Chapter 9 #2
They moved through the crowd together, and Ava was startled to find it felt natural.
Victor’s hand never left her: back, arm, waist, rotating contact like a slow dance they’d been practicing for years instead of days.
She leaned into him when someone told a joke.
He bent to whisper in her ear when they needed to coordinate.
Small intimacies that looked effortless because, somewhere along the way, they’d become effortless.
“Ah, Victor!” Grimm materialized from the crowd, Germanic features carved from granite. “And Ms. Feng. How are you finding the accommodations?”
“Excellent,” Victor said smoothly. “Thank you for arranging the penthouse.”
“Lilith insisted you have the best.” Grimm’s winter-gray eyes glinted. “She’s very concerned about your comfort.”
“How thoughtful of her,” Ava said.
Malphas joined them, too-long fingers wrapped around a martini glass. Up close, Ava could see his joints bending wrong; subtle enough to miss if you weren’t looking, obvious enough to unsettle if you were.
“Young love is so refreshing,” he said. “Though I must say, Victor, this is rather sudden. You haven’t taken a claimed partner in what, a century?”
“Longer.”
“And yet here you are. Claimed and cohabitating after less than three weeks.” Beleth appeared, swaying to music no one else could hear, his pupils slightly too large. “Almost like something out of a trashy romance novel. You know the sort: odd couple pretends to date, accidentally falls in love.”
The pendant gave a sharp sting against her throat.
Victor’s arm tightened around her waist. “Reality is often stranger than fiction.”
“Indeed.” Azrael materialized last, green eyes reflecting the candlelight like a cat’s. “We look forward to observing your connection this weekend. For liability purposes, of course.”
“Of course.”
The partners drifted away as a unit, but their attention remained: a weight on Ava’s shoulders, eyes tracking them from across the room.
“They know,” she whispered.
“They suspect. There’s a difference.” Victor guided her toward the bar. “We just have to—”
“Victor.” Lilith appeared from nowhere, crimson dress clinging to every curve. “Dance with me.”
“I’m with Ava.”
“One dance. For old times’ sake.” She smiled at Ava, all teeth and poison. “You don’t mind, do you? It’s just a dance.”
Every instinct screamed to say no. But refusing would look possessive. Insecure. Exactly what Lilith wanted.
“Of course not,” Ava said. “I could use a drink anyway.”
Victor stiffened, but Lilith was already pulling him toward the dance floor. The string quartet shifted to something slow and intimate, a waltz, maybe, or something older. Ava watched Lilith press herself against him, one hand on his shoulder, the other clasped in his.
They moved together like they’d done this before. Because they had, probably. Centuries of history written in the way their bodies knew each other’s rhythms.
Lilith whispered something in Victor’s ear. He shook his head. She laughed, leaning closer, her lips nearly brushing his jaw.
“Painful, isn’t it?”
She turned. Cassandra stood beside her in stunning silver, champagne flute held with practiced elegance. Her silver hair was swept up to reveal a neck that could have launched ships.
“What?”
“Watching her touch him.” Cassandra sipped her drink, watching the dance floor with knowing eyes. “Lilith is excellent at finding exactly where to push. She’s had millennia to perfect it.”
On the floor, Lilith’s hand slid from Victor’s shoulder to his chest. Proprietary. Familiar.
“I’m not…” Ava started.
“You’re in love with him.”
The words landed like stones. Ava said nothing.
“He loves you too,” Cassandra continued. “I’ve known Victor for longer than you can imagine. Watched him build walls so high even sunlight couldn’t reach him. I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you.”
“How does he look at me?”
“Like you’re the first thing he’s wanted in centuries that he’s afraid to lose.”
On the dance floor, Lilith whispered something else. Victor’s expression didn’t change, but Ava saw his shoulders tense, saw him deliberately increase the distance between their bodies.
“What’s she saying to him?”
“Lies mixed with truth. It’s her specialty.” Cassandra touched Ava’s arm, the first time she’d initiated contact. “She’ll try to convince him he’s not capable of love. That he’s using you. That everything he feels is just the arrangement playing tricks on his ancient, withered heart.”
“Is any of that true?”
Cassandra’s smile was sad. “The beautiful thing about Victor is that he genuinely doesn’t know. He’s been alone so long he doesn’t trust his own feelings.” She finished her champagne. “Don’t let her win.”
The song ended. Victor stepped away from Lilith immediately, putting distance between them like he was escaping a fire. His eyes searched the crowd, scanning, hunting, until they found Ava.
He crossed the room in quick strides, desperation in his face.
“Dance with me.” Not quite a question. More like a prayer.
She took his hand. Let him lead her onto the floor as another song began. When he pulled her close—closer than Lilith had been, close enough to feel his heart pounding—she felt the tension thrumming through every line of his body.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing important.”
“Victor.”
He sighed, his breath stirring her hair. “She reminded me of Venice. Cairo. Marrakech. All the other times she’s tried to claim me.”
“And?”
“And I told her I wasn’t interested then, and I’m not interested now.” His hand tightened on her waist, pulling her impossibly closer. “I told her I’m yours.”
The pendant went suddenly, startlingly heavy, like a hand pressing against her heart.
Ava pulled back just enough to see his face. The gold flecks in his eyes were bright, almost glowing in the candlelight.
“Kiss me,” she said.
“What?”
