23. Rylan
23
RYLAN
L artina moves like a shadow—silent, inevitable, full of sweet promises laced with poison.
She stuns the space she's in, the air shifting, the scent of jasmine and embers curling into my lungs.
"Rylan," she purrs, drawing my name out like a blade unsheathing.
I don’t turn.
I don’t need to.
I know exactly what she looks like standing there in the doorway, bathed in the low firelight—tall, elegant, lethal.
She always knew how to weaponize beauty, how to slide under the skin like a sickness, how to turn a man’s hunger into his downfall.
And I was weak for her once.
Not anymore.
I take a slow breath, keeping my voice even. "You should leave, Lartina."
A soft tsk from behind me. "So cold."
The door clicks shut.
And I know, without turning, that she’s locked it.
She moves like she owns the room.
Like she still owns me.
I hear the whisper of silk as she crosses the space between us, her fingertips skimming the edge of my desk as she circles—predator assessing prey.
"Are you truly sending me away without even a drink?" she murmurs, her voice like warm honey, thick with intention.
I force a smirk, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. "Do I seem like I’m in the mood for company?"
Her laughter is soft, knowing. A trap closing.
"You're never in the mood, Rylan."
A pause.
"Until you are."
I let her come closer.
Let her brush the back of her fingers against my jaw, let her fingertips skim down my chest, featherlight.
I need to know why she’s really here. What does she truly want?
Some part of me is still haunted by the ghost of what she was to me before everything burned.
Her breath fans against my skin as she leans in.
She smells of smoke and secrets, power and deception.
"I remember a time," she whispers, "when you wouldn’t have hesitated."
My pulse beats once—hard.
She presses a single fingertip to my chest. "When you wanted me more than your own breath."
I rest my eyes for a beat.
That part is true.
Once.
Once, I would have pulled her into me without a second thought. Would have let her sink into me like a dagger, let her ruin me in the way she’s always wanted.
And she knows it.
She can see it in the way my fingers flex at my sides, the way my breath catches.
She’s still inside my head.
Still knows how to twist the knife.
"You used to crave me," she murmurs. "Do you really think that’s gone?"
She lifts a hand to my neck, tracing along my collarbone, slow, knowing.
"Or is it just buried?"
I inhale sharply.
Her lips brush the corner of my mouth.
A ghost of a touch.
I move.
Fast.
My fingers snap around her wrist, crushing her momentum.
She freezes with a gasp.
I lift my gaze to hers, letting her see it—the anger beneath my skin, the restraint fraying at the edges.
"Tell me, Lartina," I murmur, voice low. "Did you come here to fuck me or to poison me?"
A slow, curling smile. "Would you believe me if I said both?"
I chuckle, dark and low. "That’s the problem with you."
I twist her wrist just slightly—not enough to break, just enough to remind her who I am.
She hisses softly, but doesn’t pull away.
Because this is the game we always played.
Twisting pain into pleasure, turning power into seduction.
I lean in, my lips ghosting her ear.
"You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing?"
A slow inhale from her.
"What do you mean?"
I smile against her skin. "Nhilian."
A sharp, violent silence.
It’s the first time she’s faltered.
I feel it as her pulse jumps beneath my grip.
The way she stills—truly stills—for the first time since she walked into my chambers.
"You should have covered your tracks better," I murmur. "Seraphina found your letter."
Lartina doesn’t move.
But I feel the shift in her.
The calculations.
The immediate reshuffling of whatever game she thought she was playing.
I loosen my grip, just slightly, just enough to let her think she’s regained ground.
And then she laughs.
Soft. Amused. Infuriating.
"You trust that human girl?" she breathes, shaking her head. "Oh, Rylan. You always did have a weakness for the ones who bite back."
I say nothing.
She’s right.
But not in the way she thinks.
She tilts her head, studying me, and I see it peeking through—uncertainty.
She wasn’t expecting this.
Wasn’t expecting me to resist her.
Wasn’t expecting me to see through the illusion she so carefully spun.
"You’ve lost your touch," I tell her quietly.
Her red eyes flicker, just for a second.
That’s how I know—she’s afraid.
She recovers quickly, smiling, stepping back, severing the heat between us.
"Believe what you want, darling," she purrs. "But in the end, we both know what’s coming."
I hold her gaze. "Do we?"
She reaches for the door, pausing just before opening it.
Then—softly, deliberately—she says. "I hope she’s worth it, Rylan. When I take everything from you, I want to see the moment you realize you should have chosen me instead."
She disappears into the hall, the door clicking shut behind her.
And I stand there, my skin still burning from where she touched me.
But it’s not her that’s in my head now.
It’s Seraphina.
___