Chapter 8
AERI
The sink is cold under my palms, which feels rude considering the rest of me is pure heat and static, like my body forgot how to power down and just…didn’t bother trying.
The bathroom is offensively small. Not even in a cozy way, but in a who designed this, Satan?
way. The air feels recycled and judgmental, thick with sweat, cheap perfume, and sex.
The fluorescent strip on the ceiling buzzes faintly, like it’s personally offended by what just happened in here.
On the other side of the door, the rave is still very much alive—bass bleeding through tiled walls, muffled cheers, someone shrieking laughter in the hallway outside like they’re auditioning for a fucking horror movie.
The mirror is shattered across the tile, glittering with jagged pieces. I remember the sound when it fell—sharp, loud, and absolutely final.
The timing, though? Fuzzy. Filed somewhere under when he was slamming into me hard enough that my spine briefly considered resigning.
Kade has me standing in front of him now, close enough that space feels theoretical.
No dramatics. No show. Just his hand at my hip, firm and unmovable, like he’s anchoring me to reality whether I asked for it or not.
It’s possessive in a way that makes my brain short-circuit, because restraint from him feels more dangerous than force ever could.
I catch my reflection in one of the mirror shards near the sink.
Jesus.
My face is flushed, eyes too bright, pupils blown wide from the high still crawling through my bloodstream, rewriting my sense of normal.
Mascara is smudged in that very specific way that says yeah, no, I’m not fixing it, and my mouth looks swollen, parted like I forgot how to close it properly.
The girl staring back at me looks wrecked.
Not ruined or broken.
But claimed.
I should probably feel embarrassed.
Maybe even regret, but I don’t.
Instead, I feel…awake. Uncomfortably so. Like every nerve ending woke up at once and decided to start shouting over each other. My hands tremble faintly. Not like fear or panic, but with residual energy.
If this whole night was a bad idea, then wow.
I really need to start making worse ones.
My gaze drops.
The cut on my thigh burns faintly. Fresh and deliberate.
His name.
I exhale through my nose. “So,” I say quietly. “That’s pretty fucking permanent for a first date.”
He doesn’t answer right away, but I feel him shift slightly behind me, attention narrowing.
“It’ll heal,” he says.
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
Silence stretches. Dense and loaded. He doesn’t rush to fill it, which somehow makes it heavier.
I straighten a little, testing myself. My legs protest, but they hold. Barely.
“You usually leave your mark like that?” I ask lightly, eyes still on the mirror shard instead of him. “I mean—on the girls you don’t, you know… kill.”
There’s a beat.
“No,” he says. Immediate, and certain. “But then again, I usually don’t not kill them.”
That gets my attention.
I glance down, catching his eyes in the fractured glass. There’s no apology there. No performance. Just blunt honesty, delivered like a fact he’s long since stopped flinching from.
Huh.
“Well,” I murmur, mouth tipping into something that’s almost a smile, “guess that makes me special.”
He smirks. “You good?” he asks.
This time, I can tell by his tone it’s not a check-in. It’s an assessment.
I take a breath. Slow. Measured. Like that’s going to undo the fact that my pulse is still acting like it wants to jump out of my throat and run laps.
“Okay,” I say, glancing up at him. “Tell me if this is the part where I should be concerned.”
He waits.
“Because statistically,” I continue, deadpan, “this is where a normal person would be losing their shit. Crying. Hyperventilating. Calling a fucking therapist”—I gesture vaguely between us—“Instead, I’m standing here very aware that you and your brother could absolutely ruin me.
Like—end me,” I clarify. “Erase me. Decide I’m done.
And instead of being scared, I’m…” I scoff under my breath. “Annoyingly into it.”
His eyes sharpen. Focused now.
“It’s fucked up,” I add helpfully. “I know. I’m not pretending it’s healthy.”
“And yet,” he says evenly.
“And yet,” I agree. “The fact that you’re both capable of it and chose not to…does something to me.” I tilt my head, studying his reaction. “Which I assume is the opposite of reassuring.”
“You’re saying the danger turns you on,” he says.
“I’m saying,” I correct, “that the whole you could kill me and didn’t thing? Yeah. That’s doing more for me than I’d normally admit.” A pause. “Apparently my brain has decided red flags are fucking foreplay.”
He steps past me and turns on the faucet. Water rushes into the sink, steady and irritatingly normal.
