He grabbed the polished brass as if it were hot, and he twisted it. It wasn’t locked. The door swung open over thick deep-pile black carpet and revealed a room that was as soullessly luxurious as Cash’s was sparse. There was plenty of personality in the thick oil-painted scenes of the homeland hung on the walls and the heavy cherrywood furniture that tried to make the sprawl of a suite seem small.
It just wasn’t Arkady’s personality.
Or it hadn’t been. He didn’t know Arkady anymore, it just felt like he did. He stepped across the threshold.
“Happy?” he asked
Arkady looked up from his laptop. He was slouched in a dark oxblood armchair that was all bronze studs and high, carved back. A glass of deep red wine sat on the table next to him, and he still sat with one leg hooked over the thin armrest of the chair. His feet were bare, and Cash nearly choked on his own lust.
His own monster squirmed in his bones, distracted and aroused by his arousal. It didn’t want what he did, not exactly, but it was close enough to be hard to separate.
Arkady studied Cash, pale yellow eyes hard to read. “You’re late,” he said.
“The wedding doesn’t start till tomorrow,” Cash pointed out. “Shanko won’t even have stocked your mom’s larder.”
Once it did start, it wouldn’t end until Monday evening. Monsters didn’t gather often. Most of them weren’t social creatures anyhow, and the Prodigium discouraged it. So the few events that did draw them together had to carry a lot of weight. A wedding wasn’t just about two people making a dynastic alliance, it was an opportunity to politick, to gather information, reaffirm old alliances, and give new slights.
Oh, and to be conspicuously richer and more terrible than your neighbor. Always that.
“You aren’t a guest,” Arkady pointed out. He closed the laptop and set it aside so he could stretch out more comfortably. His smile was sharp. “You’re family, if you squint.”
Cash looked around for a place to sit. There was nowhere but the bed, massive enough for five people and unmade, so heknewit would smell of Arkady. It felt like a trap.
“You could have the chair,” Arkady offered lazily as he watched Cash. “If that would help.”
The thought of Arkady in the rumpled bed, all long lines and boneless elegance on silk sheets as they talked, was vivid enough that Cash’s mouth dried. He closed his eyes and slowly let his breath out.
“It really wouldn’t,” Cash said tightly. He sat down on the edge of the bed—it smelled pretty much how he’d imagined, flesh, musk, and the sweet-bitter tang of magic—and tried to ignore Arkady’s smirk. “Yana needs to tell Ellie about this.”
Arkady blinked. “About the Worm?”
“About the wedding,” Cash said. “She’s her mother.”
“And you’re her father,” Arkady said. “I hadn’t forgotten the details of how she was born, even if I have forgivenherfor them.”
Cash pinched the bridge of his nose. He ignored the old argument that wanted to puke out of his throat to be rechewed. Arkady had beenmarriedto someone else, yet Cash was still the one cast as the homewrecker. It wasn’t fair, but it wasn’t relevant either.
“It’s the sort of thing a kid is meant to knowbeforeit happens,” he said. “This man’s going to be her stepdad, and she’s never even met him. Her mom is getting married and doesn’t invite her to the wedding? Her uncle keeps it from her?”
Arkady propped his chin in the palm of his hand, elbow braced on the arm of the chair, and listened patiently. A faint, fond smile curled his mouth. Eventually Cash’s irritation with that elbowed the annoyance about the wedding out of the way.
“What?” he asked.
“I forget sometimes how human you used to be,” Arkady said. “It’s cute.”
“Fuck you.”
Arkady grinned. “You only have to ask.” He ignored Cash’s annoyed splutter and pushed himself easily up out of the chair. “If this marriage meant anything, even you would have heard about it. It’s a sop to Yana’s sentimentality and an excuse to host a gathering, since we haven’t had a birth, a death, or any significant event in years. She’s marrying a nobody, and this wedding means nothing. It’s just an excuse to enjoy my mother’s hospitality and plot against her in front of her face. If Ellie is upset, I’ll explain that to her.”
“Sure,” Cash said dryly. “Because the cold politics of romance is what a kid who kisses her picture of Shawn Mendes good night will find comforting.”
“One day she’ll marry for power,” Arkady pointed out. “She needs to get used to the idea.”
“No,” Cash said flatly. “She won’t.”
Arkady shrugged. “It’s years away,” he admitted. “We can discuss the details then.”
“No,” Cash repeated.
