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Lucien notices. But he doesn’t say anything.

“Okay.” I wrap my arms around myself. “So he’ll come here. He’ll try to take me. We’ll fight him⁠—”

“No.” The word comes out sharp. Lucien stands, paces to the sideboard, plants his hands on it. “That’s what I need you to understand. Nix isn’t after a fight. Not with you.” He turns to face me. “The danger isn’t that he’ll fight us, Luna. The danger is that he’ll make you want to say yes to his version of the future.”

“The version where humans are extinct and vampires rule the world?” I almost laugh. “No, thank you.”

But Lucien isn’t laughing. “Nix is the most persuasive creature I have ever known. Being wanted by him feels like standing in sunlight.” He rolls his tongue around his mouth. “I would know.”

There’s something in the way he says it.

I study his face – the tension in his jaw, the way his gaze slides away from mine – and a suspicion blooms in my stomach that is absolutely none of my business and that I am absolutely going to ask about anyway. Even though there are much bigger things we should be talking about.

“Lucien.” I tilt my head. “Did you and Nix…?”

He stares at me.

“Did you ever fuck?”

“Yes,” he says. Quickly. No tip-toeing around it.

Heat floods my face. I stand up, pace away from him, scrape my fingers through my curls. I tug the hem of my top down over my hips as if that will do anything about the flush climbing my throat, the sudden, ridiculous pressure low in my belly.

I should be jealous. Or scandalised. Or something sensible.

Instead, my brain is producing images in high definition, and my body is responding to every single one of them.

When I turn back around, Lucien is watching me. The exhaustion hasn’t left his face, but something else has joined it – that focused, unhurried attention that makes me feel like the only thing in the room.

“Does that turn you on?” he asks.

I nod.

His mouth curves. Not quite a smile. “You are full of surprises tonight, kitten.”

“You have no idea.” I take a breath. Because we’re here now, aren’t we? The door is open, and if I don’t walk through it, I’ll lose my nerve, and the guilt will keep rising until the shadows swallow the whole house. “Can I ask you something? And you have to actually answer, not do the thing where you go quiet and mysterious and pour a drink.”

“I make no promises about the drink.”

“Would you ever—” I stop. Start again. “Would you ever consider being with me and another man? At the same time?”

Lucien laughs. “I’m not sure how we came to be talking about this instead of⁠—”

He stops.

“Why, Luna,” he says, eyes narrowing, leaning back against the sideboard and folding his arms, “do you have someone in mind?”

He’s teasing. He is fully, completely teasing me. He expects me to blush and stammer and say, No, of course not. It was hypothetical.

“Yes.” I keep my chin tilted up and my shoulders back.

The amusement drops from Lucien’s face.

“Kim.” My heart is slamming against my ribs. The shadows in the corners are pulsing. “Tonight, while you were gone, we were talking, and we kissed. It was a few seconds. I stopped it. He stopped it. We both did.” The words are tumbling now, too fast. “But it happened, and I’ve been sitting in this room half the night waiting to tell you because I never want to keep secrets from you and I’m sorry for doing it behind your back.” I inhale deeply and attempt a smile. “I’d much rather do it in front of you.”

Some old, deep part of me – the part built by Steven, and before him by my father – is already flinching. Waiting for the raised voice. The whitened knuckles. The look.

But another part feels like, actually, Lucien is going to find this a turn-on. Not a betrayal. A huge fucking turn-on.