“You’re right. Most people run from us, and not the way you run. They scream, and cry,” he says.
I snort. “So what you’re saying is I’m fucked up. Because before you two…in that alley…I don’t think I ever really felt…seen.”
The silence stretches. Heavy, and charged.
I glance at him sideways. “Relax. I’m fully aware that says more about me than you.”
Another beat.
“And that doesn’t bother you?” I ask. “That I didn’t react like the girls you’re used to?”
He exhales, slow, considering. “It did at first. Because it meant I couldn’t read you. Couldn’t predict you and steer you the way I do everyone else.”
I wait.
“But now?” he continues. “Now I realize I don’t need to.” His mouth curves, dark and knowing. “Because you’re not like them. You’re already a little fucked up.”
I grin, sharp and unashamed. “Yeah,” I say. “Guess I come by it naturally.”
The water keeps running and yet the air stays tight.
Outside the bathroom, the bass continues its relentless pulse. Life carrying on like nothing significant happened behind this door. Someone knocks once, clearly irritated by how hard their fist is coming down on the door.
Neither of us reacts at first.
I shift, wincing faintly, then glance back at him with a crooked smile.
“Just saying,” I murmur, “but maybe next time you have a one-night stand with a girl, you could give her a little warning before you carve your name into her.”
He laughs low, amused, and cocky as hell.
“One-night stand?” he repeats, like the phrase personally offended him.
I lift a brow. “What? Is that not what this was supposed to be?”
He steps in, close enough that the air tightens between us. “You really think this was a one-off?” His hand settles at my hip, confident, unbothered. “Nah,” he says. “That’s not how this works.”
I open my mouth to argue—out of habit more than conviction, but he cuts in first.
“This is one hundred percent going to happen again,” he continues, voice easy, dangerous. “And again. Because you already know no one else is gonna give you what we can. No one else is going to understand your fucked up little kink, and think, shit, let me bring it all to life for her.”
That lands. Harder than I’d like to admit, especially because I know he’s right.
“You’re not a fluke,” he says, eyes locked on mine. “You’re a repeat fucking offense. And in case you forgot, little valentine—I’m a serial killer. I don’t do anything just once.”
My pulse jumps.
He reaches up, grips my chin firmly with his hand, and tilts my face up until I’m looking straight at him. “Besides, we both know you want it to happen again,” he says quietly. “So don’t bother pretending you don’t.”
He kisses me hard, claiming, all confidence and promise, like he’s sealing something we both already agreed to.
Then, the knocking comes again, louder, and he finally releases my chin, breaking the kiss. The night doesn’t fucking wait.
I straighten fully this time, jaw setting. “We should probably get out of here.”
He nods once, clearly as annoyed with the knocking as I am.
As he reaches for the door, he looks down at me, “Stay close,” he says, and I don’t argue. He shifts—subtle, and controlled, like a blade sliding into place. His hand settles at my waist again and flicks the latch. It clicks, and Kade pulls the door open.
The noise surges in all at once—bass slamming through the space, lights strobing harder, bodies shouting and laughing somewhere just outside. The bathroom shrinks instantly, the outside chaos forcing its way back in.
And standing there in the doorway, perfectly at ease in the middle of it all, is Kross.
The feathers of his wings are all fucked up and bent the wrong way, like he’s been bulldozing through bodies that had no idea how fucking close they probably came to becoming another carved up body on the ten o’clock news.
They’re scuffed and ruffled, probably stepped on at least once, proof the crowd definitely tried him.
But judging by the smug fucking smirk on his face, it’s pretty clear they lost. Badly.
Like the rave was built for him. Like noise, heat and bad decisions are his natural fucking habitat.
His posture is loose, almost lazy, shoulders slouched like this is all just another fun little side quest.
The mask covers his whole face—no tells, no expressions, but honestly? He doesn’t need them. The way he’s standing says everything. Confident and mildly entertained.
And then I notice he’s holding someone.
It takes my brain a second to catch up, because of course this is how he shows up.
The slumped weight. The way his grip is the only thing keeping the guy upright. The way Kross isn’t even trying to hide how effortless it is.
Then my stomach drops and flips at the same time.
Oh shit. Is that, Mark?
Of all the fucking people.
He looks less like the guy who used to talk over me and more like someone who just found out the universe doesn’t give a single fuck about him.
Kross, meanwhile, looks smug as hell, like this is exactly the punchline he’s been warming up all night.
And the worst part?