Chapter 28
"People are staring."
"Let them." His hand tightens on my thigh—high, possessive, his thumb pressing into the muscle. "They can watch me carry my mortal through the compound. Might teach them something."
"About what? Proper hostage transport?"
"About who you belong to."
Heat pools low in my belly. Not from the angle.
The corridors blur past—guards with that look, the one that says we heard what happened and we don't know what comes next. Faith is dead. A god bled out in a public plaza because Koshin decided it was time, and now everyone in Discord is waiting for the fallout.
I don't know either. I'm too busy watching his back muscles shift under his ruined coat and thinking about dragging my nails down them.
The door to his chambers slams open. He strides through and kicks it shut behind us, and the thunk of it closing feels final. Privacy. No audience. No more performing.
He dumps me on the bed.
I bounce once, catch myself on my elbows. "Very romantic."
"I'm not interested in romantic." He's already shrugging out of his coat, tossing it toward a chair without looking. The blood is dark now, almost black. His shirt underneath is clean—he planned for this, of course he planned for this—and he's pulling it over his head before I can respond.
Bare chest.
Scars silver in the low light. "I'm interested in getting you naked."
My mouth goes dry.
"We should talk about—"
"Later."
"The plan—"
"Later." He's on me before I can argue, his weight pressing me into the mattress, his mouth finding mine, and I stop caring about plans.
The kiss is hard and demanding and I open for him because I'm too tired to play games, too raw to pretend I don't want this. His fingers tangle in my hair and I make a sound—embarrassing, desperate—and he swallows it whole.
He pulls back just enough to work on the laces of my bodice.
"Tonight." His voice is flat even as his hands keep moving. "The plan."
Right. The plan. My father dies tonight. I get Seris. Simple.
"We move after full dark." My voice comes out breathless. "House Solyne won't be expecting it. He thinks he has time to rally support, consolidate power. He'll be wrong."
"He'll be dead."
"That too."
Koshin's smile shows too many teeth. He's still wound up from the kill—I can see it in the tension in his shoulders, the energy coiled tight and waiting. He yanks my bodice open and cold air hits my skin.
The bruises on Seris's face flash through my head. Purple and green against pale skin. New bruises. Fresh. Because I wasn't there to take the hits anymore.
My hands curl into fists against his chest.
"I should have—" The words stick. I try again. "When I left. I should have taken her with me."
"You couldn't."
"I know."
"He would have—"
"I know." Too sharp. I don't apologize. "Doesn't stop me from wanting to go back and do it differently."
Koshin is quiet for a moment. Then he pulls back—not away, just enough to reach the bedside table. He opens a drawer and pulls something out. A box. Dark wood, unadorned.
"I had this made."
He sets it on the bed beside me, close enough to touch.
"What is it?"
"Open it."
Koshin is watching me with that tilted-head intensity and my hands are already reaching for the lid, lifting it before I can talk myself out of it.
Inside, nested in velvet, is a gun.
Not just a gun. The gun. Designed for a hand smaller than his, the grip dark wood inlaid with—
Green.
My stomach goes warm. That's—my favorite color.
Green detailing running through the metal, subtle, threading along the barrel in lines that catch the candlelight. Not gaudy. Just present. Woven into the weapon's design.
He knows my favorite color.
When the fuck did he find that out? I never told him. I don't remember telling him. But he knows, because it's here, built into the gun he had made for me. For me.
"It's yours." His voice is closer now—he's moved without me noticing. "Custom weighted. The recoil won't throw off your aim."
I lift it from the box and it settles into my palm. Perfect fit. Perfect balance.
Normal people get flowers. I get custom firearms.
"Nothing says thoughtful gift like personalized murder weapons in my favorite color." The words come out with too much honesty bleeding through. "You shouldn't have."
"You claimed the kill." He's behind me now, his breath warm on my neck. "You should have the right tool for it."
I turn the gun in my hands, studying the metalwork. Intricate. Someone spent hours on this—getting the green to shimmer instead of clash, getting the balance distributed so it would sit in my grip without pulling.
He paid attention.
"How long have you been planning this?"
"Since the bathhouse."
Days. Only days, but he was already planning this. While I was learning how to stand beside him without flinching, while I was figuring out how to use my voice in rooms full of gods, while everything was collapsing around us—he found time to have a gun made for me.
Fuck.
