Elias
The Fang’s Tooth is exactly how I remember it. Unfortunately.
All crooked beams and sagging walls, windows too fogged to see through and too warped to care. Smoke pours from the chimney like the tavern’s still exhaling the same breath it took a hundred years ago. There’s no music. No laughter. Just the shudder of the door slamming open again and again as figures pass through, dressed like they never got the memo that centuries have passed.
Tunics. Capes. Laces tied in uncomfortable places. The kind of wardrobe built not for fashion or function, but pure, uncut chafing. I hated it back then. I hate it now. Especially when one guy walking by gives me a nod like we’re in some medieval club and I should be grateful for the recognition.
“Do we... bow?”
I ask no one in particular, because it’s better than asking the real question. Like why the fuck is this place still standing?
Silas snorts beside me, his eyes gleaming with mischief and nostalgia and whatever chaos is currently tickling the back of his throat.
“If you bow, I’ll kneel.”
He winks at Luna, then looks vaguely offended when she doesn’t immediately roll her eyes.
“C’mon, that one was solid.”
She doesn’t respond, not verbally. But her fingers twitch like she’s debating flicking him in the forehead, and I—Gods help me—kind of wish she would. The world tilts off its axis when she’s near me, and Silas only makes it worse. Her heat, her magic, her presence messes with the lazy equilibrium I spent decades crafting.
It’s not that I don’t like her. I do. Too much. It’s that liking her feels like setting myself on fire and trying to nap through it.
And she’s looking at me now. That look. Like she knows exactly what I’m thinking and is daring me to say it.
“I’m just gonna go ahead and say it,”
I mutter, stuffing my hands in my coat like that’ll keep me from doing something stupid.
“This place is cursed. Haunted. Possibly a set piece from one of Lucien’s wet dreams.”
“You think Lucien dreams?”
Silas asks.
I hum.
“Only in spreadsheets.”
Riven glances back from where he’s half-shadowed, always looming, always brooding.
“You two done?”
“Never,”
we say in unison.
But I glance at Luna again. And something inside me stills. Just for a moment. She’s not laughing, but she’s listening. And her eyes—fuck, those eyes—are soft in a way that makes me want to hurl a joke and a prayer at her feet.
The tavern looms ahead. Larger now. Like it’s growing with every step we take. I don’t know what we’ll find inside. But I know she’ll walk straight in. And I’ll follow.
Even if it kills me. Especially if it saves her.
The second we step inside The Fang’s Tooth, it hits me—the kind of thick, fermented scent that clings to old wood and older secrets. Spiced smoke. Ale. Ash. Maybe something darker curling beneath it, something metallic. Something that shouldn’t be here and yet always is in places like this.
Silas holds the door open with all the pageantry of a court jester on his best behavior. He bows low. Too low. Arm stretched across his chest like he’s introducing a queen to a court of fools.
“Your throne awaits, my lady,”
he murmurs, voice syrupy with dramatics.
“And by throne, I mean whatever half-splintered bench we can find without a drunkard drooling on it.”
Luna doesn’t even pause. Doesn’t blink. She walks past him with that impossible grace of hers—like the world’s lucky she lets her feet touch the ground at all—and I watch her do it like the masochist I am.
I follow close behind and flick Silas in the forehead hard enough to make him hiss.
“Don’t encourage your own delusions.”
He rubs his forehead like I broke skin.
“You’re just mad I bowed better than you flirt.”
“Is that what you were doing? I thought you were stroking your own ego again.”
Inside, the tavern is alive with a wrongness that no one but us seems to notice. People move around us, but not like people. They glide. They shuffle. They don’t meet our eyes, and when they speak, it’s in hushed, stilted syllables that don’t quite match their mouths.
Lucien is already surveying the space like he’s going to find the floor plan hiding in the cracks between stones. Orin is silent at his shoulder, watching the crowd with the kind of stillness that makes me twitch. Riven heads straight to the back wall like he’s casing it for exits. Smart.
Silas beelines for the bar.
“Do not drink the ale,” I mutter.
“It’s the only thing worth living for in this hellhole,”
he calls back, and I swear I hear at least three people grunt in agreement.
I feel her before I see her. Luna. Standing still in the center of this mess, her head tilted just slightly like she’s trying to hear something no one else can. Her mouth is parted like she’s about to speak, but she doesn’t. Can’t. Because Orin and Lucien are here, and we don’t trust anything that might crawl back through their bond.
I move toward her before I can think better of it. She messes with my calm, my rhythm, my whole damn worldview—but I’d burn down the world before I’d let her be alone in it.
“You okay?”
I murmur, careful not to touch. Not yet. Not unless she needs it.
She doesn’t look at me, but I see her jaw tighten. And that’s answer enough.
Something’s wrong here. And not just the decor.
I let my fingers ghost over the edge of her sleeve, just enough to let her feel the weight of me beside her. And then I lean close, like I’m going to whisper something filthy and useless. Instead I say.
“We should find out what they’re hiding here. Before this place remembers who we are.”
And then, because I can’t help myself, I add under my breath.
“But if I get possessed, you’re still not allowed to kill me. Just tie me up. Gently.”
