Page 28 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

BEN COBALT

E liot raises and lowers his brows with a gleam in his eyes.

Surprise freezes Harriet for a beat. Maybe she thought they’d be more tight-lipped about their lives, but she basically just took an oath to not spill anything outside of this room.

Eliot gestures an arm out to Beckett on the sofa. “Virgin?”

“You’re many years too late,” Beckett says, cigarette burning between his fingers. He brings it to his lips.

“Charlie?” Eliot flicks his Zippo closed, then back open. “How virginal are you, brother?”

“Not at all.” He’s still irritated. I hear it in his voice, and he’s scrutinizing the map on the antique desk from afar.

“Care to elaborate?” Eliot prods. “The people want to know.”

“ You want to know,” Charlie rephrases, “and you will never.”

“Challenge accepted, dear brother,” Eliot grins, and at this, Charlie bends toward Beckett to whisper in his ear. He whispers back, ignoring Eliot, who’s telling Harriet, “If sex were a competition, I’m fairly certain I’d claim the victory.” He motions toward Tom. “Virgin?”

“Nope.” Tom flips through a book while standing on the chair. “Our only virginal hope is our baby brother and his girlfriend.”

“We’re not dating,” Harriet clarifies first. “ Friends .” She emphasizes, pointing between us.

I nod once in agreement, but it’s hard not to study her reactions. Would she want more? My cock twitches at the thought. Fuck.

I take a hearty swig to drown the arousal. Afterward, Eliot plucks the wine bottle from my grip and asks, “You’re friends who fuck? Or non-fucking friends?”

“The latter,” I say while flush bathes Harriet’s cheeks. I’m very used to the constant prying, so it’s not really fazing me. But just so she knows, I tell her, “You don’t have to share if you’ve slept with anyone before.”

“Thanks.” Harriet moves the candy in her mouth while she assesses this situation. “But it’s not a big bad secret.” She places the half-filled vial on the scale as she tells Eliot, “Not a virgin.”

“What a revelation,” Charlie says dryly while checking the time on his irreplaceable Philippe Dufour watch.

Eliot smiles deviously at me. “And Ben? You lose it yet?” He knows this answer. Just like he knew none of us are virgins.

“Several years ago. Thanks for the condoms, by the way.” I asked Eliot if he had any the night of Homecoming. I’d thought there’d be a chance I’d go all the way with Courtney, but I didn’t have time to run to a drugstore and buy them.

“I have plenty more wherever the night may bring you.” His eyes ping from me to Harriet and back to me with a Cheshire grin. Seconds from playing the part of Cupid.

Fucking Eliot. No one in their right mind would give him a bow and arrow and let him be a matchmaker. He can’t even fix my decayed friendship with Xander. He doesn’t repair. He destroys.

“No thanks, dude,” Harriet says, biting on her candy. “I already have condoms. I don’t need anything of yours.” She studies the apothecary cabinet again, leaving an intrigued Eliot in her wake.

He tips his head to me. “Does she always look like she’s about to rip off a cock?”

“Pretty much.”

He laughs and pats me on the back, “I’d say protect your balls, but maybe you like the challenge.”

“I don’t think it’s that,” I whisper, even knowing Harriet feels like a flighty, rabid bat that might bite if caught.

She is a challenge, but that’s not what interests me the most about her.

I like how she might feel the safest with me—that I’m a place of solace for her when she’s never had a good place to land.

I want to wrap my arms around her. Protect her. Give her security and the kind of love she’s lacked her entire life. I feel it gnawing at me like a hunger I won’t be able to feed. Because of my plan.

I’m leaving.

Still, I can’t stop fixating on how much I like her.

On how when I return to her side at the cabinet, she hands me a vial and orders me around like I’m her lab partner.

How she’s trusting me to pour the liquid when she should know I’m a hundred times more focused on her.

On how she blows out a disgruntled breath from her lips and squats to jerk open a cabinet drawer.

On her furrowed brows that pinch harder with concentration.

She catches me smiling at her, and blush coats her cheeks again. I want to say, yeah, I’m checking you out right now when I shouldn’t be.

I shouldn’t fucking do this with her.

But I. Can’t. Stop.

I love how she’s overpowering this edged panic inside me. I’m not fixating on the possible worst outcomes of tonight. Or any dangers present. For once, I let myself have fun with my brothers.

All of us but Charlie have returned to the quest at hand, and fifteen minutes through, Harriet has balanced the correct weight on the brass scale.

Fake lightning flashes through the room, along with the sounds of thunder.

Then the fireplace extinguishes, and a metal cigar box drops onto the faux logs.

