Chapter Sixteen
Lyra
“You have a meeting today.” Killian’s eyes linger on me as I button my pants and start pulling on a blouse. He enjoys watching me dress in the mornings, and I’ve recently found that giving him whatever he wants is the only way I can get some fucking peace.
I was already far past the point of exhaustion, but being in constant battle with him… it’s not worth the emotional energy. It’s easier to take the path of least resistance.
“With?” I ask.
“Two meetings, actually. With two perspective literary agents interested in championing your novel.”
My novel… the one I wrote back when Killian was blackmailing me into sleeping with him? I’d nearly forgotten about that.
“I reached out to them on your behalf. They’re happy to meet with you in person.” When I don’t respond, Killian prods, “which is an unusual display of enthusiasm in the publishing world.”
I know it is, but… “Not interested, thank you.” Accepting this gift would only be handing Killian leverage on me. Every time he’s mildly displeased with me—and I’m sure he’ll find things to be upset with, even when I’m complying perfectly—he can threaten to ruin whatever’s happening with my book.
“You were quite excited at the prospect of publishing your book some months ago,” Killian reminds me.
Yes, that was before. The after that I’m living in now is different. Every step I take could be used against me, and the unfortunate truth is that it might be safest and easiest to take no steps at all.
Instead of explaining that to someone who will only use it to start an argument, I shrug.
Killian cocks his head to the side. “So what are your other plans today, then?”
Nothing. Literally nothing; that’s what I do all day. Stare at a wall and build worlds in my head, ones where I’m not trapped in a luxurious, gilded cage. Think about books I would write if I didn’t have Killian looking over my shoulder. Contemplate the futility of everything.
“Lyra?” Killian prompts.
“Read, maybe,” I offer.
“No.”
I frown. “Pardon?”
“No,” he repeats. “You’ll be taking the meetings.
You will find your prior enthusiasm, and you will get the ball rolling on this.
” He stands from the bed and closes the distance between us, wrapping an arm around my waist. I tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
“This emptiness doesn’t suit you, Little Bird. Where did your spark go?”
You smothered it.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d really rather not.”
“It’s not all the same to me.”
I inhale a deep breath. Having nothing to lose and simply existing is one thing; getting excited over something and potentially putting myself at risk of having it taken away is another.
Hope is a direct line to despair, and I’m not sure I have the fortitude to take more despair. I’m tenacious, but I have my limits.
“Okay.” Find a way to go through with this that doesn’t get my hopes up. That won’t be easy; publishing a book has been my dream since I was a little girl, lying in bed with my sister and telling her stories to distract her from the pain.
“Goddamnit, Lyra.” Killian steps back. “Stop it.”
I blink. “Stop what?”
“This.” He gestures at me. “Whatever the fuck this is. Stop it.”
“Okay.” Has he finally lost his mind?
“Fuck,” he snaps. “What has gotten into you?”
“Excuse me?”
“This is not you.” He shakes his head and starts pacing the length of the bedroom, pushing a hand through his hair, messing it up. “This is not you,” he repeats, as if it were unclear the first time. “Why are you being like this?”
“Killian.” I inhale a deep breath. “I am doing exactly what you want. Literally and to the letter. I follow your every order. I let you do whatever you want to my body. I’m doing everything fucking right—and somehow it’s still not enough?”
“It’s not you!” Killian roars. “I don’t want a society wife. If I did, I could’ve bought any of them. I want you. I want your fight. I want your sass. I want your smart fucking mouth. I want your spark.”
I press a hand to my forehead, coming very close to losing my cool. “Then why the fuck have you worked so goddamn hard to suppress it?”
“I haven’t! I’ve worked to stop turning it against me. I’ve tried to stop you from putting us on opposite sides of the battlefield.”
“I tried to put us on the same side!” I yell, losing my composure.
“What do you think I was doing the night of that stupid goddamn dinner party, Killian? I was putting us on the same—goddamn—side! And what did you do? You shut me down and blocked me out. You made it clear that a society wife is exactly what you want, so that’s exactly what I’ve been giving you.
But even that’s not enough, is it?” I lose my steam, left gasping for breath, shaking my head.
