truth his sister wanted him to hide.
“What did she ask from you?”
He swallows. “Names. Doors. Trust. Anything I could notice without looking like I was noticing.”
“That all?”
“Not forever.”
My gaze narrows at him, wondering how deep this goes or if it’s truly just that simple. Slowly, I fold my arms across my chest. “And what are you using this for?”
He looks up quickly. “What?”
“The alliance. Obsidian. Me. What are you using it for?”
Oisín hesitates for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“I don’t know,” he says again, quieter. “I’m not trying to take anything from you. I’m not trying to help Canon. I’m not trying to hurt Varina. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
For one stupid second, I want him to say he’s staying for me.
The thought is pathetic enough to make me angry. He’s been in my life for days. I put him in my bed because the contract let me and because I wanted him badly enough to turn strategy into excuse. We come from clubs built to eat each other alive. He owes me nothing, and I haven’t given him anything to ask for that kind of answer.
I point to the bed. “Get up.”
He rises carefully, and crosses to the mattress. I remove my cut, rings, and boots, Oisín watching each piece go with his hands braced beside him as the room loses armor one layer at a time. He expects force because force is what I’ve given him since the beginning. He knows how to meet force. Tonight, I want something else from him.
“This isn’t forgiveness,” I tell him.
“I know.”
“You lie again, and last night will look generous.”
