Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
KIERAN
Iwandered around Ysabeau’s shop in a slow circle, grateful to find it empty of any other customers this time of day. It gave me the opportunity to both peruse and ponder, touching fabrics and examining their textures, searching for the appropriate apology.
Already, I missed Arken something fierce. It had barely been half an hour, and still I ached, longing to return to her like a moth to a flame.
Give her some damn time, you fucking fiend.
And I would, so I settled for drawing her image to the forefront of my mind as I inspected different sets of lingerie at Aenchanté, a semi-hidden storefront tucked behind buildings in the Arts District, one that specialized in the most luxurious imported fabrics and expensive scraps of lace that Sophrosyne had to offer.
As I held up different options, carefully examining certain fabrics to make sure they wouldn’t set Arken’s hair on end, I pictured her in every single piece.
Fates help me, the woman would ruin me in this one. An Irrosi silk number, dyed a dark olive green nearly matching my coat, and trimmed with black lace. The panties came with a matching garter and a balconette bra that would leave Arken’s tits looking downright indecent.
“We’ll start with this set,” I informed Ysabeau, giving her Arken’s measurements so she could tailor them into a custom fit.
The elegantly aging Novosi expat offered me a wide smile before getting to work. “An excellent selection, Captain Vistarii.”
I grinned, giving the older woman an exaggerated wink. “Yes, I’m told I have impeccable taste.”
Laughter brought youth back to Ysabeau’s face as she shook her head and resumed her stitching.
I returned to perusing, thumbing a satin said to be enchanted with cooling and moisture-wicking properties, when the bells rang out behind me, a charming peal of sound that introduced a less-charming disruption. I’d turned my head just enough to see who had entered through my periphery.
“Oh my gods, do my eyes deceive me?” the woman crowed, twirling a strawberry-blonde curl around her fingertip. “Or is that Kieran godsdamn Vistarii waltzing through a sex shoppe in the middle of the workday? Can’t say I ever expected to see the likes of you in a place like this, Captain.”
I nearly flinched at the way she attempted to roll her tongue around the title with the same sexual implications Arken did. The stranger—and she was a stranger to me—was sloppy in her execution, but even if she knew how to flirt, it would have sent the same slimy wave of disgust down my spine.
“All in a day’s work,” I murmured, not deigning to glance up, and hoping the woman would take the hint and leave me be.
“So is this where all my hard-earned taxes go, then?” she teased, and I worked the muscle in my jaw to bite back the rising snark, knowing damn well the obnoxious woman hadn’t worked a hard day in her life.
I steadfastly ignored her, exchanging a look of exasperation with Ysabeau before walking toward a rack of slinky robes and pajama sets.
Regrettably, the blonde followed.
“You know, I’m not with Fionn anymore,” she drawled, taking the spot right next to me, trying to paw at the dusty rose slip I’d been eyeing.
I let the weight of her implications drop to the floor with my silence, moving toward another piece.
“Though, I’m sure I could invite him back to my bed, should you be so lucky to take me out for a night on the town…”
I stiffened as she tried to run a hand “seductively” around my neck, catching her by the wrist, but not fast enough to stop her from extending a finger and prodding at the freshly bitten flesh on my neck where Arken had graced me with the gift of a bruise this morning.
“Don’t touch me,” I muttered, shaking her off. This woman was getting on my last nerve.
Attempting to put some distance between us, I returned to the table in the far corner of the room, picking up a pair of panties I’d noticed when I first walked in.
“Do you have these in any different colors, Ysabeau?” I asked, holding them up for the seamstress to observe.
These ones were rather similar to the panties I’d so rudely cut off Arken, the ones she’d claimed were her favorite.
The woman liked consistency, so if there were other options, I’d take them all.
“You know, I think I might,” she mused, tapping her chin before turning around to check her stock in the back.
Unfortunately, that gave Ysabeau’s other customer the audacity she needed.
“Come on now, Captain—” she teased, reaching a hand toward my waist, or maybe my fucking groin.
