The exchange would be amusing if I weren’t currently processing the reality that Roxy just proved herself invaluable to club operations in front of every brother who’s been questioning why she’s still breathing. She’s not just useful anymore. This woman is an asset, someone whose skills could save us millions in legal complications and smuggling risks if we can keep her alive long enough to exploit them.
And that creates an entirely new category of problems.
“We should ask the witch if we can keep her!” Flux says the words everyone’s thinking, but nobody else dares to voice. “Seriously, she’s smart, capable, already knows enough about our operations that killing her serves no purpose except satisfying outdated laws. If the witch has any flexibility at all—”
“She doesn’t.” My voice cuts through the speculation with glacial finality. “The laws are absolute. Humans who breach our world don’t get exceptions just because they’re useful, interesting, or capable of finding legal loopholes in federal legislation.” But even as I say it, my eyes find Roxy’s, and something passes between us that every brother witnesses—heat, yearning, the chemistry that’s been building since that kiss this morning, since I told her about the villages, since she looked at my worst self and called me miserable instead of monstrous.
Desire.
Mutual, undeniable, and absolutely forbidden by every law that governs the supernatural world.
Scar catches it. Of course, he does. Nothing escapes his attention after five centuries of reading people and situations with predatory precision. His smirk widens into something knowing and insufferable as he leans back in his chair.
“Told you she was getting to you, Prez.” The observation lands with the weight of absolute truth, public acknowledgment of what everyone in this room just witnessed passing between thehuman prisoner chained to my wrist and me. “Question is, what are you going to do about it?”
The brothers wait for my response, tension crackling through the air as they process the implications of their president wanting something he can’t have, of the flame burning brighter because of a human who shouldn’t matter, of laws and desire colliding in ways that will require decisions none of us are prepared to make.
I meet Scar’s knowing gaze with enough ice in my eyes to frost the entire room. “Church is adjourned.” The words carry absolute authority that brooks no argument. “We’ll reconvene when I’ve decided how to handle this situation without destroying everything we’ve built.”
The brothers file out with their usual efficiency, conversations already starting about what just happened, about the human who interrupted sacred business and proved herself valuable enough to consider keeping, about the desire burning between their president and a prisoner who represents everything forbidden.
Scar lingers at the door, red eyes gleaming with centuries of experience watching patterns repeat themselves in endless variations. “For what it’s worth, Prez? I’ve been alive long enough to know that fighting what you want only makes the wanting worse. Eventually, you have to decide if the risk is worth it.” Then he’s gone, leaving me alone with Roxy and the chains connecting us like a physical manifestation of complications I can’t afford but can’t seem to avoid.
She looks up at me, defiance and desire warring in eyes that refuse to pretend the chemistry between us doesn’t exist. “So… what happens now?”
I unlock the chains, setting her free despite every instinct screaming that keeping her close keeping her bound, is the onlyway to maintain control over a situation that’s already spiraled beyond my ability to contain it.
“Now?” I force the words out through a throat that feels like it’s closing. “Now you go back to your room. And I figure out how to explain to a witch why keeping you alive matters more than following laws that have governed our world since before your species learned to make fire.”
She doesn’t move immediately, just stands there studying me with those all-too-knowing eyes, before finally turning toward the door. But she pauses at the threshold, glancing back with an expression I can’t quite read.
“Raze?”
“Yeah?”
“The flame burns brighter when we’re together. Maybe that means something. Maybe the witch will see it too.”
Hope.
She’s offering me hope wrapped in chemistry, illegal desire, and the desperate belief thatcontentmentmight be possible if we’re just brave enough to reach for it. And as she disappears into the hallway, leaving me alone with the flame that burns gold in its dome, I realize I want to believe her more than I’ve wanted anything in three hundred years of searching for redemption I thought was forever out of reach.
Even if it means risking everything.
Even if it means fighting a witch whose laws are supposed to be absolute.
Even if it means admitting that somewhere between chains, frost burns, and kisses that shouldn’t have happened, I stopped seeing her as a problem to solve and started seeing her as the answer I didn’t know I was looking for.
Dangerousdoesn’t begin to cover what she represents.
But as the flame pulses with life it hasn’t shown in decades, I catch myself thinking that maybe, just maybe,dangerousisexactly what I need to finally find thecontentmentthat’s been eluding me since the moment the curse took hold.
And as I flip open the security feed, just to make sure, I watch her make her way back to her room, unescorted.
Completely willing.
No longer a captive but a willing victim.
And that’s when I know I amcompletely and utterly fucked!