Chapter Four #2
If you hear me scream, then you can come running.
And if I don’t?
Then trust me to stand.
I close my eyes and count my breaths.
One.
Two.
Three.
When I open them again, the room is still red around the edges, but I am inside my skin. Krishka slowly lowers her hand, and Cruz releases me a second later.
Moira watches with hungry interest. “Impressive.”
“Don’t compliment me,” I say.
She laughs, delighted. Krishka steps to the counter and removes a folded paper from her coat. She opens it, revealing a sketch of Briana’s symbol. The circle. The slash. The three drops.
Moira’s amusement dies.
“You know it,” Krishka says.
“No.”
I growl, and Moira looks at me. “That was not a no of ignorance. That was a no of self-preservation.”
“You need to start talking, or there will be nothing left to preserve,” I say.
Cruz sighs. “So much for not threatening.”
“That was advice.”
Moira’s red nails tap once against the glass. “The Sable Vein is not a name spoken lightly.”
“It is spoken by people who want to keep breathing,” Krishka says.
The banshee looks between us. Then she turns and flips the door sign to closed. The lock clicks on its own, and I find myself not liking that.
Moira moves from behind the counter and glides toward the back of the shop. “Come, then. Bring your violence and your terrible questions.”
The back room is smaller, darker, and just so much worse.
Three mirrors hang on one wall, each covered with black cloth. A round table sits in the center of the room, carved with symbols that make my eyes want to look away. Moira lights a red candle with a snap of her fingers and places the sketch beside it.
“The Crimson Door is open again,” she says.
The words settle like poison in my veins. “Where?” I ask.
She ignores me and looks at Krishka. “Your bull has no manners.”
“My bull has trauma,” Krishka snaps. “Continue.”
Cruz leans closer to me. “I think she adopted you.”
“I will bite you.”
“You keep proving her point.”
Moira taps the sketch. “The mark has appeared on invitations circulating through old vampire channels. Private events. Rare blood. No phones. No familiars. No witches unless bound or bought.”
“What is the location?” I ask.
“You make demands like you have leverage.”
I smile, but it feels wrong on my face, and Moira’s gaze sharpens.
“He is trying very hard not to create leverage out of your spine,” Krishka says flatly.
“Again,” Cruz adds, “that was advice.”
Moira studies me for a long moment. “A human woman escaped them.”
My hands curl at my sides. No names. No names. I keep chanting it in my head over and over.
“Yes,” Krishka says.
“They want her back.”
The room disappears beneath a wash of red. Cruz steps in front of me this time, blocking my path before I take one. “Breathe.”
I don’t want to breathe. I want blood. I want screams. I want every creature who has ever whispered about Briana like she is property to learn the difference between a Minotaur standing still and a Minotaur unleashed.
Moira’s voice slides through the fury. “Not merely because she escaped. Because she heard something she was never meant to survive knowing.”
“What?” Krishka asks.
Moira looks at the covered mirrors, and fear moves across her face. Real fear. And that gets my attention.
“I don’t know the whole of it,” she says. “Only whispers. Lucius is building something beneath the city. Not a club. Not only a ring. A court. Old blood families. Exiles. Creatures who believe Malichai’s rule has made the world too soft.”
Cruz’s face hardens. “A rebellion.”
“A correction, they call it.” Moira’s mouth twists. “Monsters adore pretty words for ugly things.”
“And Crimson Door?” Krishka asks.
“A feeding ground. Recruitment. Blackmail. Pleasure. Punishment. All the usual sins dressed in velvet.”
“Where?” I repeat.
Moira looks at me, and for the first time, there’s no teasing in her face.
“Under a closed theater in Gowanus called The Marrow House. The entrance changes depending on the night, but the next event is tomorrow.”
Tomorrow.
The word tears through me. It’s too soon and somehow not soon enough.
Cruz swears under his breath, and Krishka’s expression turns lethal. “How do you know?”
Moira moves to a cabinet and removes a black envelope sealed in wax. She places it on the table but keeps her fingers on top. “I was invited.”
The seal is the same. Circle. Slash. Three drops. My beast rises violently.
Moira’s gaze flicks to me. “I didn’t accept.”
“Why invite a banshee?” Cruz asks.
“Because banshees hear death before it arrives.” Moira’s smile is thin. “They want entertainment. A prophecy with their wine.”
I stare at the envelope.
