Chapter 2
Kieran
Blood smelled the same no matter where you spilled it. Fresh or old, royal or gutter-born—it clung to wood and stone with a stubbornness that no soap or spell could erase.
The Lock & Key would reek of it for weeks until time finally stole it like it did all things.
And still, despite the blood and bile, despite the threat still clinging to the air, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
She stood over the corpse with a paring knife dripping red, her chest rising too fast as defiance burned in her gaze.
She was the sort of woman who should’ve been trembling, screaming, running, and yet she hadn’t flinched when the first strike came.
She’d moved like she’d seen it before anyone else. Like she’d known.
Which was precisely why I was here.
My intel had painted her as an oddity. A bartender who never spoke. One who never asked for orders but always delivered the right drink. “Deaf,” they’d said. Mute. Broken. A curiosity in a world where true psychics were rarer than godsdamned miracles.
From afar, I’d had her watched by one of the few allies I still trusted, but the moment the attacks on my Court grew too precise, too well-timed, I knew curiosity wasn’t enough.
I needed certainty—needed my eyes on her, and proof she was everything I thought she was. Because I was running out of time.
Servants I’d relied on had wound up dead. Alliances—once concrete—frayed overnight. Poison slipped past tasters, spells snuck past wards. It wasn’t chance. It was someone inside my own walls, moving pieces I couldn’t see.
And if I were to root out a traitor in my own Court, I needed more than a blade or a spy.
I needed foresight. I needed the one thing even the oldest of us couldn’t beg, borrow, or steal—someone who could see the strike before it fell.
Tonight had just proven what the whispers suggested: Merrit Locke wasn’t just guessing.
She’d thrown that knife before even I could react. She’d known it was going to happen.
Most psychics were rare—my father saw to that. Precogs were rarer still. And if she truly was one…
I stood over the body, but it wasn’t the corpse that held my attention. It was her.
The little paring knife she’d yanked from the assassin’s chest was still clutched in her hand, blood slicking her fingers where it had slipped against the hilt. Silent. Watchful. Defiant. Secrets wrapped in silk.
Not just a bartender.
Not just a survivor.
Maybe exactly what I needed.
A low groan pulled my attention to the far side of the room. The horned brute who’d been leaning against the wall earlier now dragged the last surviving attacker toward the cellar, golden eyes alight with something that looked far too much like pleasure, blood streaking the floor in his wake.
“I want him alive,” I growled, though my order was mostly ignored.
The brute—Jex, I’d heard him called—didn’t so much as acknowledge me.
His golden eyes flicked to Merrit, waiting for her approval.
It was only when she gave him a simple tilt of her chin did he shift course, dragging the half-dead would-be assassin back toward us.
Without ceremony, the demon snatched up a fallen chair and planted the man on it, slamming his clawed hands down on the bleeding man’s shoulders.
“You stay,” Jex said, wordless grit in the set of his jaw. He waited for Merrit’s nod before he eased away.
Interesting. It had been a long time since I’d been defied so openly, but somehow, I couldn’t seem to fault him. I respected loyalty—even if it wasn’t to me.
The other one—the bartender with the smug grin—had already started hustling patrons toward the door, but too many lingered, eyes wide, stupidly rooted in place. Their fear stank, sour and acrid, their heartbeats too loud, their murmurs grating.
“Out,” I snapped, voice carrying with the steel of command. “Unless you want your blood staining these floors next.”
That did it. Chairs scraped. Bottles toppled. A rush of bodies pushed for the door.
But Merrit didn’t move. Instead, she threw her knife down—steel tip biting into wood with a crack that made even the last cowards flinch. Her hands cut the air, sharp and furious. “Who the fuck do you think you are, walking into my bar and giving orders?”
A challenge. Direct. Reckless. The kind of fury that should have driven me back but instead lodged under my skin, hot and consuming.
Gods, she fascinated me—and that was dangerous.
It led to weakness. And weakness had no place in my Court.
Yet here I was, already counting the beats of her pulse like they mattered.
She turned—not to me, but to her own men. Her fingers moved with clipped authority. “Rhett. Jex. Out.”
The smug bartender froze mid-step, mouth opening like he’d argue. Jex didn’t budge at all, his golden eyes slicing to her, waiting for the smallest shake of her head to countermand her order.
