Daggermouth

She paused, staring at him through the glass, desperately trying not to overanalyze his words. She turned to face him, finding him less than an arm’s length away. “Speaking from experience?”

“No,” he answered quietly, quickly. “There’s nothing beautiful in my world.”

The words hit Shadera with a force she wasn’t prepared for. It was sad, really, all this luxury, all this wealth and stability, and still he found no joy in it. Shadera knew better, had seen with her own eyes that beauty could be found in every corner if you looked for it. Even when the world was burning.

He held out one of the plates. “Eat.”

She didn’t argue.

The food was perfect. Of course it was. Everything he did, he seemed to do to perfection. She ate standing by the window, aware of him moving through the space, cleaning up the messes until the kitchen looked as if it had never been touched. It felt domestic, strange.

“I could show you,” he said suddenly.

She looked up from the plate. “What?”

“The Heart. Tomorrow, before the di

Suspicion flared immediately. “Why would you do that?”

He met her eyes then from across the low-lit room, the intensity of them cutting through her drunken haze still clouding the edges of her thoughts. “Because we need to sell this arrangement. You need to look comfortable in my world, like you belong here. And because . . .” He paused, his throat working. “Because I have people I care about who are in danger if we fail at this.”

The honesty of it caught her off guard. “Callum,” she stated. “It was him in the drone footage with your sister, wasn’t it? I recognized the mask he wore tonight from what your father showed us.”

He didn’t answer, only nodded once.

She thought of Jameson as her eyes turned back to the window, of the drones that had hunted him, of what Maximus might do to him if she stepped wrong. They were from two very different worlds but both trapped inside the same nightmare. Both performing for an audience that would destroy everything they cared about if they missed a single line.

Shadera closed her eyes, pulling in a deep breath through her nose and letting it slowly exhale through her lips as she let the situation sink in, truly sink in. She hadn’t let herself see past the idea of killing him until now, hadn’t let herself accept that she was, in fact, a prisoner here until she could concoct a plan that wouldn’t get the people she loved killed.

She wanted him dead. Needed him dead. But Jameson, the people in the Boundary, they didn’t deserve to die because she couldn’t look past revenge. She wouldn’t let anyone else die on her path to vengeance.

Slowly her eyes peeled open and she strode toward the island, crossing the living space into the soft light of the kitchen. She set her plate down on the counter and turned toward Greyson. Her fingers found the marble edge and she hoisted herself up onto its surface.

She didn’t meet his eyes, but let her gaze fall to the dried blood on her leg where the glass had cut her, to her bare thighs visible from underneath the oversized shirt, to her hands folded in her lap. To the numbers tattooed across her fingers. 9758.

“So,” she started after a few minutes of silence as Greyson leaned against the back of the couch, arms folding over his chest. “You want to kill me.”

Greyson nodded, answering though it wasn’t a question. “Yes.”

“And I’m going to kill you.” His head tilted at her words, a smirk forming as if to say ‘debatable’ as she continued. “But if we kill each other, everyone else dies.”

“That seems to be the predicament.”

Shadera blew out a breath.

“I’ll let you parade me around the Heart and sit at your father’s di

She finally dragged her gaze from her hands to find his eyes already on her. They weren’t hard, they weren’t full of hate, but understanding, recognition. Respect almost.

“As long as you know I’ll do the same,” Greyson answered. His right hand slid over his chest, then wrapped around the left side of his neck as he stretched it, his fingers brushing over the cut of his jaw.

Shadera’s eyes followed the movement, watching as his thumb grazed the edge of his bottom lip. Heat burned over her skin, settling at the base of her spine.

“What’s it like?” he asked, snapping her out of her sudden trance.

She shook her head, clearing her throat. “What’s what like?”

“Living in the Boundary?”

She stilled, anger replacing whatever heat was just pumping through her veins. “You want a poverty tour? Poor little heir wants to know how the other half lives?”

