Her mouth tightens.“And your second?”
I inhale slowly.My beast claws at the inside of my ribs.He doesn’t want second thoughts.He wants me to take her upstairs, lock the door, stand guard, and let the rest of the world tear itself apart.
But she asked for more than my reaction.She asked me to try.
“My second,” I say, each word dragged out of me like bone, “is that if you go, I go with you.”
Her expression shifts.Not victory.Not relief.Something softer and more dangerous.
“That sounds like a condition.”
“It is.”Once more, I remain honest.
“I don’t like conditions.”
“I don’t like breathing while you walk into a blood club.”
Ari makes a choked sound somewhere behind us.“Goddess, you two are exhausting.”
Briana ignores her, eyes still on mine.“I won’t be controlled.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”She tilts her head as she asks the question.
The same question everyone keeps throwing at me.This time, I deserve it.
“No,” I admit.“But I’m learning.”
Her lips part.For a second, the air between us changes.Warmer.Thicker.My gaze drops to her mouth before I can stop it.Her breath catches, and my beast presses forward, not in rage this time.In want.In recognition.In something that makes my skin feel too tight, and my hands ache to cup her face.
I step back.
Her eyes narrow, not in anger.In confusion, before she can ask the question forming on her face, Aldron speaks.
“We need a plan.”
The moment breaks.I am both grateful and furious.
Over the next hour, The Gin Room becomes a war room.Aldron spreads old blueprints of The Marrow House across the bar.The theater sits above three basement levels, two of which aren’t on city records.Of course.Monsters love underground rooms.Makes the screaming harder to hear.
Krishka marks possible ward points in black ink.Akasha adds gold symbols beside them, her brow furrowed in concentration.Malichai studies the exits with the cold attention of a dragon deciding where bodies will fall.Ari perches beside him, pretending not to worry while worrying loudly enough for everyone to feel it.
Cruz and I memorize every hall.Every door.Every choke point.
Briana stands on the other side of the bar, watching, listening, saying nothing for too long.That worries me more than her anger.
Finally, she taps a place on the blueprint near the second basement.“There.”
Everyone looks.She keeps her finger on the paper.“That hallway.Or something like it.I remember the floor sloping.Red velvet on the walls, but the floor was concrete underneath.Someone tripped and cursed because the carpet had pulled up near a drain.”
Aldron leans closer.“A drain?”
“Yes.”Her voice stays steady.“There were drains in the rooms too.”
My hands curl.Briana doesn’t look at me.Maybe she knows what she’ll see.
Aldron circles the area.“This level was used for dressing rooms when the theater was active.If Lucius converted it...”