“She’ll want to go,” Cruz says quietly.
I look at him, but he doesn’t back down because he knows he is right. Briana will hear about this and demand to be involved. She’ll lift her chin and tell us she survived once already. She’ll say we don’t get to bury her in safety.
And every protective instinct I own will claw itself bloody trying not to lock her away.
Krishka takes the envelope. “What will this cost me?”
Moira smiles again, but it’s weaker now. “A favor from the Obsidian Coven.”
“No.”
“A small favor.”
“No.”
“A medium favor.”
Krishka stares.
Moira sighs. “Fine. Nothing. But I do have a warning.”
Krishka’s eyes narrow. “What kind of warning?”
The banshee looks at me, and the fine hairs on the back of my neck rise.
“The escaped woman carries more than fear,” Moira says. “There’s something in her blood. Something old enough that the vampires didn’t recognize it at first. But Lucius will.”
My heart stops. “What does that mean?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
I step closer, and the candle flame bends toward me.
Moira doesn’t move away, but her throat bobs. “I truly don’t know. Only that they tasted value in her before they understood why. If Lucius sees her, he won’t merely want her back. He’ll keep her.”
A sound rips out of me. Not human and not words. The black cloths over the mirrors lift as if caught in the wind.
Krishka slams the envelope against my chest. “Enough.”
Her magic bites at my flesh. I grab it, fingers crushing the paper.
Cruz says my name, but I hear none of it for a moment. I only see Briana in my mind. Her throat. Her knife in her shaking hand. Her voice telling me to trust her to stand.
Moira’s expression shifts again, softening in a way I despise. “You love her.”
The room goes still. Cruz stops breathing, Krishka’s eyes move to me, and I stare at the banshee.
Love is too small a word for the thing inside me. Too clean. Too human. What I feel is older and darker and worse. It’s rage with devotion. It’s need wrapped around restraint. It’s the beast in me kneeling to a woman who doesn’t know she has already changed the shape of my world.
But I don’t say that, I say, “She is not yours to taste.”
Moira inclines her head. “No. She is not.”
We leave with the envelope and the address burned into my skull.
Outside, the afternoon air feels too bright. Too normal. A mother pushes a stroller past the bakery. A cyclist curses at a cab. Somewhere, someone laughs like the city is not rotting beneath their feet.
I stand on the sidewalk, fighting the urge to shift.
Cruz stands beside me, his shoulder brushing mine. “We need to tell Aldron.”
“We need to tell Briana.”
Krishka turns from the driver’s door. “Aldron first.”
“Briana,” I say.
Cruz watches me carefully. “You sure?”
Hell, no. “Yes.”
Because if she hears it from someone else, if we discuss her blood and her danger and her choices in rooms where she is not standing, then I become the thing I swore I would not be. Another monster deciding what she can survive.
I look down at the black envelope in my hand. The wax seal gleams like dried blood, and my beast whispers violence. For once, I whisper back something else instead of no.
Wait.
Not because I am calm. Not because I am merciful. Because Briana asked me to trust her to stand. And goddess help every creature in that club when she does.
We drive back to The Gin Room in silence. By the time we reach Brooklyn, the sky has gone the color of old bruises. The bar is not open yet, but lights glow behind the windows. Safe. Warm. A lie with good intentions.
Briana is behind the bar when we enter.
She has her sleeves pushed up and a towel in one hand, polishing glasses like she is not standing in the middle of a supernatural war with a knife strapped to her thigh. Her hair is tied back messily, and her eyes lift to mine the second the door opens.
The pull hits hard enough to make my feet stop. She sees the envelope. She sees my face.
“What happened?” she asks.
Cruz looks at me. Krishka says nothing. I cross the room slowly. Every step feels like walking toward a cliff and choosing not to stop.
Briana sets the glass down, and I place the black envelope on the bar between us.
Her gaze drops to the seal. For one second, she is pale, then her chin lifts. There she is. Terrified and furious but standing.
“They want me back,” she says. It’s not a question.
My hands curl at my sides. “Yes.”
The word almost kills me.
Her eyes meet mine. “Then we make them regret losing me the first time.”
My beast goes utterly still. And for the first time since fate put her in my path, I understand something that should have been obvious from the beginning.
Briana doesn’t need me to teach her how to be brave. She needs me to be brave enough to stand beside her while she shows everyone else.