My eyes flashed, whipping my head in her direction and baring my teeth on instinct. Thick ropes of Shadow immediately wrapped themselves around her wrist, throwing her predatory hand back with enough force that the woman stumbled.
“Do not. Fucking. Touch me.”
“Well.” She sniffed. “That’s certainly not what you said around this time last year.”
That was it. I was fed the fuck up.
“Neandra, the only reason you got fucked that night was because your boyfriend had pretty eyes and a nice cock. You were something I tolerated for the sake of getting Fionn on his knees, and it was almost worth it, because he is phenomenal at sucking dick. But as I told you both before leaving your bed, I don’t do repeats. ”
She cocked a challenging brow, crossing her arms over her chest.
“You sure about that? Because the grapevine has been buzzing lately, let me tell you. All these whispers in the taverns suggest you finally took a true lover, Captain. Is that who you’re shopping for, then?”
“That’s none of your fucking business,” I growled.
“Isn’t it, though? I should like to meet this girl, I think, if only just to shake her fuckin’ hand. Most of us would, actually.”
“Us?”
Neandra rolled her eyes. “You think we don’t talk in these streets? You’ve left a long enough string of ex-lovers behind to fill a room with folk to commiserate amongst themselves, Captain. And we’re all ever so curious as to what it took to finally nail down Sophrosyne’s finest specimen.”
Specimen.
There it was.
Again, a wave of shame and disgust ran over me, coating my skin with invisible grime as I recalled, largely against my will, the way this woman’s greedy hands had once touched my body.
I always told myself that the way I approached my one-night stands was my choice, that my carefully crafted rules had been set by my will alone.
Neandra’s inability to take no for an answer reminded me of another buried truth.
Those casual nights of easily discarded pleasure were as much my preference as they were a critical defense mechanism.
A lesson, hard-earned. You need to leave before you get left.
Reject them before they ever get close enough to reject you.
The ugly truth was that none of these men or women had any interest in staying with me.
None of them wanted to know me beyond the most surface level, whatever it took to get my clothes off.
People like Neandra only wanted a taste of a scant few things I could offer in their eyes: my body, my authority, or my fucking Lyra.
But Arken…Arken wanted to know me.
“Tell me something I don’t know about you yet.”
There was a time when I’d sworn I would never speak of Viktor again, and yet the confession had poured out of me just the other night, eager for Arken to know just a little bit more of my story. Desperate to give her a hint of context, a droplet’s worth of explanation of why I was the way I was.
I would never be able to fully explain my past to her, not without revealing the horrors that lurked in my future. Not without exposing myself as a doomed man, a dangerous one she should be running far, far away from.
But she wanted to know me. She wanted to stay. And I wasn’t about to let any of my past mistakes come back to haunt me.
My fingers curled into fists at my sides. “Neandra, I am only going to say this once, so listen fucking well,” I began quietly. “I know where you live—”
“Nah, not anymore,” she interrupted, waving an irreverent hand. “I moved.”
“Fourth building off Silversmythe’s Way, your third apartment in the last three months,” I continued, snarling at this point.
“Three roommates, two of whom are addicted to illegal powders and poisons they buy off the Pyrhhan Black Market. Once a month, you visit your dying grandfather in Ithreac—the one who thinks you’re still studying to be a scholar and not just some washed-up waitress at a run-down tavern who dropped out of the Studium within her first six months in Sophrosyne. ”
I was just being cruel now, but I didn’t care.
“For someone who claims to have no interest in repeats, you sure seem to know an awful lot about me,” she shot back, clearly affronted.
“Yes, Neandra, I do. I know a great deal about you—probably more than you would like. Because I already knew you weren’t with Fionn anymore, as you’d cheated on him so many times with your drunken clientele that you gave the poor sod crotch-rot so bad he was bed-bound in the infirmary for a week.
And not that it even matters, but for the record, unlike you, Fionn did get a second ride out of me.
Figured it was the least I could do to lift that man’s spirits once he’d recovered from your infectious cunt.
But that’s far from all I know, so I’d advise you stop running your fucking mouth and listen. ”
Her expression faded from challenging indignance to discomfort, and perhaps a bit of anxiety.
Good.