Chapter 33
NIK
Nik stole through the night, Elara’s hand in his.
They ducked into the darkened crevices between sagging Restes buildings, pressed their bodies close to avoid the watch guard’s lamplight, and scrambled down empty streets after a fire brigade carriage raced past. If it weren’t for the threat of capture and the destruction of the Restes, Nik would’ve called it fun.
It was dangerous.
Wrong.
And so damn freeing.
For the first time in years, he was doing exactly as he wanted. Tonight wasn’t about his father or some grab for power. It was about proving himself to Elara.
The girl he …
He couldn’t think that far ahead. Not yet.
She clung harder to his hand as the sky opened up. Held it still as the rain sluiced down the streets, pouring from the gutters into the now-raging Joyaux. It would help settle the fires, drive everyone inside where they’d be safe from the police.
According to his father, nothing like tonight was ever supposed to have happened again.
And yet every moment from the interview to now had been a cataclysmic nightmare.
Except Elara. Except the things he’d said to her.
Declaring his feelings came with an unimaginable rush that made him feel as if they could take the entire city on by themselves.
Except Nik wanted to lock her away from the dangers just as much as he wanted to follow her into battle.
Chantal was right. He had to prove he was different, or he’d lose her.
They turned down a forgotten alley near The Market, and he stopped before a vacant building, crumbling with the weight of another summer gone by.
“Why did you bring me here?” Her voice tremored.
He held up the recipe book. “This is the place your mother wanted to buy, right? The place you planned to fix up.”
“It’s a wasted dream now.” She crossed her arms as if to shield herself. “They’ll never make me Souverain after this. And I doubt they’ll even let me become a Directeur.”
She’d gathered too much power. Become a symbol.
Everything he’d warned her against from the beginning.
“Let me show you something.”
He shouldered the rickety front door open, the broken bell above clunking. Inside was muggy, and it smelled of soaked wood. The plumbing didn’t work and the electricity was shot, but it was dry on the first floor and secluded enough they wouldn’t be found.
“I’ve never been inside before,” she whispered. “It’s a wreck.”
“But the foundation is solid.” Nik shoved the door back into place.
He nodded for her to follow. The floorboards creaked, and somewhere a leak plinked against metal.
Despite his best attempt at cleaning up, the floor was covered in dust, and cobwebs stubbornly clung to the beams overhead.
He’d anticipated having more time to get it ready, but tonight had shown him tomorrows were never guaranteed.
“Here.”
He removed a rolled-up parchment from the counter where he’d stashed it last. Using the recipe book and a stray piece of wood, he pinned it flat for her to see all he’d tried to make real. For her.
Elara pressed her fingertips to the paper, drawing them back as if it might burn her. Nik studied her face, watched her eyes overflow with questions she directed right at him. He motioned back to the paper for her to keep looking, to trust in what he had done.
She devoured the blueprints, tracing the outline of load-bearing walls and arced windows. She might not understand the more technical work he’d done, but he hoped she recognized all the dreams she and her mother had poured into this place.
“This is Café Divin,” she said, voice a whisper. “The patio seating mother wanted, and the bar for late-night drinks and pastries. Even a meeting room for lectures. But the rest…”
“I took some liberties,” he explained. “The walls are in pretty bad shape, but that gives you opportunity to expand the seating in the dining area. If you halve the size of the kitchen, you can afford an extendable pantry.”
He removed the top sheet to reveal the second story, a loft above the café turned into a home with a bedroom and bathroom. “Modest,” he said, “but I think I can add a balcony or even a sunroom on the western side.”
The third sheet was of the roof with a full garden. “For the freshest produce, maybe a community garden.”
Elara breathed a fragile sound, caught somewhere between a sob and a laugh.
“I don’t want to change you,” Nik said quietly. “Not anymore. I made a promise to you in the beginning, and I intend to keep it. You’re going to win. You’re going to help Anespérer, and I want to be by your side when you do.”
Elara looked up at him with such painful doubt. “You can’t promise that.”
He couldn’t. But he could he try to be the man she deserved to help her.
He added another, rumpled paper to the plans. The chemical equation.
“This must be what he used to … what he…” He swallowed. “What Lafontaine injected into Gaetan.”
“Poison,” Elara snarled.
“I don’t think so.” He explained everything as completely and gently as he could—how his father had asked Gaetan questions between rounds of the chemical, held up papers as if testing his knowledge, then raged when her mentor had died.
