“He’s still smoking weed, hasn’t moved to the hard stuff yet,” the man replied.
“I won’t have rumors of a Pavoni Prince threaten what I’ve built, especially when that prince is nothing more than the son of a cuckolded councilman. How long will Sofia De Luca’s whoring plague me?” Her voice drifted out of earshot and I let out a big exhale, breath blowing hair from my face. So much had been said in those few sentences, so many new questions were born, but I knew Lucia would never answer them.
I stood up and tiptoed to the door, pressing my ear against the cool, silky painted wood. All I heard was silence. Then the subtle creak of the window being opened behind me stilled my blood.
We were at war, but up to that point I hadn’t really seen any of the danger. I’d been warned I was a target, but the most blood I’d seen was inside the present earlier that day. Even then, that wasn’t violence begotten from anger. It was beautiful. It was passion. It was boiling, raw emotion, and it was all for me. My heart thudded as more noise sounded behind me. I spun around, not sure what to expect.
When I saw who it was, my heart leapt. I was simultaneously terrified and excited. He shouldn’t have been here, but I was so fucking excited that he’d come.
“What are you doing?” I whispered. “You can’t be here.” Anteros sat lackadaisically on the windowsill, one leg draped and touching the hardwood. He was like a boy who’d climbed through the window of his high school crush. A crooked, infuriatingly beguiling smile twisted the corner of his hard jaw. Unfreezing, I ran and pulled him from the ivory window before someone outside saw—if they hadn’t already.
Anteros jumped off with ease and I curled my fingers in the soft fabric of his shirt, a simple red v-neck this time, and he was wearing a hoodie
with jeans, too. It was like he was trying to blend in—but he was massive, shoulders dwarfing the window he’d just come through and having to bend his neck to look at me. I was certain if anyone looked up, they would see us, see his frame shadowing the window.
“I was hoping you’d let down your hair for me,” he replied, wicked grin breaking both cheeks. His hand scored through my hair, knotting it. “When you didn’t, I had to climb up.”
“You can’t be here.” My words were too breathless. I fought the urge to fall into him, his touch, his playful words—reminding myself who had just been outside the door.
“Did you get my present?” He raised a dark brow, and for a moment I was lost, distracted by the impossible color of his eyes. I’d never seen anything like them, eyes that had infuriated me by the simple fact that I loved them even when they had been hateful. Seeing them trained on me, sparkling with humor and lust and all trace of hate gone, turned my legs into jelly.
“Yes,” I said, focusing on keeping my voice steadier than my legs.
“Did you like it?” He tilted his head, pressing his lips to my neck. I nodded, getting lost in the sensation of him. Blood hammered in my veins like a heavy musical beat, pulsing, thrumming, driving me to a crescendo. The hand in my hair tightened and he pulled me back so I had to look into his eyes. “Words.”
“I liked it,” I responded in little more than a gasp. He went back to my neck and I asked, “Who was it?”
“Governor Dubois,” he said simply. I almost lost myself in him, in his tongue at my neck and his words vibrating along my flesh, but a memory broke me out of it.
Governor Dubois is in league with the mafia and this new senator is just a puppet.
Senator Hatch had screamed that Anteros was working with Dubois the night of the Christmas party, but Dubois had been the one in the box? I didn’t understand. I thought back to what Lucia had said about Emilio.
I just didn’t understand any of it.
“But—” I pulled away, brow furrowing. I wanted to know what was going on. I didn’t want to be in the dark anymore, dammit. Anteros gripped me, palms on either side of my face, and devoured my lips, cutting off any train of thought.
“Leave this place.” His voice was a hoarse rumble, bluegreen gaze shadowed under our foreheads still pressed together. The need—the urgency—pierced my soul. He tightened his grip on my skull, thumbs digging into my flesh. “Come back with me.”
I still didn’t know anything about my real parents. Nothing. I shared my concerns with Anteros.
He dropped his hands from my face. “You don’t need to know any of that.” I scoffed; he said it with such callous certainty—a callous certainty about what I needed, as if he knew my own wants better than me.
I spun away, putting distance between us. “You don’t understand. You’re—” I struggled with the right words, but Anteros beat me to it.
“Orphaned?” Dark amusement colored his words.
“You knew them,” I said, pressing on. “They’re dead, but you knew them.”
He laughed caustically. “It would have been better had I not.” I still didn’t know much about his parents, just that he hated them. I rubbed my arms, focusing on the door instead of what he’d said. It was ivory with gold trim—beautiful. Just once I wished I could see something ugly, to remind me of the truth.
But that was only found in the basement.
“Fall with me,” Anteros whispered below my earlobe, closing the distance between us. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me back to his chest, voice low, making my skin tingle. “Be my queen.”
I craned my neck so our eyes locked. “Are the Wolves gone?” His silence told me the truth. I wouldn’t be his queen. It would be just like here, like Lucia’s slaves with the names of princess. There was no way for me to integrate into Beast’s world, not without destroying everything, and he wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t ask him to do that, either.
I wasn’t really sure what I wanted in this war. I wasn’t team Lucia, but I wasn’t team Beast, not if it included the Wolves. I was team us, but that team couldn’t be. Without him I was lost, but together was an impossibility.