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21

GEMINI

I watch the flush crawl out from under her peacoat and up to her freckled cheeks with selfish gratification.

“An heir?” she says much too delicately. As if catching herself, she quickly furrows her brows with indignation. “You must think me a fool if you think I’ll ever agree to … to that ”—she can’t even say the word, and I don’t bother hiding my merriment—“in exchange for your sick and twisted version of freedom.”

“Tell me, Veil Vulturine”—I pause, keeping my gaze pinned to hers as I place my forearms over my knees, leaning into them—“as the servant to the god of thievery, do you think continuing your bloodline won’t be required of you?”

Her eyes bounce from left to right as she studies me.

She knows I’m right. And I’m so close to having her exactly where I want her.

“Not with you,” she says oh-so quietly.

“Then who?” I cant my head. “A pathetic rube whose entire purpose is to marry into the ruling families?” I scoff. “Don’t be so mundane.”

“I won’t agree to this,” she hisses, her arms tightening across her chest.

“I thought you said there was no chance I would ever have you, pet?” I volley back.

Her eyes narrow. “There isn’t.”

“So why are you so up in arms then? Shouldn’t this be an easy condition to agree to?”

“You said ‘when the time is right.’”

I shrug. “Maybe the time will never be right, doll. Only the gods know for sure.”

I move another chess piece across the imaginary board. Always countless steps ahead. Her expression shutters, and I know I have her. The feeling is as salacious as having her come all over my fingers. I watch her from under my lashes as she deliberates. She chews on her bottom lip, and I give her a dazzling smile in return.

“That’s all of it then?” she says peevishly while looking down her nose.

It tickles me how she glosses over the final condition, but wordlessly concedes nonetheless. It’s as if she’s attempting to ignore it, hoping that it will somehow cause me to forget.

Oh, but she’s dreadfully wrong.

Every day, every second , I weave my sticky web tighter and tighter around her.

As we stare at one another, my tongue swipes over the healing cut on my lip. The consequence of Veil’s little domestic tantrum the other night. She might think that she’s fighting back, somehow resisting me. In reality, she’s barely struggling. Deep down, in the dark recesses of her mind, she’s finding satisfaction in this perverted push and pull. And sinking her perfect cunt on my cock is just as fated as me breeding her full of my heirs.

All she needs is a little bit of convincing, whether she first agrees to it or not.

After sealing our agreement with a tense handshake, I escort us into Laveta—a cabaret bar nestled in the heart of the Carnalis neighborhood. Now that the threat to our lives is a thing of the past, the rebellion squashed and forgotten, we can finally travel freely around Pravitia once again. And ever since discovering Veil’s true identity, I’ve been itching to visit one very specific heir.

Laveta’s dark reds, velvet, and black decor gives it an unassuming air of luxury without being too loud and garish. It’s a private establishment, only fitting a maximum of fifty people, inaccessible to the general public. The small stage faces circular tables, and is where Belladonna comes to sing.

A little birdie told me she’d be here tonight, and after nodding to the bouncer manning the door, I lead Veil inside with a hard tug of the wrist.

I find Belladonna crooning onstage, dripping with lust and white lace, red hair cascading in loose waves over her freckled shoulder. A single spotlight draws everyone’s attention to Belladonna while she cradles the microphone seductively in both her hands, her red lips a stark contrast against her pale white skin. Every patron in this joint is under her spell, panting over her as if she were a siren singing a divine melody. Her dear god of lust must be so proud.

One look at Veil, and I know she recognizes her from our fateful night during the Feast of Fools. And her lack of enamoredness for the woman on stage further confirms that she is indeed one of us.

“Why did you bring me here?” Veil hisses under her breath. “I thought you said to keep my identity a secret?”

“I did not bring you anywhere, doll,” I reply smoothly, coaxing her backward and toward an empty table. “I have business to attend to.” I push her down by the shoulders. “Now sit.”

She settles into the chair with a huff, crossing her arms and avoiding eye contact. I chuckle under my breath as I walk away, tickled by her recent bout of defiance. With every passing day, Veil slowly becomes more and more brazen, and it pleases me immensely. It’s also a rather mighty aphrodisiac.

I sit at the bar and order a glass of champagne, idly flipping a coin between my fingers while Belladonna finishes her song.

The Foleys and Carnalises have never been close. Always some old family feud causing tension between them. My aunt’s demise at the hands of Belladonna’s father during the Lottery thirty-eight years ago explains the chill between us. My aunt was only eighteen. It’s what spurred our parents’ generation to have only one child. That way, it would ensure the continuation of the bloodline and prevent any siblings from possibly being sacrificed during the Lottery.

I’ve never cared to keep up with silly feuds, but Belladonna has always been the most sensitive of us all. Especially when, nineteen years later, her father was sacrificed by Aleksandr’s mother. Killing an heir has always only been allowed during the Lottery. Our generation was the exception since there were no siblings to pass down our gods’ given powers if one of us were to be killed. Belladonna was only ten years old when her father passed. Then her mother died of a broken heart not long after.

She’s kept to herself ever since.

“Foley,” Belladonna says when she approaches the bar. Her green eyes study me with suspicion.

I grin. “Carnalis. Tithe Season treat you well?”

The barkeep slides Belladonna a cosmopolitan without her asking, and she takes a dainty sip before sitting beside me.