Elara took it all in without flinching. “Then it serves a purpose. What?”
“I don’t know.”
She paced away, worrying that bottom lip of hers.
“Ask,” he insisted. “You’ve got an idea about something. Ask.”
“Is this how Lisette Plouffe died?”
The world tipped on him.
An injection in the neck. Death without noticeable signs of poison. Untraceable. Something entirely new, his father had declared.
“It had to be,” he replied quietly.
“How do you know?”
It was all or nothing. Well … Almost all. “Lafontaine had me perform an autopsy on her. One of his cruel tests. It’s untraceable and makes the victim look as if they fell asleep. What it does beyond that … I don’t know.”
Her brows furrowed. “Lafontaine killed her. Why?”
“He said she was working with the rebels, but that makes no sense. It must’ve been another one of his lies.”
Elara stared at her boots, stroking the smooth skin of her scarred hand.
“What?” he asked.
“A rebel gave me that paper.” She still didn’t meet his gaze. “He said he was working with Plouffe, but I didn’t believe him. It seemed so ridiculous at the time. A Souverain? And a Restes rebel?”
When he couldn’t find a response, she lowered her chin. “Please don’t hate me.”
Weeks ago, it would’ve been easy.
He knew too much now to ever hate her.
“I don’t.” He tapped his fingers against the parchment. “Lafontaine killed Plouffe and blamed it on the rebels. The question is why…” He snatched the formula up. “Lisette must’ve known what Lafontaine was doing with this.”
“Why her?” She frowned. “Why the Souverain of Arts Culinaires?”
“She must’ve been involved somehow.”
Without her or his father, they would never know.
“We’re back to the beginning,” Elara huffed. “What do we do now?”
“We can prove he killed Plouffe,” he heard himself saying.
But could he really use this against his father?
The man who pulled him from the gutter and gave him purpose?
All he had to do was think of that horrendous room, the woman he’d hurt to make a point, the kind man he’d killed to further his own greed, and it was easy.
“I’ll make copies of the formula, and we’ll take one to Lafontaine and manipulate him like he’s manipulated everyone else.
For once, he’ll be in someone else’s pocket. Our pocket.”
“What if he doesn’t cave?” she asked.
“We give the people something to riot about.”
Thunder crashed outside. Rain pelted against the roof like bullets.
Inside, there was only the sound of their heavy breathing.
The air around them crackled with possibility, a raw nerve alive with promise.
They had the power to change everything, to control the Counseil.
Elara had Faucher, Tremblay, and Perrault in her pocket.
With Lafontaine, she’d control the Senate.
She’d control Anespérer.
Nik would make it happen.
They stared at each other, bodies trembling with what he hoped was the same hunger.
A hunger for change, to be something more than what anyone believed they could be. Two Restes orphans ready to spark a … revolution.
“I know Souverain wasn’t your goal, but—”
She crashed upon him like paint to a canvas.
The kiss was hard, her mouth warm and inviting as she melted against him. She threaded her fingers into his hair, tugging at the base just hard enough to make him groan into her.
This was real.
And he wouldn’t waste another moment.
He broke upon her with equal force, cradling her neck with his fingers, pressing them into her soft skin. He met each stroke of her mouth and tongue with his own, eager to take whatever she offered before she pulled away.
She never did.
With a quick spin, he pressed her back against the counter, then helped her up so he could slot himself between her open knees. He didn’t deserve to be let in, to be so close, but damned if he wouldn’t steal it all while he could.
They fit together. Complementary shapes and colors, equal parts shadow and light.
Thunder crashed outside as Elara shoved at his coat.
He ripped it off.
She turned her attention to his shirt.
He removed it too.
At some point, she was out of her coat and fumbling with the buttons of her dress.
Nik took hold of them. “May I?”
She nodded.
He made a ritual in revealing every inch of skin she gifted him, down, down, down. Until she was glowing in the slats of dim light, body soft in the flickers of lightning. He was finally able to lay eyes on the tattoo etched into her chest: a matchstick. Simple, clean, and ready to burn.
“You’re beautiful,” he breathed.
Her fingers explored his chest. The scars that charted his life. “So are you.”
When they kissed this time, it was slow. He traced every curve and edge, painted even the most intimate places with his kisses, and etched the details of her body into his memory.
Tomorrow, he would tell her his final truths.
Tomorrow, he could be truly worthy of her kisses.
Tonight, he would love and let himself be loved.