“Now,” she signed again, harder, stabbing her hand toward the cellar door.
Rhett muttered something under his breath but obeyed. Jex lingered, muscles tight, until she gave him a look that brooked no debate. Only then did he finally stalk toward the back, his gaze never leaving her until the last second.
And just like that, the Lock & Key emptied around us.
The assassin tried to laugh, wet and bubbling. “Prince doesn’t own the Divide,” he spat, hatred carried in every syllable.
I didn’t bother answering him. He wasn’t walking out of here anyway.
No—the only one who mattered was the woman standing in front of me, silent but blazing, as if the whole damned bar still belonged to her alone.
“Who sent you?” I demanded, threading influence into the edges of my voice. The kind that loosened tongues, even when men thought they had nothing to lose.
“No one has to send me to kill a leech,” he scoffed, spitting blood between red-stained teeth.
Not a professional’s answer. No sigils etched into his skin, no handler’s cant to hide behind.
Just raw resentment, the kind that festered in the Divide until it curdled into violence.
It meant the threat hadn’t been organized, not in this man at least. Diffuse.
Local. But no less dangerous, because hatred this common was harder to stamp out.
His eyes flicked sideways, shoulders coiling. I smelled the shift in him before he moved—adrenaline cold as steel, panic cutting through the musk of ale, soot, and old blood.
Another strike coming—I sensed it.
I reached for my dagger—too slow.
The assassin lurched to his feet, his wounded side tearing open with the effort, blood spattering the floor in thick arcs. He still managed to get his hand on the hilt at his hip—
And Merrit moved.
Quick as thought, she was at my side, her fingers closing over the dagger at my belt before I’d drawn it.
One savage slash, clean as a soldier’s drill, and the assassin’s arm split open to the bone before his weapon cleared its sheath.
His scream tore through the air, high and wet, before he collapsed back onto the chair, disarmed and useless.
My own blade was still warm in her hand. Not luck. Not instinct. She’d known. Again.
She didn’t even look at me when she shoved the hilt into my palm, blood slicking our skin where it passed between us.
Warmth and defiance, all pressed into me in a single heartbeat.
Then she wiped the mess against my coat as though I were a servant boy instead of a prince.
Audacity that should have enraged me—but instead, left her touch burning against my hand long after it was gone.
“You enjoy stealing from royalty?” I signed, sharp and mocking.
Her mouth curved—barely. A not-smile, all venom. Her fingers answered quick and biting. “Better than letting royalty get killed in my bar.”
I barked a low laugh before I could stop it. Reckless woman.
The tavern was empty now—chairs overturned, glass glittering like stars across the floor. Only the three of us remained: her, the assassin bleeding into his own lap, and me. The silence felt thicker for it, the kind that pressed against the skin.
I stepped closer, the sound of my boots loud in the hush.
The assassin groaned, but I barely spared him a glance.
All my focus was on her. Closer, I caught the subtler notes under the stench of smoke and blood: leather worn smooth by years of use, potent herbs clinging to her clothes, something clean and citrus-bright beneath it all. No perfume. No polish. Just her.
And that velvet ribbon at her throat—high, deliberate, hiding what she didn’t want the world to see. Scar or shame, it didn’t matter. I wanted to tear it loose, to see what lay beneath, though I already knew whatever it was would cut me deeper than any blade.
“You’re wasted here,” I said aloud, low enough the words were almost a growl. Then I lifted my hands, precise, deliberate, each motion edged with command. “Come with me to Court. You’d have protection. Purpose. You’d be useful instead of squandered.”
Her fingers curled into a fist before shaping her answer: “No.”
No hesitation. No bargaining. Just flat refusal.
I smiled, sharp enough to bare a hint of fang. I signed as I said it, deliberate and cool: “Most people would leap at the chance to step out of this gutter and into power.”
Her hands moved fast, furious: “And you wonder why no one likes royalty. Go ask those ‘most people.’ I’m not them.”
Gods, she was maddening. Defiance where queens bowed. I should’ve been furious. Instead, fascination burned hotter.
“You know,” I said, tilting my head, letting the weight of the words settle between us, “I could make you say yes.” My gaze caught hers, held it steady and intense. “Compulsion works when someone insists on holding my eyes the way you do. One word, and you’d be following me by dawn.”