"I don't—" I stop. Try again. "This is—"
Words aren't working. I don't have language for this ugly, overwhelming gratitude for a gift designed to help me commit patricide.
"Thank you." My voice breaks on it. "I mean it. Thank you."
His hand slides into my hair and tips my head back. I'm looking up at him from the edge of his bed, gun in my lap, half-undressed, and his eyes are silver all the way through.
"You're welcome."
"What are you—"
"Looking at you." His thumb drags across my lower lip. "You're all lit up right now. Bright. No shadows, no tangles. Just you, wanting me, not trying to hide it."
Thread-sight. He's reading my truth while I'm sitting here with a murder weapon in my lap and my pulse hammering against my throat. No dignity left. Not even inside my own head.
"That's cheating."
"Probably." His smile goes sharp. "I'm going to kiss you now. Then I'm going to take off the rest of your clothes. Then I'm going to put my mouth on your cunt and make you come until you forget why you were tired. Any objections?"
I should object. I should have a lot of objections. We just came from a plaza with a body cooling on the stone and my sister is locked in a house with a monster and in a few hours I'm going to commit patricide.
Instead my thighs press together and my mouth goes dry and the only thought in my head is yes, do that, do all of that, right now.
He doesn't wait for an answer. His mouth is on mine—hard, claiming—and his tongue pushes past my lips. His fingers tighten in my hair and I moan into his mouth and he growls back.
The gun. I need to put down the gun.
I reach blindly for the bedside table and set it down with a clunk that's probably not great for the mechanism, but then my hands are free and they're fisting in his hair, pulling him closer.
He pushes me back onto the bed. The mattress gives beneath me and he follows me down, covering me, his weight pressing me into the silk. I can feel him hard against my thigh and I roll my hips up without thinking and he hisses through his teeth.
"We're about to kill my father." The words come out against his mouth. "And this is what we're doing first."
"Yes."
"That's fucked up."
"Extremely." He pulls back just enough to look at me. He just murdered someone in public a few hours ago and I want him so badly my hands are shaking. "You're even brighter now. You like that it's fucked up."
He's not wrong. He's not wrong and I can't even pretend otherwise because he can literally see the truth written on me.
"Shut up."
"Make me."
I drag his mouth back to mine.
He strips me out of my remaining clothes. Then his mouth is on my collarbone, my throat, the hollow at the base of my neck where my pulse is racing.
"I'm going to leave marks." He says it against my skin, teeth scraping. "Everyone's going to see them tomorrow. Everyone's going to know."
"Good."
I mean it. I want his marks on my skin. I want everyone to see. I want to walk into that house tonight with bruises on my throat that say I belong to the god who just destroyed Faith and watch my father's face when he realizes what that means.
He laughs—low, pleased—and his hands find my breasts and I arch into the touch. His palms warm and rough and finally there after all this waiting.
I rake my nails down his back just to hear him groan. His skin is hot under my hands, the scars on his wrists silver in the low light, and he's still smiling that razor smile while I touch him.
"You're staring," he says.
"You're one to talk."
"I'm always staring at you." He's working his way down my body now, mouth trailing heat.
"I was staring at you in that plaza while I had blood on my hands.
I was staring at you while you told an entire crowd that Faith was dissolved.
I wanted to bend you over Faiths dead leader and fuck you in front of all of them. "
My brain shorts out. Loss of signal. Please stand by.
"That's—"
"Deranged? Yes." He settles between my thighs, shoulders spreading my legs wider, and looks up at me with those silver eyes. "I'm aware."
His eyes track over me. Slow. Hungry.
"You're still staring."
"I'm deciding where to start." His head angles to the side, reading me. "You want my mouth. You're practically vibrating with it."
"Stop reading me and do something about it."
"Bossy." He grins, sharp and delighted. "I like it."
His mouth lands on my inner thigh. Then higher. Then—not high enough. I'm already wet and he hasn't touched me there yet and I might actually die. What a way to go.
Killed by anticipation.
Put it on my headstone.
"Koshin—"
"I like when you say my name." He presses a kiss to my inner thigh, breath hot against where I need him. "I like it even more when you scream it."
"I don't scr—"
His tongue slides through my folds and my hips buck off the bed.
His hands pin me down, holding me still against the mattress. "You were saying?"
"Fuck you."
"Eventually. Right now I'm busy."
Smart retort.
Really showed him.
Very dignified.