Chapter Three
The Mark of Monsters
Briana
Sleep doesn’t come gently. It never does anymore.
It drags me under by the throat sometime after dawn, when my body finally gets tired of pretending spite is a substitute for rest. One moment, I am pacing the apartment with Knox’s blood still bright in my mind, and the next, I am on top of the covers, boots still on, one hand wrapped around the little silver knife Akasha gave me two days ago.
“For protection,” she said.
As if protection can fit in my palm. As if the things that stalk me in dreams care about blades.
I wake to someone knocking on my door. My body reacts before my mind catches up.
I roll off the bed, hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs, and come up with the knife in my hand. My heart is wild. My throat closes around a sound that wants to be a scream but refuses to become one.
The knocking stops.
“Briana?” Akasha’s voice comes through the door, careful and soft. “It’s me.”
I hate soft voices. I hate even more that I need them.
My grip tightens around the knife until the engraved handle bites into my palm. The room is bright now, gray morning light spilling through the curtains. The city is awake beyond the glass. Cars. Voices. A dog barking as if it has personal problems with the universe.
I’m not in that room. There are no velvet walls here. No teeth.
Just my apartment. Just me. Just Akasha on the other side of the door, probably holding tea and wearing that expression that makes me want to punch a pillow.
“I’m fine,” I call.
There’s a pause. “Open the door and lie to my face, please.”
Despite myself, a laugh scrapes out of me. It sounds terrible. Rusty and half dead, but it’s a laugh. That counts for something, or it should.
I lower the knife and push to my feet. My hip throbs from hitting the floor. Wonderful. Another bruise for the collection. At least this one is mine.
I cross the room, check the peephole because apparently paranoia has become a personality trait, and unlock the door.
Akasha stands in the hallway, holding two paper cups in one hand and a brown bag in the other. Her dark curls are piled on top of her head, and her eyes travel over me in a quick sweep that misses absolutely nothing.
The boots. The wrinkled sweater. The knife. The way I stand just far enough back to keep space between us.
Her mouth doesn’t tremble. Her eyes don’t go wet. She doesn’t ask if I am okay. I appreciate that last one more than I know how to say.
“Breakfast,” she announces, lifting the bag. “And a summons.”
I lean against the doorframe. “A summons?”
“Aldron would never call it that because he has manners and an accent, but, yes.” She holds out one of the cups. “Tea.”
“Is it emotional support tea?”
“Obviously.”
“I hate all of you.”
“No, you don’t.” She smiles. “You hate that we’re likable.”
I take the cup because arguing with witches before caffeine seems unwise. The smell of honey, lemon, and something floral rises from the lid. My stomach growls, proving it’s a traitor.
I turn away before Akasha can read my face, but I know I am too late.
She steps inside and closes the door behind her. “Did something happen last night?”
I take a sip of tea and burn my tongue. Good. Pain gives me something to focus on.
“I couldn’t sleep. I went to The Gin Room.”
Akasha’s brows lift. “Alone?”
“Careful. You’re using the tone.”
“What tone?”
“The one that says the poor, fragile human made a questionable choice.”
“I was aiming for the tone that says a woman with enemies wanders into a supernatural bar with no backup, but sure, we can call it that.”
I glare at her, and she smiles into her cup. Witches are irritating.
“Knox was there,” I say.
Akasha goes very still. It’s small. Barely there. But I see it. Everyone in this building has tells, no matter how ancient, powerful, or smug they are. Akasha’s is in her hands. She gets careful with them, like her magic might slip through her fingers if she lets emotion get too close.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
Her eyes flick to my face. I hate that word too. Nothing. Fine. Healing. Recovering. Useless little lies people hand each other because the truth has teeth.
“He punched a wall,” I say.
Akasha blinks. “He what?”
“I annoyed him.”
“Briana.”
“I didn’t mean he punched it at me. He hit it instead of saying whatever awful thing was in his head.” I take another sip of tea, slower this time. “I bandaged his hand.”
There’s another pause. A different one.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t you start.”
“I just didn’t realize you and Knox were having late-night first-aid dates.”
“It was not a date.”
“Did he bleed?”
“Yes.” Why else would I bandage his hand?
“Did you touch his hand?”
“I had to.” These questions are only pointing out the obvious.
“Did he look tortured and intense about it?”
“That’s his face.”
Akasha’s smile turns dangerous. “Sounds like a date.”
I point at her with the cup. “I have a knife.”
“You do. I gave it to you. You’re welcome.”
