I breathed through the slow death of three-dot hell and crashed face-first into the mattress.
Thay: Hope you like it.
A strange swirl hit me between my thighs when the image of a Seattle Public Library Card came into focus. He had never done this before, teased me with sex, or flirted with the idea of wanting more. Maybe it was because I left, but even that proved too simple. No. Something had happened. A shift in theuniverse, a chasm he could not close. A fucking rift in his soul, and now he was bleeding to death.
I bit my lip, tracing the letters in his signature.
Me: Eight Saturdays!
Dot. Dot. Dot.
Thay: Your turn
Me: To what?
Thay: To send me something.
Dot. Dot. Dot.
Thay: And it better be hot.
fifteen
Threx: Fish Food
The smell of salted pine drifted through the galley as I tapped my fingers along the ivory linen tablecloths in the floating ballroom. I did not much care for ferry boats or the idea of being trapped here by people who wanted me dead. Despite the no-contract rule in public spaces, you could never be so sure. Poison always finds its way into glasses. Vendettas wait in the shadows, and for men who run on sex and cortisol, nothing good ever happens when they get bored.
I tossed a glance at my phone, waiting for Daph’s reply. It helped not to think about how far away she was, though even I knew that little trick wouldn’t last forever. There was no way to prepare for the storm that was coming. All I could do was sit and wait for the moment it dragged me under, and the world burned.
I peered at the thread again. Knowing Daph, she was probably teetering between flipping me off and hunting down a bottle of hot sauce in that sorry excuse of a cabin of hers. From what I’d seen, it was smaller than her apartment, which until now I had thought to be impossible.
Me: Waiting…
I typed the letters, throwing a look at Wolfe while he pushed Lyla across the dance floor like he was born for this. Maybe that was his tragedy. Daphne and I crawled into this life so we wouldn’t die in the one that broke us, but Wolfe never got a window: just chains and a crown.
Dot. Dot…
I don’t think Lyla ever took into consideration what being Wolfe’s queen actually meant. She was too desperate to be made real to notice her king had no heart left for anyone but Daphne, not when he thought nobody was looking.
Me: Coward
“You’re Threx, right?” something soft and deadly asked, towering over me in a red strapless number that turned her into a dagger.
I peered up at her, irritated by the way her blonde hair and perfect body made me feel empty. When Daphne wasn’t around, everyone lost their face. They were just skin on bones. Breathing meat. Things that didn’t matter.
“I don’t know you,” I said, annoyed, flipping my phone facedown and pressing it to the table.
“Do you want to?” Her brown eyes perked, sparkling beneath the smoky colors framing them. When I did not respond, she leaned forward, pushing her breasts into my face. “Well, do you?” she asked again, wetting her bottom lip with the pink of her tongue.
My cock gagged, literally furious that this person existed in a space Daphne did not.
I am aware Daph thinks I’m just some fuckboy who puts his dick into whatever and whomever he wants, which is true, but what she doesn’t know is that I hate them all. Their mouths. Their bodies. The fact that they are never her.
“No,” I growled, shooting her a look as she plopped her ass into the chair beside me. Judging by the scythe burned into her wrist, she was a Reaper.
“Is Zade here?” I asked, leaning back to put some distance between us and the awful smell of lavender she must have poured on herself before attending.
Zade Carden was second to the leader of her guild and my mentor, once upon a time.