I blow a loud two-finger whistle, then clap for Harriet. “That was all you, Fisher.”

Beckett and Eliot applaud her with rising grins of pride. Tom’s hearty yet reluctant claps—like the sheer effort is pulling teeth—make me laugh.

“It was nothing,” Harriet says, shying from my gaze while she treks over to the logs.

It takes me aback. No one but Harriet has solved a single part of this escape room yet. “That was not nothing.”

She shrugs, minimizing what was an achievement she should be stuffing in all our faces.

Beckett slips me a furtive look. “Auto-dérisoire.” Self-deprecating.

Eliot adds, “Docile.” Meek.

I don’t believe she’s either of these things, but I’d love for her to celebrate her intelligence. It’s worth the applause. Defending Harriet is an instinct, and I shoot back to my brothers, “Elle peut être sans prétention.” She can be unpretentious.

Beckett raises his hands, saying he’s not attacking. “Ce n’est pas un mal à moins que quelqu’un ne la fasse se sentir petite.” It’s not bad unless someone made her feel small.

Eliot narrows his gaze. “Cette personne devra mourir.” That person must die.

Dramatic as fuck and on brand for my family, yeah, and my flexed muscles are agreeing with the sentiment.

I head over to Harriet as she pops open the metal cigar box and retrieves the first key.

After unlocking the cupboard of the apothecary cabinet, she finds a slip of paper to a three-part riddle.

This is going to take a while, and I catch myself smiling. Excited about it. Beckett and I work on the map together.

“This is pointing to the sconces on the wall,” Beckett draws his finger over the inky line. “We probably need to reposition the lights.”

Tom leaps off the chair to rotate the lights toward the ceiling, which illuminates a code for the antique desk.

Beckett and I share a grin as we roll the numbers into the steel padlock. It clicks, and we find a key to the third drawer. Inside, we discover the second piece to the riddle. Eliot tries to read the creased paper in my hand, but his brows scrunch in a way I’ve seen a thousand times growing up.

“Here.” I hand it to him, thinking maybe he just needs a closer look and extra time to process the written scrawl. On occasion that’s all it takes, or maybe he fakes it really well, making me believe he can comprehend it when he still can’t. This time, though, he passes the paper back.

“Read it to me.”

“‘ With piercing force I crunch out fate, ’” I tell Eliot, and I hope he knows I think he’s one of the most impressive people in our family.

More so than Charlie. He has such a severe case of dyslexia, but it never stopped him from having a passion for literature or pursuing a career in the arts.

He could’ve so easily been the jock of the Cobalt Empire, outperforming me in hockey, but he never did what came easy. He did what he loved. Above all else.

I should tell him before I go.

The sudden thought overturns my stomach. Reminding me this is finite. My time with them isn’t forever.

All that’s left is the key to the tin box for the last section of the riddle. It stumps us for the next ten minutes. Like Charlie said, Tom’s theory about the color of the hardbacks comes to a dead end.

Harriet and I are on the floor flipping through books for a clue. Tom has dumped the drawers and broken half the vials. Glass litters the rug and hardwood. Eliot wrenches the paintings off the wall, tearing the canvas out of its frame. He checks for hidden messages but finds nothing.

It looks like a violent storm swept through the room. There is shit everywhere. The mess isn’t bothering me, but I notice how Beckett is back on the sofa. He smokes while rereading the one-sentence riddles on both slips of paper. I’m betting he’s trying to block out the demolition around him.

Charlie seems more in tune with Beckett. He slams his book closed, then catches me staring at him.

My joints solidify to concrete. Charlie has a way of making me feel like a lightning bug trapped in a glass jar. I’m about to avert my attention when he suddenly asks me, “Why her?”

Harriet freezes.

I tighten my gaze on him. “What do you mean?”

“Why bring her?” he clarifies with aggravation. Being stuck in this room is making him more of an asshole. He rakes a hand through his golden-brown hair, tugging at the strands, especially when Tom shatters another vial. Beckett snuffs out his cigarette on a marble ashtray.

Charlie stands.

“I’m fine,” Beckett says smoothly. “ Charlie . S’il te pla?t.” Please.

“He’s fine,” Eliot pipes in.

Charlie changes direction to Tom, and I hope his glare remains there. “Stop breaking shit. You’re so far off, it’s embarrassing.”

“I’m not trying to amaze you, Charlie Keating.” Tom frisbees a top hat to Eliot, who catches it and flips it on his head. Then Eliot opens a black umbrella indoors, not superstitious at all. He takes after our dad in that way, but Tom is cringing like he now eternally cursed himself. “Dude, no.”