4. Only One Bed
ONLY ONE BED
TALIA
No one comes to Gateway for the accommodations. The services, on the other hand, are exceptionally popular.
The crowd pressed in, bodies packed tight, teeth glowing in greenish light. Her grandmother would faint if she knew Talia had set foot in a place like this. Gods, she hoped Riven wouldn’t tell her.
His hand found her shoulder. “Keep moving,” he said quietly.
Riven’s touch grounded her, and she forced herself to move up toward the bar. The bartender had shoulders like an ox and one eye clouded white. Her glare snagged on Talia’s lace collar and Riven’s blades.
“Curfew’s on,” she said flatly. “Doors stay shut till firstlight.”
“We’ll need a room,” Riven said. “Till firstlight is fine.”
“Only got one.” The woman fished a key from her apron. “Big enough if you don’t mind sharing.” She glanced between them. “You want supper too? There’s stew.”
Riven set coin on the bar. “Yep. Stew as well.”
He claimed a corner table where he pressed his back to the wall and watched the door. Talia sank into a chair across from his.
Stew arrived in chipped ceramic bowls. She picked up her spoon and let the gray, mud-thick mess slide back down before taking a bite. It was hot and rich, spiced with something that burned.
She blinked. “This is actually good.”
Riven’s mouth quirked. Then the fiddler launched into a new song, and the whole tavern roared. Talia focused on her bowl. Her hands shook, emotions pressing in from every direction.
Every direction except Riven. He ate methodically, back to the wall, eyes tracking the room. His presence was a blank space in the swirl. She breathed it in.
“You all right?” His voice was low, meant only for her.
“Fine.” The lie came automatically. She was always expected to be fine, so she always said she was. “What was that out there? You called it a ruthopanth?”
“Ah.” He paused and took a bite, chewing slowly. Then he said, “That’s one flavor of fluxborn, mutant monsters. Strange to see one in town.” He shook his head. “Eat. Then we’ll head up.”
“I can handle—”
“Not a question, boss. Been a long day.”
She wanted to argue, to insist she could manage, but she honestly just wanted to disappear.
“Is this normal? In Valta?” She kept her voice low.
“Pretty much.” He took another bite, still scanning the room. “Folks who might die tomorrow like to remember they’re alive.”
“That’s grim.”
He shrugged. “Meet a few more fluxborn, you might change your mind.” He stood, dropping coins on the table. “Let’s go. You’ve seen enough of Gateway’s finest.”
He cut a path through the crowd, and she followed in his wake. When they reached the stairwell, the pressure eased. Fewer people standing around, more room to breathe.
The music fell behind them as they climbed, but the walls grew thinner, and other sounds filtered through. Rhythmic thumping, a woman crying out. The entire building seemed to throb, and Talia felt her face burn.
At the landing, she nearly walked into a couple before her mind caught up. The woman was bent over the railing, skirts hiked up. The man stood behind her, trousers around his ass, thrusting into her with an urgent, offbeat rhythm.
Their pleasure hit Talia low in the gut. Her breath caught in her throat, and she couldn’t move, couldn’t look away, couldn’t escape the urgency, the heat, the building pressure—
Riven’s hand closed around her elbow. “Eyes up, boss.”
He pulled her past the couple, his body shielding her from them. The couple didn’t stop; they didn’t even seem to notice. The wet slapping noises chased her up the stairs.
“I didn’t mean to look—” she started.
“Kind of hard to miss it.”
At the top of the stairs, the hallway tilted, or maybe her balance was off. Riven unlocked the last door and pushed it open. There was one window, grimy with dust. One chair. One washbasin. One bed.
Talia’s stomach dropped. The bartender said that, didn’t she? Big enough if you don’t mind sharing. It hadn’t fully registered. The room was smaller than her closet back in Vaelis. The bed took up most of it—a double mattress. No couch. Barely room to stand.
Riven cleared his throat behind her, and she stepped into the room, pulling to the side to let him pass. He went to the window first, testing the latch. Checked the lock on the door, frowned, and dragged a small table across to brace it. His swords went on the chair, hilts facing out.
