Chapter 2
Makari
Moments earlier
The night’s already a disappointment.
An hour underground, and I’ve won more hands at roulette than I’ve bothered to count, yet I feel nothing. It’s likely a setup anyway. The music swells, the air is thick with perfume, smoke, and sin, and still it all tastes like dust. Or rather, cognac.
Even the high from the pills I took this morning is gone, dulled by the endless drone of polite laughter. I roll the last chip between my fingers and stare at the wheel as it spins—black, red, black, red—each turn promising a thrill that won’t touch me.
Next to and slightly behind me, Paul sighs.
He’s been my shadow for twenty years, and he’s too old for these games.
I can see it in the way the shadows gather under his eyes.
This shakes forth a sliver of guilt. I should have nudged him to retire before he was so consumed by stress that he takes blood pressure medication.
“You look miserable,” he murmurs. “If there’s no business to be done here, why stay?”
“I am miserable.” I toss the chip; it lands on seventeen black. I win again. “If I don’t show my face, they start whispering. Whispers turn into weakness. Weakness gets men killed.”
Paul doesn’t smile. “You don’t need to be here, Mak. You could’ve sent me to keep up appearances.”
“And deny myself the pleasure of pretending to be civilized?” I lean back in the velvet chair, stretch my legs wide, and sip the cognac that isn’t doing its job. “No. I need them to know that the Bear is still alive enough to bite.”
He gives me that weary look he reserves for the days he forgets I’m technically his boss. “It’s been a year since your father’s death, Mak. You can’t keep doing this. The drinking, the games—”
“I keep winning, though,” I shrug, trying to ignore the burn of anger that comes with him mentioning my father. With anyone mentioning him.
“He would’ve wanted better for you. And if you don’t want to look weak, is it really smart to be inebriated?”
“He wanted a son who’d sit at board meetings and polish his legacy,” I bite out, setting the glass down too sharply. “He got me instead.”
Paul looks away, jaw tight. I shouldn’t have said it, but I can’t help myself. The man’s loyalty feels like judgment tonight, and I’m not in the mood to be saved.
The air in here, underground, is heavy with secrets, murmured deals between millionaires, and affairs hidden behind masks. They built this party like an ecosystem: predators circling prey under the guise of art and charity. Once I would’ve relished it.
I glance toward the crowd, considering Paul’s suggestion that I leave. Would it really matter? Would they think it’s a sign that they could strike Ursa Arcane and all my father built?
Then, I see her.
A flash of white in the dim. She stands out immediately—tall, striking, curves poured into satin. The hare mask hides half her face, but not the flush at her throat or the way her mouth parts when she laughs nervously at something her companion says.
Something in my chest tightens; sudden and unfamiliar.
She doesn’t belong here. That is obvious. She moves like she’s waiting to be found out—looking over her shoulder, too wary to be one of the jaded wives who haunt these events. And she’s young. Very young.
Next to her, a woman in a fox mask keeps talking, sharp, and animated. I recognize her face beneath the gold paint—Katherine Lipovsky. David Lipovsky’s wife, one of the lead accountants overseeing Ursa Arcane’s books and hiding all my money.
So who is the hare?
“Shef?” Paul’s voice breaks the trance. When I don’t answer, he tries again in English:
“Boss.”
“Not now.”
I stand. The chair scrapes softly against the marble floor, and the noise seems to echo even over the music.
Paul mutters something about trouble. He’s not wrong.
I feel it too—the pulse of it in my blood, the sense that something just shifted in the room.
It’s a dizzying feeling, reminiscent of the moment I was told of my father’s accident, but this time anxiety doesn’t bloom in my chest. I want only to know her.
The crowd parts easily for me; they always do. Maybe it’s the mask, maybe it’s the name they know is behind it.
I can smell her now as I approach—a spicy warmth that cuts through the cloying perfume of the ballroom. Her back is to me, the curve of her spine framed by white fur at her shoulders.
I’m close enough to hear the other woman’s voice, sharp as glass.
“…you wonder why Eric left, and then you show up to an event like this, inhaling everything in sight.”
The hare stiffens.
