Page 49

The Veil doesn’t hum anymore. It breathes.

Six months of slow, stubborn healing, and the air tastes less like ozone and more like possibility. The club’s neon sign flickers violet tonight, casting shadows that don’t quite cling to the corners like they used to. Even the drunks at the bar seem lighter, their laughter sharp but not desperate.

I arch my spine to the bassline, sweat painting my ribs as the spotlight licks gold across my skin. The crowd blurs—faceless, harmless—except for him. Dante leans against the back wall, arms crossed, gaze a brand. His jaw flexes when I drag a hand down my stomach, slow, deliberate. A dare.

“You’re playing with fire, starling,” he’d growled this morning, teeth grazing my hip as I pulled on fishnets.

I’d laughed. “You’re the one who lit the match.”

Now, his eyes track the sway of my hips like a sniper’s scope. I spin, hair whipping, and catch his smirk. Hungry. Possessive. Proud. The music swells, and I drop low, thighs trembling, fingertips skimming the stage. Whistles erupt. I don’t hear them.

Only his heartbeat.

Only ours.

The dressing room reeks of hairspray and ambition. I’m peeling off my gloves when the door slams.

“You’re a menace.” Dante’s voice is gravel, his hands already on my waist, spinning me into the wall. The mirror rattles.

I grin, breathless. “Took you long enough.”

His thumb brushes the lace edge of my bra. “Intel first.”

“ After. ” I hook a leg around his hip, pulling him flush. His groan vibrates against my throat.

“Liora.”

“Dante.” I nip his earlobe. “You really think I’d let you walk in here without a prize?”

He stills. “What’d you get?”

I press closer, lips grazing his. “Three warlocks. Underground fight ring. They’re moving something through the old subway tunnels tonight.”

His grip tightens. “Where?”

“Mm. Payment first.”

He growls, slamming his palm against the wall beside my head. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

“Promises, promises.”

He crashes into me, all heat and teeth, and I laugh into the kiss—wild, victorious—as his hands map every inch the crowd didn’t get to see.

The brick bites into my shoulder blades as Dante’s teeth find my collarbone. His hands don’t ask—they take —snapping the bra’s lace like violin strings. Cold air hits my chest a heartbeat before his palm does, calluses scraping.

“Still think I play too nice?” I gasp, arching into him as my shorts hit the floor.

His laugh is a dark current under the club’s bass. “You’re a goddamn wildfire.” He hoists me higher, denim belt buckle digging into my thigh. “And I’m starving. ”

No warning. No tease. He drives into me, all feral grace, and the mirror shudders with our reflection—a tangle of ink and sweat and his hands vise-locked on my hips. I bite his shoulder to muffle the scream. Salt and iron flood my tongue.

The door creaks.

Lena—new girl, rabbit-eyed—freezes mid-step. Her sequined pasties catch the vanity lights. “Shit, I just?—”

“Bring me a Red Bull later?” I rasp, not breaking rhythm. Dante’s grip tightens, possessive, as she flees.

His chuckle vibrates against my throat. “Still performing, starling?”

I rake nails down his spine. “You’re the one who missed his cue.”

He slams me harder against the wall. Plaster dust rains. “Keep talking.”

“Or what?” My legs lock around him, heels digging into the small of his back. “You’ll finally keep up?”

His growl is pure predator. Fingers knot in my hair, yanking my head back. “You want the whole city hearing you beg?”

The neon sign outside pulses crimson through the barred window, painting his face in hellfire hues. I trace his scar with my thumb—the one slicing his eyebrow, legacy of a brawl he won’t describe. “Make them jealous,” I dare.

He does.

Every thrust carves my name in the air between curses and fractured praise. No masks. No deals. Just Dante unraveling, raw and real, as I claw the last walls down—his cock hammers into me like a live wire, thick and unyielding, filling places words never touched. My nails score twin trails down his back, earning a snarl that becomes my new religion. His forehead presses to mine, breath jaged. "Look at me."

I already am. Still waist-deep in war even as he fucks me against the crumbling wall, our rhythm a collision of teeth and need. He bends me harder, deeper, the relentless stretch burning sweet as whiskey. My gasp catches on his tongue. Each punishing drive grinds me against the vibrating ache between my thighs, until I'm choking on the electric sting of almost-too-much.

He shifts without warning—a predator finding fresh prey—and drags his mouth down to claim my nipple. Not just a suck. Teeth. The bite floods me with a dark, sparkling hurt that makes my spine snap straight against the wall. I gnaw my lower lip raw to trap the scream, but my hips betray me, surging forward to take every brutal inch of him. Stone grit bites into my shoulder blades. He groans against my breast, vibrations buzzing through my ribs.

Every ridge of him scrapes through me as I flex— milking that cock like I want to break it. His mouth grows crueler, matching the rhythm of his thrusts until my tits ache and my cunt weeps. Precum and my own slickness trickle down my inner thighs. "Close," I rasp, not sure if it’s a plea or a threat.

He tears his mouth free, replacing it with a kiss that’s all conquest—tongue shoving past my teeth like he’s claiming territory. I suck hard, hollowing my cheeks. Let him feel the vacuum. His growl tastes like blood and whiskey, and I drink it like communion wine. Our foreheads knock together. His breath is a sandstorm.

When he starts fucking me in earnest, my ankles lock behind his back. No space left for gentleness or godhood—just the animal truth of our bodies. I count each snap of his hips by the way my walls flutter. A coil in my belly winds tighter, hotter, until I’m hissing through clenched teeth. "Now. Now ." The words dissolve into a snarl as everything fractures—a mirror dropped from a great height. Glass and adrenaline. Hunger and light.

The mirror cracks when we finish, a spiderweb fissure splitting our image down the middle—his sweat-slick muscles trembling under my palms, my thighs shaking around his hips. Dante’s lips ghost over the bruise he left. "Intel better be fucking platinum." His voice rasps like gravel in whiskey, thumb pressing possessive against my pulse point. Proof we're both still breathing. Still clawing. Still here.

I twirl his his chain around my fingers. “Meet me at the 14th Street grate. Midnight.”

His teeth graze my earlobe. “Wear the boots.”

The door clicks shut behind him. I slump against the wall, grinning at the shattered glass. Two fractured halves, sharp edges aligned.