Chapter 3
Merrit
The Lock & Key had never been this quiet.
No laughter. No music. No clatter of glasses.
Just overturned chairs and the copper stink of blood drying into the floorboards.
I should’ve been scrubbing, trying to salvage what was left of my bar before the stain set in.
Instead, I was shoving clothes into a satchel with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.
Not from fear. From fury.
Kieran Veyne thought he could walk in here, spill blood on my floor, and shackle me with a bargain I couldn’t refuse. By dawn, I’d be in his Court—his “advisor,” his leverage, his tether.
I should have left it alone. I should have let those men attack him. I should have let him die.
The satchel strap creaked under my grip as I tightened it, ready to run straight to Sable before the prince returned to collect his due. If I was going to survive Court, I needed more elixirs, more tricks to keep my secret buried where no vampire could dig it out.
The back door groaned, and I froze.
Rhett’s voice carried first, low and tight, and I fought off the urge to flinch. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Rhett signed, worry sharpened in his hands.
His mind was louder, panic in jagged shards. Don’t leave us. Don’t do this. Fear and anger tangled together until it scraped across my ribs. He was framed in the doorway, arms crossed, expression caught between concern and fury.
Behind him, Jex ducked through the frame, golden eyes already narrowing at the sight of my half-packed bag.
Shit.
“You planning a midnight vacation?” Rhett asked, his tone too light, the kind he used when he wanted to pick a fight. “Or were you gonna leave us a nice little note on the bar before you vanished?”
I didn’t answer. My fingers just kept moving, deliberate, stuffing another shirt into the satchel. None of my clothes would be fit for Court but cramming them in a bag felt better than standing still.
Jex stepped closer, shoulders tense as he signed, his motions blunt as stone: “He made you a deal.”
Not a question. A fact carved in granite. My hands stilled on the buckle. A demon would know plenty about deals, and I’d just made one with the devil himself.
They hadn’t heard what bargain had been struck, but they weren’t stupid. They’d seen the way Kieran looked at me, the way the entire bar emptied around us, and now here I was, packing like the hounds of Tharos were already nipping at my heels.
Rhett swore under his breath. “Godsdammit, Merrit.” He raked a hand through his hair, pacing a step before snapping back toward me. “Tell me I’m wrong,” he demanded, his fingers shaking with fear or worry or maybe both. “Tell me you didn’t just agree to walk into his gilded cage.”
My hands moved before I thought better of it, rough and clipped. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice,” Rhett shot back, reading me clean as ever, hands moving furiously.
His voice cracked at the edges, like he was trying not to shout.
His thoughts cracked harder—images of me chained in marble halls, a knife at my throat, blood blooming too fast to stop.
“You could’ve told him to shove his bargain. You could’ve—”
“She saved his ass,” Jex interjected, low and rumbling, golden eyes hard on me. “Twice.” His jaw flexed as though the admission cost him. He signed almost mechanically, as if each word hurt his very soul.
Jex’s thoughts were quieter, pressing like stone: That’s why he won’t let go.
My chest tightened. He wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t make it easier to hear.
Rhett swore again, softer this time. “You think men like him let go once they’ve got their claws in? He’s not just gonna let you stroll back here when he’s done sniffing around. Court eats people alive, Merrit. And you—” He broke off, shaking his head. “You don’t belong to him.”
“I know that.” My fingers slashed the air. “That’s why I’ll survive it. Because I’ll never belong to him.”
The satchel snapped shut, buckle biting down with finality. I hoisted it over my shoulder, even as Rhett’s mouth flattened into a line of protest and Jex’s growl vibrated the walls.
“Then at least let us come,” Rhett said finally, fingers moving as desperation edged past his anger. “If you’re walking into that viper’s nest, you’re not doing it alone.”
I slammed the satchel onto the bar so hard the bottles on the shelves rattled. My hands carved the air, sharper than any blade. “Do you think I want this? Do you think I planned for tonight?”
Rhett flinched at the force of it, but I wasn’t done.
My fingers moved fast, furious. “Look around. Broken chairs. Shattered glass. Stock ruined. Windows gone. I can’t pay the tithe now—not this month, maybe not next.
The pack will come calling, and when they do, they’ll take more than money.
