Ares told me that Ophelia had tried to talk him into leaving me. He’d said hell no.
She couldn’t talk him into that.
But what did she talk him into doing after, and how did she make him forget it?
I stalk across the street, barely dodging the traffic. Two different cars honk at me, but I don’t even look in their direction. My eyes stay fixed on the building ahead of me. My fingers clasp around the door, yanking it open. I crack the button to call the elevator as I slam it. Heat is practically radiating off me as I rise to the nineteenth floor.
I know she’s home. As I step in front of her door, I can hear her moving inside. I smell her perfume before I even touch the door handle—a sharp, floral scent that always seemed too sweet for who she really is.
And I don’t bother knocking. I twist the doorknob, easily breaking it when it’s locked, and shove it open.
Ophelia yelps from her kitchen, where she’s seated at the bar, eating breakfast. She backs away in a hurry, tipping the barstool over.
“Lana?” she barks in fear and annoyance. “What the hell?”
“What the hell indeed,” I snarl as I step inside. I shove the door closed behind me and stalk across the space, stopping just three feet away. “Did you know you can do this? That you could twist and manipulate him?”
But she doesn’t answer immediately. When I zero in on her, her eyes are searching me in confusion.
She sees it.
She doesn’t know what she’s seeing, but she knows something is wrong. Her eyes flicker over me, trying to pinpoint what’s changed. I watch the way her breath hitches, the way her pulse jumps at her throat. I don’t speak. I don’t have to.
I close the door behind me.
"Did you always know?" I demand again, my voice low, measured.
Her eyes don’t meet mine, they continue studying me. "Know what?"
I take a slow step forward. "That you can influence people. That you can make them do things."
A beat of silence hits as heavy as an anvil. She blinks, too fast, and finally, her eyes meet mine. "What are you even talking about?"
I canhearher heart hammering. I cansmellthe adrenaline rolling off her in waves. My anger stirs deep in my chest, curling like a living thing.
"Don’t play dumb with me, Ophelia," I say. "You’ve always had a way of getting what you want, haven’t you? The job, the apartment, the favors—people justlistento you, don’t they?"
She swallows, the look in her eyes shifting to steel. "That’s just called being persuasive."
"No, it’s not," I say, voice sharp. "Ares hasn’t been acting like himself for a week. We don’t know what he’s been doing.Do you?"
Her face drains of color.
She knows.
Her fingers twitch at her sides. I take another step forward, slow and deliberate. She instinctively takes one back.
"Ares came home with blood on his hands." My voice is quiet, but each word is razor-sharp. "We’ve been getting reports.Vampires in this city—dead. Did you make him do it, Ophelia?" The last few words come out as an accusatory whisper.
Her mouth opens, then snaps shut.
The silence is deafening.
My nails bite into my palms. The anger is rising now, swelling in my chest, pushing at the edges of my control. Anewkind of anger—deep, instinctual, edged with hunger. It’s not just fury. It’spredatory.
She sees it. She feels it.
And something new stirs inside of me. My nostrils flare as her scent hits me. Not the scent of her perfume. Not her laundry detergent. Not her shampoo.