My pulse quickens, and their words are briefly lost. Their stiff posture is the only tell that shows how tense the conversation is. I should keep walking. She’s not my concern. But the sound of that voice—the cruelty in it—grates against something primitive in me.
Before I think, I’m behind her.
My hands find her hips.
She freezes beneath my touch, a shiver running through her that I feel in my own bones. She turns. Her breath catches. For a second, I imagine pressing my mouth to the quick pulse in her throat and biting.
Instead, I look at the fox.
“Funny,” I say, letting the words roll slowly, deliberately. “You’d think in a room full of masks, you’d hide your jealousy better.”
Katherine’s painted mouth opens, then closes.
“Every man here has been watching her since she walked in,” I continue. “But they all know one thing.” I lean closer to the hare, my fingers tightening just enough to make her gasp.
These words are just for her: “I get what I want.”
The fox goes pale. She looks from me to the woman in my grip, then spins and disappears into the crowd.
The woman in white turns her head, and I catch a glimpse of her eyes through the lace—wide, uncertain, defiant. Beautiful.
“Dance with me,” I murmur. It isn’t a request.
She stumbles briefly as I lead her onto the floor, hand settling at her waist, her pulse thrumming against my fingers. She moves stiffly at first, unsure, until the music takes hold.
The masquerade shifts around us, and the lights go dimmer as the music deepens. The scent of pine smoke and champagne thickens, wrapping us in a cocoon of sound. She looks up at me, and for a heartbeat I see past the mask. There’s fire there, buried beneath nerves.
“You shouldn’t let people talk to you like that,” I say.
She blinks, startled. “You heard that?”
“I was watching.”
As her lips part, I catch the faintest tremor of a breath. “Do you make a habit of rescuing strangers?” she asks.
“No,” I answer. “Who said I was your hero?”
That earns me a small, incredulous laugh—half fear, half disbelief. It hits me harder than I expect.
Her hand tightens on mine as I turn her beneath my arm. She fits against me perfectly when I draw her back, her spine brushing my chest. The warmth of her body seeps through the satin and into me, steadying something I didn’t know was shaking.
I lower my mouth to her ear. “You’re trembling,” I murmur.
“You startled me.”
“Hmm.” As my lips graze her ear, I whisper, “You liked it.”
My hand slides lower, almost indecently so, before I pull back just enough to meet her gaze. Why does it feel like I know her? Like I’ve been waiting for her?
All around us, masked predators flirt and touch, eyes gleaming behind glass and gold. It’s a pageant of hunger, but for once I don’t feel apart from it—I’m inside it, alive again.
I turn her to face me. “What’s your name?”
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
A smile ghosts over my mouth. “No,” I agree, “it doesn’t.”
Her eyes flick toward the exit—nervous, determined. “I should go—"
Catching her wrist gently, I growl, “Leaving so soon?”
“Someone’s waiting for me.”
We both know it’s a lie. I’d smell it on her if she were someone else’s, I swear it. And her sister—knowing the rumors spoken about Katherine Lipovsky, I doubt she’d leave at her companion’s request.
I study her for a long, silent moment. And then nod once, coming to a decision. “I’ll walk you out.”
“It’s not necessary,” she says quickly, starting to pull away. My grip on her wrist tightens.
“I didn’t ask. If I let you walk out of here alone, someone else might think you’re fair game.”
The threat and promise in my tone make her pupils swallow up the pretty grey of her eyes. I shouldn’t want to possess her, not so soon, but I do. I want it in a way I haven’t wanted anything in a long time.
I walk her toward the exit. The crowd parts around us like they know better than to interfere.
The stairs are cast in shadows above. The hostess waits above, her brows lifting minutely when she sees me rise from the melee below. Her eyes flicker to the guards, and the woman turns to face me, the white of her dress soaking in the amber lighting and paying homage to her curves.
With two fingers, I dismiss the hostess. Her departure goes unnoticed.
“Thank you,” the hare whispers.
Leaning in, I catch her hand and warn, “I already told you—I’m not your hero.”
She steps back, and I can see the flicker of heat in her fearful face. A slow smile curves beneath the mask as I order, “Close the entrances. Don’t let anyone in or up.”