Page 86 of Psycho Alphas: Part Two

Of course there wasn’t.

And he knew, just like we did, that he was alone if he couldn’t convince this room that he was in charge.

Ace looked around, from him, to us, to the hallways, not speaking a word as he let the chips settle. There was a delighted smile edging onto his lips as he waited.

I felt the faintest chill down my spine, and I wondered if Rogue felt it, too. There was something masterful about the way Ace moved through this world. Something… absolute. I’d felt it as I’d been dragged by his guards into the ballroom the day he’d swapped mine and Rogue’s roles.

He’d been lounging on an armchair in another man’s home as if it were his. He had spun a new reality where in the blink of an eye, my fate, my life, was at his whim instead of Rogue’s.

Rogue hadn’t cowered like Roman was now, and still, I’d believed it. I’dfeltit. I’d known, without the first shadow of a doubt that just like that, my fate was his.

I knew what Roman was feeling, and I was sure Rogue did, too.

The difference between me and Roman, though, was on that day, I had welcomed finality. I frowned, prodding at that feeling again. And as I did, I realised it wasn’t the only time I’d felt it.

It had been the first of two.

The second had been the moment I’d stepped from Thistle’s room after I’d won the bidding war for her. Even then, when I’d known her for the briefest flash of time, my centre of gravity had shifted.

I’d felt it when I’d left her, as if doing so was wrong. As if she’d already begun to tighten her grip upon my soul.

I needed to stop comparing the two of them, but it was all but impossible.

“How was the interest?” Ace asked, dropping onto the couch Roman had just vacated. It looked all the more arrogant because he was still in socks.

Roman took one look around at me and Rogue, at the shadows in the hall who hadn’t made a move, and dropped down to his knees before Ace.

“Please—I’ll give it all back, I had no idea you were still?—”

“How was the interest in the place?” Ace asked again, cocking his head, voice cold.

“There was a lot,” Roman stammered.

Ace was looking about the room absently, then glanced back at Roman, his eyes narrowing on his waist. Roman fumbled to grab his gun from his belt, and then, to my utter shock, shoved it into Ace’s hand.

“That,” Rogue muttered to me, “is onehellof a reputation.”

Ace peered at the gun curiously, then tossed it onto the couch beside him, not even out of Roman’s reach.

“Who wanted it?” he asked.

“Everyone, of course,” Roman blurted. “Juno. Beckett. Morrigan—she wanted it for the tunnels beneath, I don’t think it was personal. Elias Duvant, I think he was already planning the remodel?—”

“Aremodel?” Ace asked, expression hardening.

“After… after what you did to his castle in Marseille.”

Ace rolled his eyes. “So… what do you think? You’ve been to a good few of my parties, haven’t you? You were there when I discovered Jorden Ryland was embezzling, or Aaron Richards tried to put his hands on my security…”

Roman blanched further with each mention.

“What happened?” Ace tapped the sceptre against his temple. “Help me remember?”

“You… killed Richards on the spot.”

“I did, didn’t I? What about Ryland? That was fun.” He looked at us now, as if bragging. “Peeled his skin off and fed it to him.” Ace chuckled. “He threw up what… two or three times before he finally kicked it from blood loss.”

“Five…” Roman looked ready to pass out.