Page 151

Silas, idiot that he is, whips his head around, his body shifting to follow my line of sight.

That’s all Ambrose needs.

He hooks a foot beneath Silas’s ankle, smooth and lethal, and the next second we’re airborne. I catch the briefest flash of Ambrose’s grin—sharp, mean, victorious—and then we’re falling, Silas cursing, me clinging like a goddamn barnacle as we both slam into the dirt.

It should piss me off, but all I can do is laugh. Because Ambrose—the cold, calculating bastard—is laughing too. Not the measured, cruel laugh he usually gives when everything’s a negotiation, but real, almost boyish, like he’s letting himself have this moment.

“Payback’s a bitch,” he says, brushing dirt from his coat like he didn’t just throw himself headfirst into one of Silas’s signature disasters.

Silas groans, rolling onto his back beside me. “You’re supposed to be the responsible one,” he wheezes.

Ambrose only shrugs, voice quiet but smug. “Not tonight.”

And maybe that’s the thing—the bond is starting to get to him. Not in the way it hit the rest of us, not obvious and messy and desperate. No, Ambrose is still composed, still polished on the outside. But he’s here, tripping Silas like a schoolboy, playing our games like he wants to belong.

Maybe he does.

I push up onto my elbows, shooting him a lazy grin. “You’re gonna regret loosening up, Dalmar. We corrupt everything we touch.”

Ambrose’s eyes flick to Luna, still talking quietly with Caspian, her glow unavoidable even here in the dirt and dust.

“I know,” he says.

And the way he says it—it sounds like he already has.

Ambrose

The Fang is a pit. The kind of place where shadows cling to the walls like old sins and no one looks you in the eye unless they’re trying to start a fight—or end one. The air tastes like spilled ale and something worse, something feral beneath the woodsmoke. And it’s alive tonight, heaving and pulsing around us like the heartbeat of something dangerous.

Silas is perched on a battered table in the middle of it, one boot planted, the other swinging over the edge, hollering orders like he owns the place. "Another round! For the whole fucking tavern!" His grin is a dare, reckless and unapologetic, and the bar roars back at him like they're ready to bleed for him.

I should hate this. I should be leaning against the back wall, above it all, calculating how this chaos can be used, how it can be turned.

But instead, I’m at the table too. Ale sloshing over the rim of my mug, elbow braced lazily as I watch them all drown in it. Elias slumped half over the table, cheeks flushed, trading barbs with a group of villagers who are too drunk to realize he’s tearing them to shreds. Caspian silent in the corner, but sipping like he wants to forget. Riven glaring, arms crossed, as if sheer rage can stop the tide of sin pouring through these walls.

Her hair wild, cheeks flushed, grinning over her shoulder like she knows every single man in this room would crawl for her—and she only wants the monsters she walked in with.

That should piss me off.

It doesn’t.

It twists something low in my gut, something sharp and dangerous and almost sweet.

"You're drinking tonight." Elias slurs beside me, pointing his mug at me like he’s just uncovered a secret. "Dalmar, you’re actually drinking."

I lift the mug, let the foam kiss my lips, and arch a brow. "Miracles do happen."

"Riven's going to kill us." Silas announces like it’s gospel, tipping his head back to shout for more ale, slurring half a song in between.

I smirk, glancing toward Riven, who looks two seconds away from dragging us all back to the Academy by our collars. "If he doesn’t, I might."

Luna's laugh cuts through the room then, sharp and bright, and my gaze snaps to her without thinking. Her finger trailing circles in the condensation of her glass, eyes glittering when they catch mine across the crowd.

I don’t look away.

Not tonight.

Tonight, I let the ale loosen something in me. I let the way she smiles at me, like she knows what I am and wants me anyway, feel like it might split me open. I lift my glass, mouth curling, and for the first time in centuries, I don’t feel like I’m holding the line.