I should be annoyed. I am annoyed. But there’s something almost normal about this. A woman in my apartment is teasing me about a man. Tea in my hand. Morning at the windows. My body aches from bad sleep, not from fresh wounds.
For one breath, I can pretend I am only tired. Not haunted.
Then Akasha’s expression softens, and the pretend moment breaks. “What else happened?” she asks.
I look at the window.
The curtains are pale gray. Too sheer for my taste. Anyone across the street could look in if they cared enough. I make a note to go and buy darker ones. Then I hate myself for needing them. Then I hate the vampires more for making curtains feel important.
“I remembered something,” I say.
“The symbol?” My gaze snaps back to her.
She grimaces. “Aldron told me this morning. No details. Just that you remembered a mark, and he wants everyone who knows anything in his office.”
“How does he know?”
“No idea,” she says, “but he is like that.”
“And now he wants everyone in his office?”
“Not everyone. Aldron, Korvin, Ari, me, Knox, Cruz. Maybe Krishka, if she gets here in time.”
My stomach knots. Knox. I still feel the echo of his eyes on me. The way the black swallowed the brown. The rumble in his chest. The rough plea when he told me to go home.
Please.
I should have been afraid. Maybe I was? Maybe the problem is that fear no longer works the way it should. The vampires looked human enough until they opened their mouths. Knox looks like violence, even when he is trying to be gentle. My body should pick the obvious danger, but it doesn’t.
My body, stupid thing that it is, remembers the way he stepped between Cruz and me without touching me. It remembers the way he sat when I told him to. It remembers heat snapping through my fingers when our hands brushed over a packet of gauze.
I flex my hand around the cup, and Akasha notices. Because of course she does.
“I’m not asking,” she says quietly. “But I am here.”
The words settle between us, careful and kind. I don’t know what to do with kindness when it asks for nothing.
So I shrug. “Then be here while I brush my teeth.”
Her smile returns. “That I can do.”
Twenty minutes later, I am dressed in black jeans, a dark green sweater, and boots I can run in if running becomes necessary. I have the knife strapped to my thigh beneath the sweater’s hem. Akasha sees me adjust it and says nothing.
Let’s call it progress.
We take the elevator down in silence. Not awkward silence. The useful kind. The kind that lets me count my breaths without someone filling the air just because they are uncomfortable.
The elevator smells faintly of polish and old magic. And something else. Smoke. Leather. Rain-warm earth.
Knox.
The scent is faint, but it hooks under my ribs all the same. My pulse shifts. Not faster exactly. Deeper.
Akasha glances at me.
“Don’t,” I say.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought loudly.”
“I’m a witch. We do that.”
The doors open before I can reply, and we’re out in the sunlight soon enough. The city bustles around us as we make our way the few blocks to The Gin Room.
The Gin Room is closed to the public, but it’s not empty.
Morning light slants through the high windows, turning dust into gold.
Chairs are down now, and the bar is clean.
The cracked brick near the hallway has already been repaired, though the new mortar is darker than the rest, a fresh scar in an old wall.
My gaze sticks there as I remember Knox’s fist and the blood on white tape.
You’re special.
I force myself to look away.
Ari sits on top of the bar with a pastry in one hand and murder in her eyes.
Malichai stands beside her, one hand resting against the top of her thigh like he needs the contact to keep breathing.
He is all dark suit and old arrogance, but his attention shifts to Ari every few seconds. A dragon checking his treasure.
Korvin leans against the far wall beside Akasha’s usual station, arms crossed, beard hiding most of his expression. His gaze softens when he sees his mate, but only for a second. Then he looks at me and gives a single nod.
Korvin’s nods have levels. This one says, “I am glad you are alive, but I won’t embarrass either of us by saying it,” so I nod back.
Cruz sits at one of the barrel tables, long legs stretched out, fingers drumming on the wood. He gives me a quick smile, but his eyes are sharper than usual.
Knox stands behind him near the hallway.
He is wearing a black long-sleeved shirt today, with the sleeves pushed up to his forearms. The bandage around his hand is fresh. His gaze finds mine, and everything else dims by a fraction.
Not disappears. I am not that dramatic. But the room shifts. My awareness narrows in a way I resent. The distance between us becomes a living thing.
His eyes move over me once. Not leering. Not even obvious. Just enough to check for damage. To make sure I am in one piece.
I should hate it. I do hate it... Mostly.
“You get any sleep?” Cruz asks me, breaking the tension.
“No.”
“Knox didn’t either.”
Knox growls, and Cruz grins.