Page 10

She steps inside, expression unreadable, scanning the space with quiet calculation. Her eyes graze Blackwell. Me. Then land on Theo.

He smiles. Wide. Easy.Possessive.And I feel it,something tightening inside me. Something feral and old and ready to maim.

Her arms cross, slow and steady, hoodie pulled tight across her ribs. “What the hell is he doing here?” she asks, voice flat, gaze still pinned to Theo like he’s a bad tattoo she forgot she had.

I turn to her. My tone stays calm, but my jaw aches with restraint. “You’ve met.”

She lets out a breath that sounds a little too close to disgust. “Yeah. This morning. Grocery store. He followed me through three aisles and tried to flirt like a sentient cologne ad.”

Theo laughs. A low, velvet sound that scrapes down my spine like teeth. “Not my fault the lighting in produce was romantic.”

My fingers curl against my knee. I feel the urge crawl up my throat, poisonous and immediate. “You didn’t mention that,” I say to him.

Theo shifts in his seat, that same maddening grin still playing at the corner of his mouth. “Didn’t realize you two were together,” he says to her, like he’s tasting the word. “Or is it more of a… communal arrangement?”

I stand. The chair slides back with a sharp grind against the stone, and the flare of power that pulses off me is enough to crack the ward nearest the window.

Theo doesn’t flinch. He leans forward instead, elbows resting on his knees, blue eyes locking on mine. There’s something darker there now, beneath the charm, beneath the provocation. Something ancient. Twisted.Familiar.

“Still territorial, I see,” he murmurs. “You never did like sharing your toys.”

“You aren’t welcome here,” I say, and my voice doesn’t rise. It sinks. Deep. Dangerous. “You weren’t meant to exist.”

Theo spreads his arms like a benediction. “And yet,” he says softly, “I do.”

Luna glances between us, tension coiling in her posture, not fear, but sharp alertness. She steps closer to the edge of the desk, her tone even.

“I assume someone’s going to explain why the asshole from the cheese aisle is sitting in a seat meant for gods?”

I look to Blackwell. My patience thins by the breath.

He closes the book on his desk with a soft, deliberate thud. “Because the order you were given,” he says, voice aged with iron and weight, “was never the full truth.”

I already know what he’s about to say. But hearing it aloud cuts away.

“There weren’t seven,” Blackwell continues, looking at Luna now. “There were eight.”

Theo smiles like a man watching his favorite knife twist into someone else’s spine.

“I was erased,” he says simply.

“Desire,” I say, not to her. Not even to him. Just to the room. “That’s what they called him.”

“No,” Theo corrects, slow and smug. “That’s whatyoucalled me. The rest of the world? They didn’t get the chance.”

Luna turns to me, expression shifting, cautious, but not rattled. Not yet. “You’re telling me this bastard’s one ofyou?”

“He was.”

“And now?”

“That depends,” Theo says, gaze settling on her like she’s already unraveling in his hands. “On who gets to keep you.”

I step forward again, power spiking through my veins. The room groans against it, wards flaring, magic responding like it remembers how Theotastes.

“You won’t lay a hand on her.”

Theo exhales. “I won’t need to.”