Chapter 7 #2
He looks like a sin you say yes to on purpose.
Dark hair mussed in deliberate carelessness, jaw lined with stubble, full mouth curled like he’s already amused.
Tattoos sleeve both arms, black and gray ink layered thick — script, teeth, thorns, saints with their eyes scratched out.
Pitch-dark eyes. No piercings. He leans back in his chair like this is entertainment.
He’s eating. Slowly. Fork between his fingers like a weapon.
Saint’s at the far end, opposite Rook, long body lounged back in his chair like a fallen altar boy.
Black hair shoulders-long and pushed back clean, no piercings, no ink in sight.
His skin is sunkissed-gold, his features Mediterranean-sharp, his ice-blue eyes something that shouldn’t sit in a face that warm.
He’s got prayer beads looped around his wrist like a bracelet, which should be laughable if he didn’t look like he means it.
And that leaves the empty chair beside Rook, which I’m guessing is for Wraith. Wraith moves past me and takes it. That leaves one open next to Vale.
Of course.
Vale grins slow when I look at it. “Good morning, trouble.”
“I’m not sitting next to him,” I say immediately.
Vale barks out a laugh, delighted. “Oh, I like her.”
“Sit,” Caelum says.
The word isn’t loud. It doesn’t have to be. It’s a command, wrapped in silk, offered like an option. It makes my knees want to bend automatically.
I hate that.
I sit, but I drag the chair two inches farther from Vale before I do. His grin only widens. “Spicy,” he murmurs.
“Hungry,” I snap back without looking at him.
Rook nods to Wraith. Wraith reaches for something on the sideboard and sets a plate in front of me. Eggs, roasted peppers and onion, bacon, buttered toast. Real food, not scraps. Next to it, a mug of coffee and a glass of water.
I stare at it. My stomach is already screaming. My pride is louder.
I don’t move.
“Eat,” Caelum says.
“Is this poisoned, or are we saving that for lunch?” I ask, quirking a brow to let them know I mean business.
Vale lets out a low whistle. “I’ll do breakfast from now on. She can sit here every morning.”
Saint, without looking away from me, murmurs, “You speak like a cornered cat.”
“I am a cornered cat,” I say, scoffing at him.
Saint’s mouth curves in something too soft to be a smirk, too dangerous to be warmth. “Little lamb,” he hums, almost tender. “You don’t even know what you are yet.”
My eyes snap to him, anger flashing brightly in my chest. “Don’t call me that.”
He tilts his head, like that just confirmed something for him. “As you wish.”
Ash, the techy one, hasn’t said a word. But his eyes have barely left me.
His fingers move over keys without him looking at the screen — a habit, if I had to guess.
He’s probably recording everything, cataloguing my tone, building a file he can dissect later.
He looks at me like I’m something he’s waiting to wake up and bite him.
Caelum watches me watch all of them. He’s not rushing. That’s when I realize they’re not here for theatrics. They’re here to see what I do before I open my mouth. They want to see if I break.
So I don’t.
I pick up the mug of coffee first and take a slow sip. It’s strong, dark, no sugar. I don’t wince. I won’t give Vale that show. I set it down, tear off a piece of toast, drag it through the yolk of the egg, and take a bite.
The silence in the room shifts.
Something that was coiled draws back a fraction. I don’t know why.
Maybe because I’m behaving. Or because I’m accepting my fate? Maybe because they were trying to see if I’d refuse food just to prove I could.
I swallow, set the toast down, and look at Caelum. “You dragged me out of bed so you could watch me eat?” I ask. “Kinky, but there are cleaner ways to say you’re lonely.”
Vale chokes on a laugh. Saint exhales like a prayer he’s trying not to say out loud. Wraith’s mouth kicks, just barely. Ash… finally speaks.
“Cute,” he says softly, almost clinically. His voice is calmer than I expected. Patient. “But we can skip the flight response testing. We already know you’re feral. We’re here for the drive.”
My body goes still.
I hate that it happens so fast. I hate that I didn’t get to school my face first. Caelum sees it. Of course he sees it. “Good,” he murmurs. “You did take something.”
I force my shoulders to loosen. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to,” Ash says. “Your pupils dilated, and your breathing changed. Also, you stalled two beats instead of one. Your shoulders rose three millimeters when I said ‘drive,’ which tells me you’re guarding your upper body subconsciously.
I assume it’s not literally on you now, so that means you hid it. Somewhere you think we won’t touch.”
I stare at him.
Slowly, I say, “You’re disgusting.”
“Frequently,” Ash agrees, unbothered.
Vale leans his cheek into his fist, watching me like I’m a show. “Where is it, Red?”
I don’t look at him when I answer. I keep my eyes on Caelum. “Before I even think about telling you that,” I say evenly, “you’re going to give me something.”
Vale laughs. “Oh, sweetheart. That’s not how this works.”
“Careful,” Saint murmurs without looking away from me, voice low and smooth. “She’s not bargaining for money.”
Wraith is silent. But I feel him watching me, steady, the way he had in the hallway last night. Protective and assessing. Wolf waiting to see which way I run so he can intercept. I can feel him ready to move if Vale lunges, or if I do.
I sit up a fraction straighter.
“I want protection,” I say.
Caelum’s gaze sharpens, just enough. “You already have it.”
“No,” I say. “I want it in writing.”
That gets me a reaction. Subtle, but it’s there. Vale’s brows go up. He wasn’t expecting that. He expected crying, or bargaining with sex, or hysterics, or threats. He didn’t expect paperwork.
