“Iris,” I say carefully, unable to stop staring at the darkness twisting within her, “you shouldn’t be here. It’s wrong.”
She shifts slowly onto one elbow, her free hand drifting down her navel and between her legs in a lazy caress that feels more provocative because of how deliberate it is.
“That never stopped you before. Believe me, you love to play with this body,” she says.
Some traitorous, fractured part of my brain can almost picture it, and that horrifies me more than the ambush itself. The bedroom suddenly feels too small. Too crowded with furniture and memories that don't belong to me.
The shame of it burns.
For one terrible second, I can taste how easy it would be to fall backward into whatever Ezra used to be. I’m standing in the middle of someone else’s life wearing his skin, surrounded by ruins I don’t feel connected to but somehow still recognize.
It makes me feel unclean.
Disloyal.
Like I’m betraying Max just by standing here.
“I love Max.”
Iris slumps to her back with an eye roll. “Love?” she scoffs.
“Yes,” I croak. “I love her. I don’t know what happened with us before, but I’m loyal to Max, now.”
A grimace twists her mouth. “You’re not the Ezra I remember.”
The shift is so abrupt, it takes me a second to process it. One moment she's hurt, and the next she's furious.
She leaps off the bed and stalks toward me, two black daggers flaring to life in her palms.
I raise my hands in front of me. “Iris, please.”
Shadows pulse around her small frame. “No. You don't get to say my name like that, like you remember who I am, and who I was to you. I loved you, Ezra. I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anyone else. And much,muchmore than you loved me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” she huffs, pointing one of her shadow blades right at my Adam’s apple, which is impressive considering she can’t see me. “Well, if you don’t want to fuck, we’re going to have to play another game. I call this one: Remember When You Killed Me?”
My stomach drops. “What?”
“Youkilledme.” A flash of genuine grief cracks her anger. “And you don't even remember doing it.”
It feels horrifyingly intimate to be hunted by a woman who looks at me with equal parts fury and heartbreak.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I say quickly, but Iris lunges, and despite my invisibility, she tracks me frighteningly well.
She strikes, and the dagger passes inches from my throat.
I barely evade it, and her head tilts, probably listening for the scrape of my bare feet against the marble and the sounds of my rattled breaths.
Another attack follows, faster than the first.
This time, her blade draws a sharp sting through my pectoral muscle. Just a scratch, judging by the pain, but enough to tell me she’s not going to hold back.
“Enough,” I snap.
A smile stretches her lips. “You used to be better at this.”
She comes at me again, vicious now, and slices my shoulder and neck, deep enough for blood to stream down my chest.
