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“Exactly.”

Now he smiles in earnest. “All right. Go. I’ll be in shortly.” His voice drops lower. “But I make no promises about what happens after.”

Warmth unfurls low in my stomach. I turn quickly and slip inside before I have time to question it.

The common room is crammed, like the parties I usually avoid. But there’s a strange comfort in it now—an echo of who I used to be before Thornecroft. Before Damian Cross.

A familiar shriek resonates through the room. “Ava!” Sienna barrels through the crowd and pulls me into a hug. “My Ava! Where’s your overlord? Is he?—”

She closes her lips, her eyes flicking over my shoulder.

I already know what she sees.

A firm hand finds its place low on my back. The room falls quiet, every conversation tapering off as people stare at the figure behind me.

“Hey, Sienna,” Damian says. “My name is actually Damian. Maybe I misspoke when I introduced myself this morning.”

No smile on his face. Not even a hint of amusement.

And I kind of love it. His playfulness is unlike anyone’s I’ve ever met, and itisplayfulness. Not intimidation, like I would have thought before I knew him well.

“Can I offer you some jungle juice, Overlord?” she asks.

I blink. It shouldn’t be surprising that Sienna is relaxed around Damian. She’s learned to use charm as armor. She had to, growing up around a volatile man—where a single offhand comment could tilt the whole world off its axis.

But I know her better than anyone, and there was genuine warmth in her voice when she called Damian Overlord.

What did he say to her this morning? How did he fool her?

Damian’s nose wrinkles. “What’s jungle juice?”

“Not highbrow enough for him,” I say to Sienna. “Do you have any wine scavenged from the Titanic?”

Damian gives me a light slap on the butt. “Stop. I’ll have the jungle juice. I want to learn your culture.”

I snort. “By mingling with the commoners, my king?”

He leans in close, lowering his voice. “Careful, Ava. Or I’ll spank you for real.”

An arrow of heat shoots into my gut. To distract myself, I turn to Sienna. “Where’s Rhett?”

Damian stiffens beside me, which doesn’t make sense. Letting me see Rhett was his plan—not mine.

Sienna glances around the room. “He might be on a beer run.”

“Sienna,” Damian says. “I brought that…thing we talked about. Can we go somewhere private?”

Sienna nods with a smile, and my shock at her ease with Damian only grows.

Damian turns and scans the room. His gaze settles on a guy sitting on one of the couches. “You.” Damian’s voice booms through the room. “Deftones Shirt. Come here.”

The guy stares at Damian for a moment with wide eyes. Then he gets up and starts weaving through the crowd with his head down, looking like he’s about to get expelled.

I bite back a smile. When my gaze drifts to Sienna, she mouths,“Deftones Shirt.”I nod but have to look away or I’ll burst into laughter.

When the guy gets close to us, Damian looks him up and down. “You look sober. Can I trust you to keep an eye on Ava for two minutes?”

The guy glances at me, and now that he’s closer, I realize I’ve seen him around—one of the guys from the bottom floor, I think.