Chapter 16 #2
He was in a silky black tuxedo, with a moonlit-pale white shirt.
There was a white rose pinned to his chest. His face was obscured, but I could make out the dark bronze of his skin and the sharp beauty that had recently captured the world.
In the past two weeks, a multitude of poems had been written about his lips.
A song for his hands. There was a new fan club dedicated to his hair.
That same black hair fell over his forehead in a glossy wave.
His brown eyes glittered like a cat’s, shining gold in the dark.
My chest went tight, and pinpricks ran over my skin. “Me? Why are you here?”
I remembered how much Last had hated his beauty, and I wondered if she hated it now. Weeks ago, it had been a pure, perfect sort of beauty. Now, it was a sharp-edged, broken-glass beauty. He’d been shattered and glued back together, and the cracks were mesmerizing.
He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and started across the room. He moved with a strange, catlike grace. An animal on the hunt.
I narrowed my eyes. This wasn’t how Luvic had moved before. This wasn’t how he moved at all. Luvic had always walked with a rolling grace, a carefree stride, a weightlessness. Not this . . . stalking prowl.
“I live here,” he said, still smiling. “You killed Finn.”
He prowled closer, winding around newspapers and sightless mannequins.
I pulled my lighter from my pocket. “You killed your brother and sister.”
A shadow flickered over his expression. “So is that it? Are we evil now, Mari? Is that what we’re doing?”
He stood in front of me, and the predatory, hunting-cat feel of him made me shiver. There was something not quite right with him. Something very wrong.
It wasn’t illusion. He wasn’t using any. It was just . . . him.
“Yes,” I said, studying his opaque gaze. “It would seem we are.”
He nodded. “It would seem so.”
He reached forward then—so slowly, so nonthreateningly, that I let him. He dropped his hand into my coat pocket and pulled the brooch free.
“I need this,” he said, and finally, he gave me the smile he’d always worn. The up-to-no-good, “you’re going to like this, let’s have fun” smile.
I let out a breath. It fluttered like an injured bird between us.
I wanted to step back. I wanted to run. My heart flopped once: a hard, uncertain thud.
“You’re going to let me pierce you.” He flicked the pin free, holding the sharp end so it caught the muted light.
“I am?”
He stared at me, and then, ever so slowly, he winked. “You are.”
“I don’t think so.”
Faster than I’d ever seen him move, he had me pinned against the wall. I struggled. I kicked. I shoved. I did everything I could to twist free. But then Luvic made a rattling noise in his throat.
I stopped. My skin, my blood, ran cold.
Ever since I’d become a mine, I’d been hot. Burning, stuck-in-a-furnace hot. But at that deep rattle, my insides turned to ice. It swept through me and froze me in place.
Nausea twisted through my stomach, and a cold sweat broke out on my head. I could remember their claws ripping at my intestines; I could feel their hot breath on my neck; I could hear the rattling in their throats.
“You’re . . . you’re . . . Why are you a . . .?”
Luvic bared his teeth. A predator. I’d been wrong. He didn’t move like a cat. His eyes didn’t glint like a cat’s. There was nothing catlike about him.
He was a . . . “Jackaltooth?”
He struck me with the pin. I kicked, bucked, and fought, but he held me with more strength than he’d ever had when he was only a man.
“I’ll kill you,” I hissed. “I will kill you.”
He squeezed my finger, forcing the blood to well. Then he smirked and jabbed his own finger with the sharp pin. “You need to work on your threats. Especially since you’re evil now. A mine.”
“Better than a jackaltooth.”
I hissed as he pressed his bloody finger against mine. A hot sizzle pulsed between us. Tiny prickers stung the sensitive skin of my finger. It felt like a ball of thorns scouring and biting. I tried to pull away.
Luvic growled—that cold-blooded throat rattle—and kept my hand beneath his. “Leave it.”
“Killing you wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.”
“Mm-hmm. You won’t kill me, Mari. You’re stuck with me. Whether you want it or not.”
A fuzzy-headed dizziness filtered through me. It was a honey-sweet, sticky sensation. Cloying and thick.
Luvic’s face softened and became less predatory. His eyes unfocused, and the luminescent glitter faded. He took in a deep breath as if he were smelling fresh air after being locked in a basement for years.
“Hell,” he said, and his voice was filled with relief.
He smiled down at me, his mischievous Bard smile. I blinked. The dizzied honey sensation was already clearing. He almost looked like his old self.
“What did you do to me?” Jagger’s blood hadn’t even noticed the pinprick. I didn’t feel any different. I felt nothing.
“Pricked your finger.”
“Luvic.”
“Mari.”
“Tell me.”
“Nope. By the way,”—he looked down at my lighter—“why are we setting my house on fire?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I swear—”
Luvic laughed. “Right there. The line between your eyebrows. You’re up to no good. Tell me.”
I waited to see if there was compulsion attached to the pinprick. There wasn’t. I didn’t feel the need to tell him anything; I only felt the need to kick him. He seemed more like himself, the jackaltooth hidden.
“I’ll tell you as soon as you tell me why you killed Celia and Ragnor.”
His hold on me loosened, but when I shifted, his grip tightened. He shrugged. “Because they had to die.”
He waited, clearly expecting me to answer his question now. Tit for tat.
Except it didn’t make sense, what he’d said. Luvic loved his sister. He loved his brother. He would do anything for them. He would die himself before hurting them.
But I couldn’t say any of that. I couldn’t tell him I remembered our friendship, and I couldn’t tell him I knew he loved his siblings.
I shook my head. “There’s something wrong with you.”
His eyes glinted. “There are many things wrong with me. Who’s going to light the match—you or me? Your friends are getting impatient.”
I glanced toward the window. Would Griff fly up and find me and Luvic? Would Justice try to kill Luvic if he saw me pinned to the wall, Luvic’s forearm over my throat?
Cold sweat dripped down my forehead, dropping off my chin and falling onto Luvic’s sleeve. I took a breath, smelling the sweet, fresh scent of the rose pinned to his coat.
Was he still Luvic?
Or was he something different?
A white rose now a rotten husk.
Or was he, like me, playing a dangerous game that required trust even when all signs pointed in the opposite direction?
“Do you remember when you told me you liked me?” I asked, watching him closely.
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”
“And did you truly like me?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“And do you still?”
“Without reservation.”
I paused. “Why? Am I going to save your life?”
He laughed. It was his rich, melodious Bard laugh. “No, Mari. You’re going to make my life hell.”
I made a decision. One born from years of friendship. A friendship he remembered and thought I’d forgotten.
Jagger’s order held me in check. I couldn’t even let on that I had once or did now care about him. But I could choose to trust him. To play along.
We stared at each other, our noses an inch apart. Finally, I spoke. “We’re lighting your house on fire so the Bard thinks the Smiths attacked.”
Luvic blinked. Surprise flickered, then amusement.
“Really?” He thought it was funny. “And then what?”
I smiled my new cold smile. “And then you come to Hell Gate for a dinner party.”
He grinned. “You always have been fun. All right. Let it burn.”
Luvic stepped back, releasing me. I cast him a final warning look, and then I set his house on fire.