“They’re all watching. The partners, Lilith, everyone.” She ran her hand up his chest, feeling his heart stutter beneath her palm. “Let’s give them something to see.”
He studied her face. Reading her. Making sure.
Then his hand came up to cup her cheek, thumb brushing her cheekbone, and he kissed her in front of everyone.
It wasn’t desperate or practiced. It was deliberate.
Thorough. His lips moved against hers like he was proving a point, like he meant every second of it.
His tongue traced the seam of her lips and she opened for him, letting him in, forgetting about the audience, the evaluation, everything except the heat of his mouth and the steadiness of his hands.
The world contracted to this single point of contact.
Someone cleared their throat loudly.
They broke apart, reluctantly, slowly, to find Grimm standing nearby, looking amused.
“Perhaps save something for the bedroom,” he said dryly.
Heat flooded Ava’s face, but Victor just smiled. Calm. Satisfied. “My apologies. I sometimes forget myself around her.”
“Young love.” Grimm’s eyes were shrewd, calculating. “Do try to remember you’re being evaluated.”
He walked away. The entire ballroom had gone quiet during their kiss, Ava realized. Conversations had stopped. Heads had turned. Now, slowly, the noise resumed, but charged differently, weighted with speculation and recalculation.
“That was…” Victor started.
“Necessary.”
“Effective, I’d say.” His thumb brushed her hip through the dress. “Though I’d be lying if I said it was entirely strategic.”
They stayed another hour, mingling, performing. But Victor’s touches became more natural: his thumb tracing circles on her back when she laughed, his arm tightening around her waist when Beleth made an unsettling joke about contracts. Ava leaned into him like she belonged there.
Because maybe she did.
The penthouse was quiet when they returned.
The rose petals had been removed. Housekeeping, apparently, despite her protests. Replaced by chocolates on the pillows and champagne chilling in a silver bucket. Someone had dimmed the lights to something intimate.
“That went well,” Victor said, loosening his bow tie with obvious relief. “Better than expected.”
“Except for Lilith trying to crawl inside your jacket on the dance floor.”
“She was trying to provoke you.”
“It worked.”
He paused, jacket half-removed. “Did it?”
Instead of answering, she went to change.
The bathroom offered sanctuary. Marble and mirrors and the slow ritual of removing armor.
She took her time with makeup wipes, watching the careful construction dissolve into bare skin.
Brushed her teeth. Stared at her reflection: the woman who’d kissed a demon in front of a hundred witnesses, who was about to share a bed with him, who was falling so far so fast she couldn’t see the bottom anymore.
When she emerged in the silk pajamas Victor had chosen, cream colored, ridiculously soft, definitely not chosen with any specific intention in mind, he was already in bed.
T-shirt and pajama pants. Reading glasses she’d never seen before perched on his nose. A book in his hands, something old, leather-bound, probably worth more than her student loans.
And down the center of the mattress: a wall of pillows.
“Subtle,” she said.
“I thought boundaries might be helpful.” He removed the glasses, set aside the book. “Given the circumstances.”
She climbed into her designated side, trying not to notice how the mattress dipped under her weight, how the sheets felt like sleeping inside a cloud, how good he looked in casual clothes with his hair falling loose across his forehead.
The lights dimmed at some unspoken command, leaving only moonlight filtering through gauze curtains. Silver and shadow. His breathing, steady and close.
“Goodnight, Victor.”
“Goodnight, Ava.”
She turned off her lamp. Darkness rushed in, broken only by the glow of the moon on water. She could hear him breathing. Feel the warmth of him radiating across the pillow barrier. Smell cedar and smoke, his scent, familiar now, comforting in ways she didn’t want to examine.
“Ava?”
“Yeah?”
“What Cassandra said. About how I look at you.” A pause that stretched like taffy. “It’s true.”
Her heart stuttered.
“Victor…”
“I know our timing got complicated. Arrangement became attraction became something neither of us planned for.” The sheets rustled as he shifted. “But this isn’t about the claim anymore. It hasn’t been for a while.”
She stared at the ceiling, words tangling in her throat.
“For me either,” she admitted to the darkness.
Neither spoke.
“I’m half in love with you,” she whispered.
“Only half?”
She heard the smile in his voice: tentative, hopeful, younger than his centuries.
“Maybe three-quarters.”
“I’ll take it.”
She turned onto her side, facing the pillow wall. Through a gap between cushions, she could see him lying on his back, one arm behind his head. Moonlight traced the lines of his profile.
“This is torture,” she said.
“Absolute agony.”
“The partners’ evaluation tomorrow…”
“Won’t matter.” His voice was quiet. Certain. “They’ll see what we already know.”
They lay there in the dark, separated by a barrier that seemed increasingly absurd.
“Victor?”
“Mm?”
“More than three-quarters.”
She felt rather than saw his smile. “I know.”
“Insufferable.”
“You like it.”
“How much are you?” she asked. “In love, I mean. Since we’re keeping score.”
Silence.
Then:
“All the way, Ava.” His voice was rough. Certain. Like he was confessing something he’d been holding for centuries. “I’m all the way in love with you.”
The pillow wall suddenly seemed very stupid.
But they’d made it this far. One more day of evaluation. One more night of restraint. They could survive a few more hours.
She reached through the gap between pillows and found his hand.
His fingers threaded through hers, warm and strong.
They fell asleep like that, connected across the barrier, the moonlight silver on their joined hands.