Ignoring my question, she says, “Mercy isn’t here.” Her red-chromed nails tap on the marble bar top as her gaze skates across the room, as if she’s already exasperated with our conversation.

“She’s not the one I’m here for.”

Belladonna’s eyes snap back to mine, and she quirks a perfectly sculpted brow, but says nothing.

“This is a business call, love.”

“What could you possibly need from me?”

“I need you to lift the fertility barrier.”

Her fingers stop tapping on the bar midair, and if she wasn’t suspicious before, she certainly is now. She studies me warily, as if trying to solve a puzzle in her mind.

“I expected Mercy and Wolfgang to be the first to ask,” she says slowly, her guard still up.

Regarding our powers, the general understanding is that they don’t work on each other. But a small facet of Belladonna’s powers is an exception to this rule; she controls the fertility of the ruling families. None of us can procreate without the god of lust’s consent.

My gaze flicks to Veil, then back to Belladonna, but I’m not as sly as I hoped, as her attention is now on my doll across the room. I don’t expect Belladonna to remember her from the night of the Feast of Fools, but her gaze lingers nonetheless.

“Who is she?” she asks with her eyes still on Veil.

“Veil Vulturine, the newly discovered servant of the god of thievery,” I answer flippantly before taking a slow sip of champagne. “And I happen to have a sudden and insatiable desire to impregnate her.”

Before coming to Belladonna with my request, I knew I’d have to divulge Veil’s true identity if I wanted my plan to work. Since Veil is also an heir, I would need Belladonna to make her fertile as well. Of course, Veil knows nothing about the ruling families and the aforementioned fertility barrier, and I plan to keep it that way.

Belladonna’s eyes widen while her whole body straightens. “What did you just say?”

I purse my lips, acting like repeating myself is the highest of nuisances. “Her family was banished from the city however long ago. You know,” I say with a lazy flick of the hand, “ damnatio memoriae and all.”

My answer seems to flummox Belladonna even further.

“No, I don’t know,” she gripes. “How do you know any of this? Does Mercy know?”

I shake my head, and she sputters over her words, seemingly having lost the ability to complete a sentence.

From the corner of my eye, I notice a wayward admirer approach us, but before they can sing any praise, Belladonna hisses, “Not now, you cretin.”

When our needless distraction stumbles away, I continue with our conversation. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, love. I will tell her — when the moment is right. I just need a few more weeks.”

“A few more weeks ?” she repeats incredulously. “We should be having a meeting about this now.” She punctuates her last word with a pointed finger on the bar top. “Where did she come from? How do you know she’s not a threat to us?”

I sigh. “Don’t you think Mercy has enough on her plate already? This can wait; Veil isn’t going anywhere. She’s harmless.”

Downing the contents of my coupe, I stand from my seat and pin her with a hard stare, my usual droll attitude vanished. “Will you do this for me or not?”

Belladonna stares back, red lips pressed into a thin line. “Why should I? I don’t even like you.”

I chuckle at her flimsy insult. “A debt owed by a Foley is a powerful thing, Carnalis. You don’t need to like me to accept my request.”

She’s quiet, seeming to deliberate, until, finally, her eyes flutter closed while she takes a deep inhale. When her eyes reopen, she nods. “It’s done.”

“Good,” I say, then shoot her a wink. “I owe you one.”

She mutters something under her breath, but I don’t hear a word she says when I suddenly realize Veil is no longer sitting alone at her table. I recognize the man as a peevish social climber, close enough to the ruling families to frequent the exclusive clubs in Pravitia, but still the equivalent of gum under my shoe.

Scum.

And he dares lay eyes on Veil as if she were a viable option for a fun night.

Dares to speak to what is mine.

I cut across the room in seconds. Veil senses my approach far sooner than the living excrement breathing the same air as her. Her eyes widen in surprise, and the small tremor of fear still reverberating under the surface of her skin only makes what I do next that much sweeter.

Our eyes lock, and with a jerk of the head, I signal for her to get out of the way. She must see the violent intent in my eyes because she doesn’t balk at my silent command and scrambles up and away from the table.

Her gentleman caller has no time to react before I grab hold of a chair and swing it through the air before crashing it down onto his head. The momentum of my swing has him flying to the ground. Flinging the chair to the side, I spot a spoon on a nearby table and reach for it before jumping on him.

The blunt force to the head must have stunned him because he barely fights back, and I land a few hard punches before I lodge the spoon deep into his right eye. He bellows in pain, and my body sings with ancient bloodlust, as if the gods were here with me, cheering me on. My vision tunnels, and I turn lethal. Quickly pushing myself off of him, I jump to my feet and stomp my foot into his face. The spoon sinks even deeper, effectively killing him.

That certainly staunched his screams.

With a satisfied sigh, I rake my hands through my hair, most likely leaving a red streak of blood in their wake, before glancing around the room. All eyes are on me, but none seem remotely surprised to have witnessed such gratuitous violence. It’s a risk they run when rubbing elbows with the elite.

I slide my gaze to Belladonna across the room. “Apologies, love. Didn’t mean to steal the show.”

She’s unimpressed, but she snaps her fingers to two men guarding the door, signaling for them to handle the now-dead body on the floor. I flash Belladonna a smile and blow her a kiss.

Turning to a stupefied Veil, I take her hand and drag her out of the bar.