He moved like a priest performing a ritual, each movement deliberate, automatic. It would have never occurred to Talia to check the room like that.
“You do this every night?” Maybe it was a strange question, but she was too curious to hold it in.
“Only when I plan to wake up again.” He stripped off his jacket and hung it by the door, then perched at the end of the bed. “You still have the gun?”
She pulled the pretty revolver out of her satchel and handed it to him.
The room felt even smaller now with his knees taking up half the floor space.
She crossed to the washbasin, rolling up her sleeves before splashing her face and scrubbing her hands.
Blue flux dust dissolved off her skin, clouding the water.
“That’s interesting.” She rubbed the flux-infused water between two fingers, and it felt almost oily.
“Don’t drink it.” His voice rumbled in the small space.
Did he think she was that reckless? She dried her hands on her ruined skirts and turned.
Riven sat at the end of the bed, elbows on his knees, cleaning the revolver with methodical focus.
The room seemed to shrink around him, those broad shoulders blocking her view of the door, the scent of cedar and steel radiating from his skin.
Every time he exhaled, it felt like she breathed him in.
There was nowhere for her to sit except beside him, on the bed they would share. She hesitated. She’d always been able to sense what people wanted before they asked. With him, she had nothing.
The whole evening pressed in at once: the violence, the public sex, the surge of emotions.
Her body still hummed with echoes of the couple on the stairs, and a line of sweat traced a path down her lower back.
She would have to take her dress off. The hoop skirt was in ruins, and it wasn’t as though she could sleep in it.
She looked at Riven again. What did he expect? That was the thing—she had no idea, and not knowing made her feel lightheaded. She didn’t want to wait for him to ask. It was easier just to offer. Get it over with. She moved closer to the bed, her fingers twisting in the blanket.
“You’ve done a lot for me today,” she said carefully. “I don’t like being in anyone’s debt.”
He glanced up but didn’t say a word. He just watched her fidget.
“So, if there’s anything you want…” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “I could repay you.”
The words hit the air all wrong. Even without reading his emotions, she heard it, like a sour chord. Riven went very still. Something dark flickered in his expression, and his gaze dropped to her hands.
“You’re shaking.”
She looked down. She was. When she looked back up, those gray eyes glared back.
“If you think that’s what I want. Or what I expect.” His voice was quiet in a dangerous way. “You’re wrong.”
“I just thought—”
“You thought I brought you up here to fuck you.” The words came out low and hard. “You think you owe me that?”
Heat flooded through her, shame and fear and a flicker of that strange secondhand desire. His gaze traveled down her body, like he was considering it. Then something shuttered in his face, and he looked away.
“I don’t take scared girls to bed. And I sure as hell don’t touch children I’m paid to protect.”
The word landed like a slap. Children.
“I’m not a child. I’m twenty-six.”
He shook his head, and a hint of a smile touched his mouth. “Go to sleep, boss. Your virtue is safe with me.”
Her virtue? It wasn’t like she’d never been with a man before…but no. She wasn’t about to get into that with him.
He turned away, checking his weapons one last time.
Then the flux lamp clicked off and the room sank into half dark, blue light leaking through the shutters.
She had to lean on the wall to pull off her boots and skirts, fingers clumsy with humiliation.
She slid her glasses off and folded them next to the sink, then she crawled onto the bed from the bottom.
The mattress dipped where he lay on top of the coverlet, fully clothed.
The space between them smelled spicy, like warm cedarwood.
She pressed herself against the cool plaster wall, but her body wouldn’t settle.
Every nerve buzzed with borrowed heat and mortification.
She was acutely aware of him, every whisper of fabric shifting, the sound of his breathing, the warmth radiating off his body.
But the emotional static that had crackled in her mind all evening was gone.
She reached out, fingertips brushing his arm. Warm skin, steady pulse. No fear, no anger, no emotions at all. Just silence. She focused on his breathing until sleep pulled her under too.