Saint’s attention narrows, focus turning razor-edged.
He looks almost… pleased. Ash’s fingers still on the keys for the first time since I walked in.
Wraith doesn’t react with surprise at all.
He just… nods once, barely visible. Like there it is.
That’s the part I wanted them to see. Caelum studies me.
“In writing,” he repeats, slow. “You think paper means anything in my world.”
“I think you’re not stupid,” I say. “And I think you know that if anything happens to me, other people will know who to blame.”
Silence. I feel it hit them like a match.
Vale straightens in his chair. “Explain that, little spark.”
I turn to him, finally giving him my eyes. “You think I’m an idiot? You think I broke into your vault alone and just… wandered out with something you clearly don’t want the world to see, and that I didn’t prepare at all in case I was snatched off the street for it?”
He grins, slow and delighted. “Oh, she’s fun.”
I lean forward, forearms braced on the table.
“I’m not handing you anything unless I have a guarantee — signed, dated — that I walk out of this alive.
That I don’t disappear. That I don’t get dropped in a river.
That I don’t get carved up and scattered in bins off the M25.
I want it in black and white, and I want all of you bound to it. All five.”
Saint’s lips part. The sound he lets out is soft, reverent. “Clever little lamb.”
Ash exhales through his nose. “Jesus Christ.”
Wraith chuckles. Low. Approving.
Caelum doesn’t move. His face doesn’t shift. But the air around him changes.
Power isn’t volume. It’s focus. And right now, all of his is on me.
“You think,” he says quietly, “that you are in a position to make demands.”
“Yes,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because,” I say, “you can hurt me anytime you want. You can take anything off me, break anything in me, cut anything out of me. But there’s one thing you can’t get without my consent.”
He tilts his head slightly. “The drive.”
“The leverage,” I correct softly.
It lands.
And for the first time since I walked into this house, Caelum Voss looks at me like I’m not an inconvenience, not a loose end, not blood under his nails.
He looks at me like a problem worth solving.
He looks at me like a threat.
Good.
“I want it in writing,” I repeat. “And I want you to sign it in front of me. All of you. You can word it however you want — I’m not asking you to admit anything.
I just want one promise. You will not kill Ember Calloway, nor will you allow her to be killed.
You will not hand Ember Calloway to any foreign or domestic power, syndicate, contractor, or government entity.
You will return her to London alive when this is done. ”
Ash lets out a low, impressed, “Goddamn.”
Vale whistles under his breath. “She said ‘domestic and foreign.’ Listen to her. Like she’s seen the playbook.”
Saint is smiling now. Not soft. Proud.
Wraith is still as stone, but his hand is fisted on the table, and I can see the tendons in his forearm. I don’t know if that’s anger at the idea of someone else taking me, or anger at me talking about it out loud.
Caelum is silent again. Still studying my face, like it will give him all my tells. I let him.
Let him see the stubborn. Let him see the fear under it. Let him see the fact that I am running on fumes and adrenaline and spite. Let him see that I am not bluffing.
Because I am not bluffing. If he thinks I’m bluffing, I die.
Finally, he speaks. “What happens,” he says softly, “if I say no?”
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my gums. My mouth is dry. My palms are damp. I don’t let them see any of that.
“I send a message,” I say.
“To who?” His voice is quiet. Dangerous. Curious.
“I’m not stupid enough to tell you that,” I say.
A beat passes between us, and the room drops to a silence so thick I could cut it with a knife.
Then Vale leans back in his chair and lets out a low, delighted laugh. “Oh, this is delicious.”
Ash scrubs a hand over his mouth, like he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s smiling. “Caelum.”
Saint murmurs, “King.”
Wraith just says, low, almost pleased, “Told you she wasn’t stupid.”
Caelum doesn’t look away from me.
“Let me be very clear,” he says. His voice is controlled velvet. His eyes are ice. “If I agree to this, if I put ink to paper and bind my brothers to it, and you are lying to me? If you hand me nothing? If you attempt to play me?”
He leans in. The room goes silent. “I will not kill you,” he says, soft and absolutely lethal. “But I will make you wish you’d taken that option when it was on the table.”
My throat is tight, and I swallow hard, forcing my voice steady. “Then I won’t lie.”
We hold that for several seconds. Something passes between us that I can’t name yet. Something too sharp to be trust and too focused to be hatred.
Then Caelum leans back. “Ash,” he says without looking away from me.
Ash is already moving. “On it.”
“Draft it,” Caelum says.
“Language?”
“Exactly what she just said,” Caelum replies. “Word for word.”
Ash’s mouth twitches. “Cute. Binding signatures?”
“All of us.”
Wraith nods once, like that was never in question. Vale laughs again, dark and hungry, eyes on me like I just bared my throat for him. “Breakfast and contracts. Red, I think I might be in love.”
Saint’s gaze warms, almost devout. “Careful,” he murmurs to Vale. “Coveting isn’t a sin you survive in this house.”
“I don’t plan to survive it,” Vale purrs.
“Mateo,” Caelum says without looking at him.
Vale raises his hands in mock surrender, lips curving. My heart is still pounding. My hands are still shaking under the table where no one can see.
But I keep my face even.
I pick up the toast again, drag it through yolk, and take another bite like my stomach isn’t flipping. Caelum watches me. I don’t know it yet, but I’ve just changed something in this house.
They don’t say it. They don’t explain it. No one tells me congratulations, you passed the test, you’re not prey today.
But I can feel it.
Something in the room has shifted.
And for the first morning since Owen’s body hit wet stone, I am not just surviving.
I am negotiating.