Page 48 of Godless Saints

Vivienne would notice immediately. Sawyer would start a war. And Cillian. He’d lose his mind when he saw these.

Day one. He’d held the Blood Writ from the beginning. Was none of it real?

My thumb tapped the screen. I opened our last message thread, breathing hard through my nose.

I can’t believe I fell for Saint Lucia.

Fell for. No. Absolutely not.

Deleted before my thumb even finished. Pathetic. I was fucking pathetic.

I tried again.

How long were you planning to use the Writ as an excuse to…

To touch me again. To pin me. To make me desperate enough to forget what he was. Breath caught halfway down. Jaw burning. The same humiliating need I couldn’t kill.

Deleted.

His last message still waited there, mocking.

Still hiding, prince?

No. I wouldn’t hide. Wouldn’t indulge that manipulative Irish bastard anymore. I locked the screen and shoved the phone deep into my pocket. Fuck him. Let the silence choke him the way he had choked me. Let him refresh and wonder.

The Writ. Saint Lucia. Declan’s hands. All of it could rot behind my teeth. I was done feeding him pieces of me.

The courtyard was quieter now, the low afternoon light turning everything gold. I kept my hood up. The cut on my lip had stopped bleeding, but the bruise along my jaw throbbed. I could still taste blood.

Zara was already waiting under the colonnade. The second she saw me she straightened. Her eyes narrowed.

“Hyun.”

I stopped a few feet away. “You wanted to talk.”

“Who did this to you?” Her voice was low.

“Don’t worry about it.” I adjusted the hood, keeping my face half-shadowed. “Just a fight. It’s handled.”

“That is never true when men say it.” She stepped closer. Her gaze flicked over the visible bruise, the split lip. “This isn’t you, Hyun. Not the version I knew in high school. You didn’t show up to galas with split lips and bruises.”

I gave her a dry smile that pulled at the cut. “People change.”

Zara studied me, then she exhaled, sharp. “I don’t like this anymore. The Gallery is buzzing with questions about whether I know my boyfriend is letting Cillian Ashbourne touch him like that in public. My friends. People whose opinions actually matter.” Her voice stayed quiet, fury simmering beneath it. “You promised me optics, Hyun. Not this.”

I met her eyes. “We are not actually together.”

“Publicly we are. That was the entire point.” She gestured between us, cool disdain flicking over my split lip. “Showing up bleeding after one of Ashbourne’s pets got his hands on you? Terrible look, darling. For both of us.”

I swallowed. The bruises on my throat pulled. “Fine. It’s over, then. Cillian and I are done, anyway.”

Zara’s expression shifted. “What happened with Ashbourne?”

“Nothing.” I looked past her, at the ivy climbing the stone. “Nothing worth discussing.”

She didn’t push. Instead she reached out, cool fingers catching my chin just long enough to tilt my face into the light. “You’re bleeding again.”

“It’s just a cut.”