She doesn’t laugh. But her lips twitch. And that’s the best win I’ll get tonight.
Silas slams the tankards down like we’re celebrating something instead of, you know, teetering on the edge of annihilation. Foam sloshes over the rims, dark and frothy and smelling like a memory I don’t want to unpack. I raise a brow at him as he slides into the seat across from me, grinning like he just won a brawl he didn’t have to fight.
“To sin,”
he says, lifting his tankard with mock solemnity.
“And to the woman who’s made all of us her bitch.”
Luna just curls her fingers around the handle, lifts it, and drinks like she’s lived through worse than whatever fresh hell Lucien’s plotting from the other side of the room.
Which, fair. She has.
Still, I lean over the scarred wood table toward her, lowering my voice so only she and Silas can hear.
“You realize we’ve been benched, right? Exiled to the chaos corner while Lucien and Orin talk strategy with their stoic faces and probably ignore everything Riven says.”
Silas shrugs, already gulping his ale.
“We’re the fun ones. Let them sit over there and glower each other into submission.”
I steal a sip from Luna’s tankard—because hers has less foam and more flavor, obviously—and ignore the way my stomach flips when her lips part like she’s about to scold me. I interrupt before she can.
“You know, I’m starting to think Lucien’s just afraid you’ll make a better plan than him. He can’t have the girl and the brains.”
Silas coughs on his drink, snorts, and mutters.
“You just mad he put you next to me instead of himself.”
“You think I’m not honored?”
I deadpan.
“Sitting beside the embodiment of envy, watching him fight the urge to drink all my ale and steal all my lines.”
He raises a brow.
“And yet, here you are. Still not funny.”
I turn back to Luna, resting my chin on my hand, letting my eyes drag over her like I’m too lazy to hide the fact that I’m memorizing her again. Her hair’s a mess, there’s blood on her sleeve, and she looks like she hasn’t slept in days. Still the most beautiful fucking thing in this cursed realm.
“You tired?”
I ask softly. Not like a question. More like a prayer I don’t want answered.
She doesn’t say anything, but she nudges her knee against mine under the table. Not flirty. Not sweet. Just a reminder. I’m here. I’m not leaving.
Gods, I hate how that makes something sharp twist in my chest.
Lucien glances over then—his gaze cutting, calculating. As if he knows exactly how badly I want to drag her into the shadows of this tavern and forget the world. As if he’s keeping count of how many of us she has now. How many she could lose.
I drain my tankard and slam it back down on the table harder than I mean to.
“I swear if he makes us split up again, I’m locking myself to your ankle, Luna. You think I’m joking—try me.”
Silas snorts.
“Make it kinky and I’m in.”
“Shut up.”
Across the room, Orin stands. And just like that, the mood shifts.
Silas straightens. I do too.
I jab my finger in Orin’s direction like a gossipy barmaid spotting a scandal across the room.
“Would you look at that?”
I whisper to Luna, tilting my tankard toward the ancient menace with all the reverence of a man spotting a unicorn.
“The scholar himself. The immortal stoic. The Grandmaster of Grump. Getting himself a drink.”
Luna’s lips twitch, and I catch it before she hides the smile behind her own mug. It’s the small victories that keep me sane.
“I thought his blood ran on brooding and riddles,”
I continue, watching Orin exchange a few curt words with the tavern keeper, who wisely doesn't argue when a seven-foot slab of mystery demands ale.
“That man drinks knowledge, not barley. This is history in the making.”
Silas leans across the table, his face a perfect mirror of shock and delight.
“We should celebrate. Immortal solidarity. I say we toast to Orin’s moral collapse.”
“Tempting,”
I reply, eyes still on Luna.
“but if he goes full chaos and starts dancing on tables, I’m leaving you both here. I love anarchy, but there are limits.”
“You have limits?”
she murmurs, voice dry, teasing.
My smirk pulls wide.
“Only when it comes to historical trauma and Orin inebriated.”
Luna nudges me under the table again—barely a brush of her boot to mine, but it lands like a punch to the chest. She grounds me in ways I never asked for. And now I’m addicted to it. To her.
Across the room, Orin returns to his table with a tankard clutched in one large hand, his expression unreadable. Lucien says something sharp, and Orin doesn’t reply—he just takes a long drink. His eyes flick briefly to ours, to Luna, and then away again like nothing matters.
But I saw it.
So did she.
“He’s going to do something reckless,”
I mutter, more to myself than anyone.
“That’s what that look means.”
Luna shifts beside me, and this time her hand lands on my thigh—innocent only if you ignore the way it makes me forget how to breathe.
“I hate when they keep us in the dark,”
she says, low and cold.
I want to tell her she’s not in the dark. Not with me. But I don’t, because I’m a fucking coward when it comes to being serious with her. I’d rather make her laugh, distract her with cringeworthy pickup lines and stupid bets about what kind of underwear Riven owns—if any
Instead, I drain my ale, lean closer, and whisper.
“We could always go start a fight, get kicked out of here. That’d force them to fill us in.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling again.
“And end up with Orin dragging us both through the mud by our ears?”
“Worth it.”
“Maybe for you.”
