“The bride will burn,” I murmur, repeating the threat Kon told me about.
My breath fogs the glass, and I draw a tiny scythe in the moisture before wiping it away. “Come try me, bitch. But you better bring matches.”
I turn and freeze. Elara stands just beyond the lamp’s reach, her feet whispering along the floor. If I look straight at her, her shape and features blur, but if I look sideways, she snaps into focus with a ferocity that makes my eyes water.
“You’re not my ghost,” I murmur, “but you belong to this house, don’t you?”
The veil between the dead and the living ripples and my bond stirs with it as if it recognizes another kind of tether.
“Did you love someone who was a monster, too? Or did you become one to survive them?”
The temperature rises then drops, the same as her shoulders. A draft lifts a page then sets it flat again. A faint rust stain marks the blotter.
“Fine,” I say softly. “You can stay. Stick around. But don’t try to cage me or hurt me. I’m not here to harm you in any way.”
Her ribbon stirs as if in a wind that doesn’t exist, smoke curls around her, and then she’s gone.
The bond tightens right before Konstantin fills the doorway, a black silhouette against the dim light. Black briefs hug his hips, not hiding anything from my view, and his inked chest ripples as he folds his arms across his chest.
“Lisichka,” he rasps.
He crosses the room unhurried, wrapping me in arms that feel like the only real thing in this world of shadows. His warmth seeps into my skin, chasing away the cold that’s settled deep in my bones.
“Come to bed,” he murmurs, his mouth close enough for me to taste the words. “I can’t sleep without you.”
The line hits harder than it should. This isn’t swooning—this is gravity pulling me down.
My palm settles against his ribs. “Bossy.”
“Hungry,” he replies.
“Both,” I allow.
His laugh breathes into my hair as he pulls me tighter to him. His woodsy scent wraps around me reminding me of my favorite season. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat is a fragile anchor.
In the hall, Konstantin kisses my shoulder through the strap of silk, a reverent, ruinous press of mouth that says I am not a thing that can be protected from everything but he loves me anyway.
Sleep comes at last with a bogeyman’s heartbeat against my spine and ghosts watching over us with a promise that I’ll never walk these halls alone.
twenty-six
Cressida
Thecityfeelslikethe air’s been stretched too tight and is one wrong breath away from splitting.
Maybe it’s me.
Maybe it’s her.
Giselda’s shadow doesn’t loom anymore. Now, that bitch breathes down my neck. And the bond won’t stop pacing, like it knows something wicked is inching closer with a smile full of teeth.
Konstantin thinks iron gates and Bratva muscle are enough to keep me safe. That our house, with its history of blood-soaked walls and legacy ghosts, is a fortress. That he can shoulder the war while I sit behind locked doors like a fairytale footnote. But I can feel her trying to get through the cracks, in the heat behind my eyes, in the copper tang that coats my tongue when the wind shifts wrong. And in the fucking pressure every time she tries to dig her claws into my head. It’s almost terrifying how easy it would be if I weren’t someone stronger.
Giselda is coming.
And I’m not about to play the princess in a tower while someone else writes the last page of my story.
So, tonight, I’m metaphorically lifting my middle finger in the air as we attend some overblown mafia gala thrown by an arms broker whose last name I don’t even remember.