They’ll take this place. Everything I’ve bled for. ”
Rhett’s mind spat curses—We’ll fight them. We’ll fight everyone if we have to. Jex’s golden gaze burned, his thoughts little more than a vow carved in iron.
“So no,” I signed, stabbing the air with each word, “I don’t want him. I don’t want his Court. I don’t want to walk into his damned trap. But it’s the only way to keep the Lock & Key alive.”
Rhett opened his mouth, shut it, then scrubbed both hands over his face like he wanted to tear his own hair out. “You think he’ll protect this place? You think he gives a shit about your bar?”
“No,” I signed, my chest heaving. “But I do. And if I have to walk beside the devil himself to keep it standing, I will.”
The silence stretched, heavy as stone, until Rhett exhaled hard and let his hands fall. “Then we’ll hold it for you,” he said, voice rough, his signs rougher. “Then let us watch it while you’re gone.”
My head snapped up.
He spread his arms, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth. “What? You think we’ll just let the Lock & Key rot while you’re off playing advisor to a prince? Not a chance. We’ll keep the doors open, keep the lights on. Hell, we’ll even keep the bar fights to a minimum. Maybe.”
Jex grunted in agreement, golden eyes steady on mine. “This place will still be standing when you come back.”
Something hot pricked behind my eyes, and I had to look away before they saw too much. My fingers shaped the words slower this time, softer. “It’s not fair to ask you to do that.”
Rhett barked a laugh, signing, “Please. You think we’re doing it for you? I like free whiskey. And Jex likes breaking skulls too much to give it up.”
The demon’s mouth twitched—his version of a smile.
Rhett shrugged, a little helpless pull to his brow that twisted that shriveled thing in my chest I called a heart.
“You don’t owe us the ‘why,’ Merrit. But we’re not letting some drunk with a grudge torch the place while you’re off doing whatever it is he thinks you can do.
This is your bar. Always will be. We’ll just… stand guard until you come back.”
Jex rumbled low in his chest, nodding once, his hands moving like a gentle hum in the air. “Yours,” he said simply. “We’ll keep it yours.”
I hesitated, throat tight, then slipped the little brass key from my pocket—the one that had lived under my palm every night as I locked the front door—and set it on the bar between us. My fingers lingered for a heartbeat before I pushed it toward them.
“Don’t lose it,” I signed, sharper than I meant.
Rhett reached for it carefully, like it weighed more than iron. He tucked it into his shirt, patting it once over his chest. “We won’t.”
He was already moving when I slung the satchel over my shoulder, muttering something about broken chairs and “more blood than whiskey on these floors.” He fetched a bucket, already scrubbing at the worst of the stains like muscle memory had kicked in.
Jex didn’t bother with water. He bent, hauled one limp body over his shoulder as though it weighed nothing, and carried it toward the back. The sound of the door opening and shutting again was solid, final. One by one, he took them where they needed to go, no complaint in his stride.
“You’ll come back to it clean,” Rhett said, his voice too even to be casual, even though his signs were rough as broken glass. “No trace of tonight. Just your bar again.”
“Yours,” Jex added when he returned for the next body. His golden eyes caught mine for a breath before he turned away again, dragging silence with him.
The ache in my throat burned hot and raw. If I stayed another second, I’d crack. So I didn’t.
I pulled the satchel strap tight and slipped out the back door.
The Divide met me in shadow.
Shops were shuttered, stalls covered, lamps burned low, but the streets were far from empty.
This place never slept. Too many eyes gleamed from doorways, from upper windows, from the mouths of alleys where smoke curled lazy and sweet.
Some shimmered faintly in the dark—Fae pupils catching lamplight, a wolf’s gaze gone gold for half a blink before vanishing.
No one spoke. No one needed to. The quiet was its own kind of noise, thick and watchful, a hundred strangers measuring me as I passed.
A witch cradled a charm that pulsed green in her palm, muttering under her breath. A pair of shifters played dice against a wall, bones rattling in claws instead of hands. A vampire leaned too far out of shadow, smiling with too many teeth before melting back again.
Every step felt marked, cataloged, like the Divide itself had turned its head to watch me go.
And somewhere in that watchful maze waited Sable and the elixirs I needed to keep my secret buried.
The bell above Sable’s door didn’t jingle. It shrieked. A piercing, metallic cry that scraped the back of my teeth and announced me to every charm stitched into the walls.