“Nothing is ever enough for you, is it?”
“That wasn’t you trying to put us on the same side, it was you trying to get leverage to expose me.”
I point at him. “I gave you the exact reason for why it wasn’t, but you—didn’t—listen.
There is no world that exists in which you trust me—and that’s fine, because there’s certainly no world that exists where I trust you.
You have gone out of your way to ruin my life, and when you finally get what you’ve fought for, you’re unhappy? ”
“I fought for you,” he growls. “The real you. Not this shitty… stand-in.”
“You hunted me,” I correct. “You didn’t fight for me, Killian.
You have never fought for me; you fight only for yourself.
It’s all about what you want. If you cared for me even a little bit, you would’ve let me go.
I wouldn’t have to endure humiliation at your side.
” I shake my head. “But you don’t give a shit, and that’s only one of many problems. I’m here, in danger, because you dragged me back here.
You’re trying to knock me up like breeding stock because it’s what you want.
You don’t care that this is fucking destroying me.
That being with you is killing parts of me. ”
Killian’s jaw clenches. We glare at each other, both breathing harshly, as if we’ve been fucking instead of fighting. His look of rage swiftly melts into conflict, and then into resignation. He resumes pacing for several moments, then halts in the center of the room, staring at me.
“If I tell you and you talk, if you try to write another expose or pull some other shit, you need to understand that we’re dead. Both of us. And it will not be a pleasant death. It will be miserable, insufferably painful, and they’ll make it last weeks—if not months.”
A cold skitter of fear tenses my spine, but another emotion unravels to. The dangerous, dangerous kernel of hope that I might actually be getting somewhere with Killian.
“I understand,” I say, nodding.
His eyes linger on me for several moments, flashing with uncertainty. Finally, he parts his lips and speaks.
“I’m part of an organization. Envision the richest and most powerful men and women in the world. Not presidents or people who cycle through power, but the ones who hold it. Industry leaders. Billionaires. Moguls.”
My mind flashes back in time, to the first gala I ever attended with Killian.
I remember the signet ring I found in his drawer, one that Silas was also wearing.
The signet ring with an eye. An organization similar to the illuminati has long-since been speculated, but never confirmed.
It seems plausible enough that powerful people would band together, even probable, but hearing confirmation is disconcerting.
“I see,” I say quietly. “The signet ring I found?”
“All members have one.”
I nod, inhaling a deep breath. “And Silas?” He seems to be Killian’s biggest rival. There was palpable tension between them at the gala.
“Also a part of it.” He runs a hand through his hair again, stalks over to the bed, and takes a seat on the edge of it. We stare at each other from across the room.
“What does your organization do?” I ask quietly.
Killian chuckles. “A shorter conversation would be explaining what they don’t do.
In sum, we pull the world’s strings. We’re the men behind the public figures of power.
Presidents change, monarchs die, but high-society moguls pass power down through generations.
I’m new blood and new money in The Eyes, but I gained seniority because of the power I’ve amassed. Silas Black is old money.”
“That’s why you have a rivalry,” I realize. “And a weird alliance. Sometimes you’re friends, sometimes you’re not—”
“We will never fucking be friends,” Killian says. “He’s a boy who inherited an empire and is on the fast track to losing it. I’m a man who has fought, clawed, and killed to be where I am right now. I openly antagonize him when it suits me, and do business with him when I must.”
I nod slowly, digesting this. “And… is Silas the one who leaked the tape?” I can’t mask the pain in my voice.
Killian inclines his head. “Yes.”
“Why did he have it, Killian?” I ask quietly. “Why would you give something like that to your enemy?”
“It’s complicated,” he grits out. “The Eyes don’t like reporters or journalists poking around members.
They noticed I’d taken an interest in you and gave me a standard warning.
Silas read into it more, and recognized I had high regard for you even before I did.
He clocked that you might eventually be a way to hurt me, and he took advantage of it.
When you met with my old assistant…” his jaw flexes.
“It was a stupid move. Silas had you tailed. He came to me and demanded I get rid of you before you could dig up something problematic. He threatened to go to The Eyes, who would’ve definitely killed you. ”
My breath hitches. “All I did was meet with an assistant.”