“Nah,”
I say, brushing her pinky with mine under the table.
“Only if you’re with me.”
And I mean it. Gods, I mean it more than I want to admit.
Silas slams down another tankard in front of Luna like he’s just discovered the secret to happiness and it comes in fermented form.
“For you, my lady,”
he announces with a ridiculous bow, the kind that sends his already-mussed hair into a frenzied halo around his head.
She side-eyes him, but it’s with that soft curve at her lips—the one that means she’s pretending not to enjoy herself. And then she drinks. Not just a polite sip, but a real, full pull from the mug, and I blink.
“Well, shit,”
I murmur.
“I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”
“I’m full of surprises,”
she says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand like a goddamn goddess of war and chaos.
Silas beams at me like a proud parent.
“Our baby’s growing up.”
“Call me your baby again and I’ll set your ass on fire,”
she says, deadly sweet.
Silas clutches his chest and stumbles back, mock-wounded.
“Luna, I thought what we had was special.”
“What we have is a restraining order waiting to happen,”
she fires back, and I fucking choke on my ale.
This. This is what I live for. Chaos and flirting and Luna loose-limbed from drink, letting the weight of the world fall off her shoulders for a goddamn second.
She turns to me, cheeks pink from the ale, eyes brighter than I’ve seen in days.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
I ask, pretending innocence. It doesn’t fit me well, but I wear it just to see how fast she’ll tear it off.
“Like I’m about to start dancing on this table.”
“Because you are,”
I say.
“And I want front row seats.”
Silas raises his hand.
“I’ll bring the confetti.”
“I swear to the old gods, I will kill you both,”
she mutters, but she’s smiling, full and real, and I feel something shift in my ribs. Like my soul’s trying to claw its way out just to press itself against hers.
She leans in, her voice low.
“You’re lucky I like you.”
I arch a brow.
“You like me?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late,”
I say.
“It’s already planning a wedding.”
Silas slaps the table.
“Can I be best man? No—maid of honor. I want the dress.”
“You’d look hot in silk,” I add.
“Red or black?”
Silas bats his lashes at Luna.
She eyes us both like she’s questioning every life decision that brought her to this exact moment.
“Neither. You’re getting burlap and shame.”
“Damn,”
I whisper, impressed.
“She’s good.”
“She’s magnificent,”
Silas says dreamily, staring at her like she just invented language.
And then her fingers brush mine under the table. Light. Barely there. But it shuts me up mid-sentence. I look at her again, and she’s not smiling anymore—not fully. There’s something else in her eyes now. Something that says she’s holding herself together by threads we can’t see.
So I squeeze her hand. Just once.
She doesn’t pull away.
Silas is halfway through a dramatic retelling of some drunken escapade involving a goat, a bet, and a pair of enchanted trousers when I feel her thumb brush over the back of my hand.
The tankard I’m holding tilts dangerously, sloshing ale down my sleeve. I swear, I’m a goddamn Sin, a walking embodiment of sloth and chaos, and yet one soft stroke from her thumb and I’m seconds away from setting the whole tavern on fire just to see her look at me like that again.
She doesn’t glance my way. Doesn’t react. Just keeps sipping her drink like she didn’t just send heat screaming through my veins with a single touch.
“Luna,”
I whisper across the bond, voice low, intimate. Like a secret tucked behind her ear.
“If you keep doing that, I’m gonna embarrass myself in front of the whole damn room.”
Her pulse flutters beneath my fingers. I feel it. The hitch in her breath. The way her thighs shift subtly beneath the table, knees bumping into mine. She doesn’t pull back.
“You’re already embarrassing,”
she says back dryly, the bond thick with humor—but I catch the ripple of heat beneath it, the spark she’s trying to hide.
“You know,”
I murmur, tilting my head just enough to pretend I’m interested in Silas’ story while letting my words slip into her mind like smoke.
“if I didn’t have an audience, I’d already be under this table. Mouth on your thigh. Tasting the way you laugh.”
She chokes on her drink.
Silas looks up.
“Everything alright, my queen?”
Luna waves him off, coughing once.
“Fine. Just forgot you existed for a second.
“Rude,”
Silas gasps, clutching his heart.
I grin behind my mug, swallowing down my own laugh. Her fingers haven’t moved. They’re still wrapped around mine, grip tightening.
“Say the word,”
I whisper through the bond.
“And I’ll drag you upstairs, bend you over that old oak bed, and remind you who’s already inside you.”
She doesn’t respond—not with words.
But her nails dig into my hand.
And that? That’s enough to make my cock throb behind the cloth of my pants like I’m some pathetic boy with a crush. Which, to be fair, I am. Except I’ve already tasted her. I’ve already heard the sound she makes when she falls apart for me. And it’s that memory I’m clinging to now, as I try—desperately—not to fucking lose it while Silas is asking the barmaid for more of the house ale.
I lean closer, let my shoulder brush hers. Our bodies angled away from the others, just enough to keep this moment hidden. Sacred.
“You want me tonight, little sin?”
I ask, voice velvet in her bloodstream.
“Say yes, and I’ll ruin your pretty mouth before you can beg me to stop.”
Her thigh presses tighter against mine.