Home was with him. With Nigel Grimm.
Wherever he was, that, Luna knew, was where she was meant to be also.
And she needed to tell him so. Now. Before it was too late.
Dragging a breath through her nostrils, Luna opened her eyes, stared at her reflection again. Her fingers tightened around the porcelain sink. Finally, with a firm nod of her head, she wrenched away, fumbled to get the bathroom latch unfastened, and threw open the door.
The dim light from the bathroom fell into the dark passage and revealed two figures standing there. At first, Luna’s eyes, confused by the strangeness of low light and dark shadows, thought perhaps a queue had formed up, awaiting their turn for the loo. But . . . no. The dim figures in front of her were far too vigorous. Moaning and grappling in a way that was hard to mistake.
Luna’s eyes widened in surprise. She took a step back, quite certain she should not be privy to such an intimate moment. In stepping back, however, she allowed more light to fall, and it illuminated a head of magenta-dyed hair.
Bryony.
Clad in a tight gold gown.
Her back pressed against the wall, her little sleeve fallen down one plump arm.
Her leg hiked up so that the split opened wide, exposing the entire length of her leg and the masculine hand gripping the patch of bare skin above a lacy garter. Her head thrown back, herbright curls snarled in the grip of tight fingers, her mouth open in an O of bliss, while her companion’s mouth found its way along her neck and shoulder and—
At Luna’s gasp, they both seemed to become aware of her. Bryony’s eyes fluttered open, and she grinned. “Oh, hullo, Lunaloo!”
The man’s head yanked back, turned. Pale hair fell across his forehead.
And Luna found herself standing face-to-face with her employer.
A bolt of pure frost shot through every vein of Nigel’s body.
Some distant part of his brain heard Bryony’s voice, speaking through a sultry giggle:“Oh, hullo, Lunaloo! I seem to have popped a button. Mr. Grimm here was just helping me . . . find it.”
But that didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. Nothing about this moment, this situation, this place in which he stood . . . he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Blinking hard, he gave his head a sharp shake, trying to push whatever this reality was back into the strange dimensions in which it belonged. To return to a space in which he could move and breathe and function once more.
What had happened?
Oh gods, what had happened?
One moment, he was on the dance floor, staring at Ward kissing Luna. Kissing her hard, his arms wrapped around her, his mouth angled over hers in possessive command as he crushed her to him. A kiss that lasted for a thousand heartbeats,while Nigel stood in rigid shock, unable to accept that what he saw was real, was true.
Reality seemed to blacken on the edges. A weird mingling of the alcohol he’d imbibed and the darkness which always lurked in the depths of his wicked soul rose up from his gut. His hands moved, and were he not bound solemnly by the Sovereign Troth, he may have done something dire indeed. Something unforgiveable. Gone to a place of sin and degeneracy from which his broken heart could never return.
The next moment, however, he’d found himself staggering, stumbling. Falling over his feet behind a laughing image in gold. A woman with red hair—red hair? Jastira? No, because she was dead. Wasn’t she?
Shadows surrounded him, thick and pulsing and halfway alive. Hands gripped his lapels, dragging him into a round and eager body. His throbbing ears seemed to hear two voices simultaneously.
“Come on, Mr. Grimm!”said one voice in a high trill that made him wince.“We need to loosen you up. There’s something fiery in the center of you, I can tell, if you’ll just let it out!”
While the other voice was deeper, a throaty growl brimming with command:I will unleash your power upon the worlds. But you must give yourself to me, completely.
Suddenly he was that young man again. Perhaps he’d never stopped being that young man—frustrated, small-minded, power-hungry. Seeking only to grab and grasp and take and destroy. That young man who lapped up Jastira’s promises and never thought to question the price she demanded.
He reached out. Took hold of the woman in front of him, just as he’d taken hold of Jastira. In his mind itwasJastira. And he was an idiot, and this was that same old mistake, and time was folded and compressed on top of itself. He kissed her—fiercely, furiously, with an anger only matched by his greed. And theblack fire which roared to life inside him was so hot, it would surely hollow out his very core and leave him a smoking ruin, even as it had before.
He pushed her up against the wall. She yelped, but her mouth was enthusiastic against his. Her leg wrapped around his waist, and his hand found her knee, slid up to her garter and on to her naked thigh. His lips moved from her mouth to her throat, and she giggled in a voice that didn’t sound like Jastira at all:“Oh, Mr. Grimm! How bad you are!”
But Jastira’s voice was there as well, deep and smoldering:Let it out. Let the darkness flow freely in you. I want your darkness, I want your pain!
It was all pain. All wrongness and hurt and anger and agony. But he desired it. In that moment, it was everything he craved.
And then the bathroom door opened.