“I want to understand—”

“No,” she snapped, cutting him off. “You want absolution. You want me to tell you it’s not that bad, that people manage, that there’s some kind of dignity in the suffering. So you can sleep at night in your silk sheets thinking you’re one of the good ones because you cared to ask.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s not—”

“It’s exactly that.” She dropped from the counter, the remnants of vodka flaring back to life in her stomach as she grabbed the edge to stabilize herself. “You want to know what it’s like? It’s watching children fight over scraps. It’s choosing between medicine and food. It’s watching your family be shot on billboards for falling in love with someone in the Cardinal. It’s selling yourself in whatever way keeps you alive one more day. It’s—”

“Why?” The word exploded from him, sudden and fierce enough to make her pull back. “I’m trying to coexist with you. To find some middle ground where we can survive this arrangement without tearing each other apart. But you—” He pushed from the back of the couch and moved toward her. “Every word is a weapon. Every gesture is an attack. Is it physically impossible for you to have a conversation without turning it into an argument?”

“When the conversation is with you? Yes.” She squared her shoulders. “You don’t get to play tourist to my suffering.”

He moved closer now, close enough that her head tilted back as she maintained eye contact. Warmth flushed through her body—rage, she told herself, not the sudden awareness of how close he’d come, how his eyes had darkened with emotion, how his voice had dropped to a register that seemed to vibrate in her chest.

He took one last step toward her and his hands curled around the counter on either side of her waist, thumbs brushing against the curve of her hips.

“I may not know poverty, but don’t think for a second I do not know pain.” His words were a growl.

She could feel his breath against her face, slipping through her lashes. Her senses flared, hyperaware of every point where the space between them had collapsed.

They stood frozen, bodies touching, the air around them charged. Greyson’s eyes dropped to her mouth and she realized she was breathing too fast, that her lips had parted without permission. It was just the vodka. It made her notice things she shouldn’t—the heat radiating from his body, the way his chest rose and fell, the fact that if she tilted her head up just slightly . . .

She wondered what he tasted like. Whether the Executioner’s mouth would be soft or harsh. Whether he’d kiss with the same control and perfection he maintained. Her tongue swept across her lower lip without conscious thought, and she watched his pupils dilate.

The air between them went electric, the energy of it standing every hair on edge. He leaned closer, just a fraction, and even with every instinct screaming in her head, she wanted to feel his hand back around her throat.

He jerked back like he’d been burned, turning away from her so fast she nearly stumbled. His hands gripped the edge of the couch hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

“Go to your room,” he ordered, voice rough.

She didn’t need to be told twice. Her legs carried her down the hallway on autopilot, her skin prickling, oversensitized. The door to her room had been repaired—Chapman’s work, she assumed—and she pushed through it, closing it behind her with a soft click that sounded like judgment.

Shadera pressed her back against it, chest heaving like she’d been ru

“Fuck.” The word came out as a hiss between her teeth.

She pushed off the door, pacing the length of the bedroom like something caged. Which she was. Caged with him. She fucking hated him, hated everything he was, everything he represented.

But her body didn’t care about his crimes.

She stopped at the window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. The city lights blurred below, and she could see her reflection laid over them—wild eyes, flushed cheeks, lips parted like she was still waiting for that kiss.

It was just biology. Simple fucking biology. She hadn’t been with anyone in days. Hadn’t felt Jameson’s hands on her like she was used to night after night, hadn’t tasted his mouth or felt him inside her. Her body was just responding to proximity.

That’s all this was.

Her fingers went to her collarbone, tracing the bruises he’d left there. They’d faded to yellow-green now, ugly but healing. She pressed into them, feeling the dull ache. Remembering his fingers squeezing, the way his eyes had gone dark with something that might have been desire.

She moved to the bed, falling back onto those obscene sheets as her body thrummed with need, with frustration that had nowhere to go. She could handle this. Deal with it clinically, efficiently. Get the craving out of her system so she could think clearly. So she could focus on what mattered—survival, escape, eventually finishing what she’d started and putting a bullet in Greyson Serel’s gorgeous fucking face.

Her hand slipped beneath the shirt, into the waistband of her underwear, finding herself already wet. The shame of it burned through her, but not enough to stop. She closed her eyes, summoning Jameson’s face. His scarred hands, his crooked smile, the way he always knew exactly how to touch her.

But the image kept shifting. Jameson’s green eyes becoming blue. His rough hands becoming those careful, precise fingers. The memory of Jameson’s weight became Greyson above her on the kitchen floor, his heart hammering against hers.

She pressed harder, fingers moving in familiar patterns, trying to force her mind back to safer territory. To Jameson’s apartment in the Boundary, to his bed that always smelled like sage and smoke. To the way he’d whisper her name against her throat when he was close.