“Then why?—”
“Because wecannottrust them.” His grip on her face became firmer, more insistent. “Any of them. Not Ebiti, not the Iltanis, not a single fae in this moons-forsaken place. They are not your people anymore, little murderer. They haven’t been for a long time.”
She knew her expression had gone hard. “And whose fault is that?”
“I know.” He showed no remorse. “And I won’t apologize.”
She nodded slowly. She didn’t expect him to be sorry. Didn’t want him to be, if she was honest with herself.
“The fae aren’t your people,” he continued, his thumbs still tracing patterns on her skin. “And the Nostroms are no longer mine. They never have been.”
They werebothoutcasts now, exiled from the families and peoples that had shaped them. Alone except for each other. And maybe that had always been the case. It just had taken them both eighty years to realize it.
“It’s us against the world, Nadi.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “We will have nothing unless we take it together. Just you and me and whatever we can carve out of this mess with our bare hands.”
She closed her eyes, leaning into his touch. The warmth of his palms against her cheeks was the only real comfort in this cold, metal box they’d been given. “That’s a terrifying way to live.”
“It’s the only way.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “But we will survive, little murderer. We’ll take what we want, destroy what stands in our way, and build something new from the ashes of the old world.”
“Something with you ruling it.”
“Something withusruling it,” he corrected.
She opened her eyes to find him watching her with an intensity that made her breath catch. There was love in his gaze, yes, but also something darker. A possessiveness that should have frightened her but, instead, made her feel anchored, and strangely claimed in a way that…should have alarmed her, but didn’t.
“The others won’t understand,” she said. “When they realize what you really are, what you really want…”
“It will be too late.” His smile was all predator. “But until then, we play our parts. We give them what they need to hear, take what we need from them, and position ourselves for whatever comes next.”
“And if they find out you’re lying?”
“Then I’ll kill everyone in this warehouse except you and walk away.” He said it so casually, as if discussing plans for dinner. “But I don’t think it will come to that. People have a remarkable capacity for believing what they want to believe.”
He was discussing the mass murder of her people. It twisted something in her. She knew he was right—but the fae were her people. Theyhadto be.
Eighty years. Eighty years of her life she had spent waiting to get revenge on his family. In return for all that the vampires had done to the fae.
What she had found in the fae was broken. Fractured. But she’d only just met two small groups—she couldn’t judge them all by that tiny portion alone. There had to be more pockets that were like what she remembered from her childhood. That kept the old ways like what her mother had taught her.
“You really think we can do this?” she asked. “Take on both our families, unite the fae, and claim the city?”
“I think we can do anything.” His hands moved to her hair, fingers tangling in the dark strands. “Together, we’re stronger than any force they can bring against us. Apart…” He shrugged. “Apart, we’re just two broken souls with nothing left.”
His touch drew her in. There was nothing she could do to fight it. She placed her bowl aside as he pulled her close, drawing her into his arms.
Setting her conflict aside, she let herself find comfort in him. The Serpent. Raziel Nostrom.HerSerpent. They might become enemies again before long…but for now? For now, he was the vampire she had fallen in love with. “Together it is, then.”
“Together.” He kissed her.
It was soft at first, gentle in a way that spoke of the genuine affection beneath all the manipulation and violence. But it deepened quickly, becoming something hungrier, more desperate. As if they were both trying to anchor themselves to each other in a world that had proven utterly unreliable.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, she could see her own determination reflected in his crimson eyes. “Tomorrow night, we start taking back what’s ours. But tonight…I take what is alreadymine.”
The words lingered between them, a promise and a threat wrapped in one moment. When Nadi pulled back slightly, her breath still mingled with his, she could see that the predatory gleam in Raziel’s crimson eyes had softened into somethingmore complex—hunger, yes, but also a tenderness that should have been impossible for a creature like him.
“You’re thinking too much,” he murmured against her lips, his hands still tangled in her hair. “I can practically hear it.”
She was. She was thinking about the fae sleeping in rooms just down the corridor, about all the lies they’d both told in their lives to get here, about the empire he wanted to build on the bones of both their peoples. But when he looked at her like that, when his touch made her skin feel like it was on fire, those thoughts became distant whispers.
