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CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

“ A lright, Cass,” Silas said, tossing a practice sword across the ring, “show me what Ronin and Mireille have taught you.”

Silas had met Cassandra and Mireille at the training room this morning just after breakfast.

After he’d left the shop last night and Ronin had shuffled off to bed, Cassandra and Mireille had stayed up for another hour or two, making plans about how they were going to sneak into World’s End to infiltrate Wormwood’s office and get a look at those ledgers.

They’d come up with what Cassandra thought was a pretty brilliant, albeit risky, plan. She was starting to think that none of her friends were capable of anything other than risky plans. She and Mireille planned to reveal it to Silas and Ronin this morning.

But Ronin wasn’t here yet. And Silas wasn’t about to let Cassandra wait for the white wolf before they started training.

So, Cassandra bumbled her way through the thrusts and arcs and swipes she’d learned these past weeks. Her wings bounced against her back and made her steps falter.

Silas’s tentative smile turned into a grimace.

Cassandra planted the tip of the sword in the dirt and swiped her wrist across her sweat-soaked forehead. She hoped she didn’t look as discouraged as she felt. “Well?”

“No offense—“ his eyes darted to Mireille “—but I can tell you’ve been instructed by someone without wings.”

“None taken.” Mireille crossed her arms, annoyance darkening her silver eyes.

“You’re fighting against them,” Silas said.

Cassandra’s own annoyance rose. “No shit. How do I fix it?”

Silas plucked the sword from her fingers and tossed it out of the ring. “We start from square one.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “The appeal is in eleven days. I’m not sure that we?—”

“Do you want to keep doing things wrong and get yourself killed, or start doing them right?”

She squared her shoulders, not so stubborn that she wouldn’t try things his way. “Alright. Where do we begin?”

“Wing exercises.”

Ronin entered the room right at that moment, then aimed a pointed smirk at Cassandra that said, Told ya so .

She grumbled, but obeyed, lifting and stretching and lowering.

“At least someone taught you how to do those right,” Silas said.

She sent Ronin a big, fake smile. He leaned a hip against the water table, not even trying to hide his smug expression.

After Cassandra had done several repetitions, she tucked her wings against her back and looked to Mireille. “Now that we’re all here, should we tell them?”

“Tell us what?” Ronin asked, stretching an arm across his chest to warm up.

“About how we’re going to get our hands on those ledgers,” Cassandra said, looking Ronin up and down in a way that made him pause his stretching and send her a questioning look. “You are going to be our distraction.”

Mireille sidled up to Ronin and smacked a hand on his shoulder. “Rumor around town is that Wormwood was hitting on you outside World’s End the other night. You’re going to take him up on his offer of a drink. And I’m going to help.”

“How?” Ronin asked.

“By doing something they’ve been begging me to do since I arrived here two centuries ago. A special performance by the former prima ballerina of the Kheimos Company.”

Claws punched through Ronin’s knuckles and he released an audible snarl. “No.”

Mireille barked out a laugh. “It’s funny that you think it’s your decision.”

“Wormwood will be suspicious that I suddenly changed my mind. He’ll know something’s up,” Ronin said with a victorious little grin.

Mireille grinned right back. “We’ll plant some rumors around the city that Cassandra’s training is going poorly. That we think she’s going to lose and are looking to switch sides.”

Ronin shook his head, stepping into her. “I’m not asking you to do this for me.”

Mireille stepped closer as well. “And I’m not asking for your permission.”

“You two wanna take your tiff to another room?” Silas cut in. “Cass and I have work to do.”

And Cassandra nearly huffed in annoyance as Ronin and Mireille left the room together. She wanted to see how this played out.

But she turned to Silas and said, “Now what?”

“Now,” he answered, “ we dance.”

“When did you and your crazy winged co-conspirator come up with this plan?” Ronin asked, tossing his shirt next to the weapons rack in the room down the hall.

No matter how many times he’d shucked it off these past few weeks, the pulse-quickening sight never got old. It was one of Mireille’s few moments of unadulterated joy, a distraction from her anxiety over Cassandra’s abysmal progress.

Mireille twisted out of her own shirt, ignoring the little thrill that shot through her when Ronin’s eye darkened. She plucked two practice daggers from the rack and handed one to him. “I’ll tell you after I kick your ass.”

Ronin sighed, pulling long fingers through his white strands. The tousled result combined with his roguish eye patch made her want to throw herself against his deliciously bare torso and not come up for air for hours.

What’s stopping you? her wolf purred.

Sanity , Mireille scoffed.

Nonsense. We used to be his preferred brand of crazy. Let’s remind him.

Ronin’s jaw tightened. “No fucking way am I letting you dance for those assholes, Mireille. They don’t deserve you.” Her chest clenched. “We’ll find another way.”

“You don’t even?—”

“I don’t want you putting yourself in any more danger for me.”

Mireille crossed her arms, her dagger dangling from her fingertips. “If Cassandra loses, we will all be in even more danger than we are now. Did you forget about that?”

Ronin stepped forward, towering over her, anger pulsing. “That has nothing to do with looking through those ledgers. We focus on the training, and when we get out of here, I’ll have all the time in the world to figure out what happened to Selene.”

His voice broke on his sister’s name, and Mireille couldn’t stand it.

“Those ledgers could be your only chance to learn the truth, Ronin.”

“Wanna bet?” he snarled, pressing in closer.

“Actually, that’s an excellent idea. Care to make a little wager on our sparring session? If you win, I’ll drop this idea. But if I win, I dance. And you seduce Wormwood. And Cass and Silas sneak into his office to peek at those ledgers.”

“I’m not fucking betting on your safety.”

Mireille grazed the tip of her dagger along the muscled grooves of his stomach, and he hissed in a sharp breath. “Sounds like someone’s afraid to lose.”

He snatched the dagger from her grip. “If we do this, we’re fighting with real weapons.” He replaced the false daggers with real ones, testing the blade’s sharpness with his thumb. “First to draw blood wins.”

Mireille cocked an eyebrow, desire a ferocious throb in her veins.

Damn , her wolf cut in. I’d nearly forgotten how good savagery looks on him. But I’m still rooting for you.

Gee, thanks.

Make him bleed, girl . Her wolf loosed a vicious howl as Mireille plucked the dagger from Ronin’s proffered hand. “Deal.”

They took to the center of the ring, prowling in a circle, daggers raised. Her adrenaline spiked. Though blows from the practice swords always smarted, there was no real danger. Perhaps that was what had been missing from her sessions with Cassandra—a true threat. She made a mental note to begin training with real weapons to add some stakes.

Ronin rushed forward and she knocked away his blow before darting under his arm. “Aim’s a little off today,” she taunted.

“One good shot,” he grumbled. “That’s all I need. It’s all you needed when you gave me this—” he gestured to his eye patch “—wasn’t it?”

Guilt stilled Mireille’s feet, and Ronin rushed her again. She barely got her dagger up in time to stop him from nicking her shoulder. “Creator save me, are you still harping on that? It was two-hundred years ago! Let it go .”

“And my own crime was even further back than that.” Regret quieted his voice. “Have you let it go?”

Mireille snarled, thrusting her dagger toward Ronin’s oblique. He caught her wrist and spun her, holding her against his chest and forcing her dagger down to her hip.

He brought his mouth to the shell of her ear, his warm breath inspiring unwanted shivers. She didn’t want him to be gentle. Didn’t want him to be kind. She wanted his anger , his brutality. Wanted to prod it and provoke it. Wanted him to punish her for the harm she’d caused him.

She’d been punishing herself for centuries.

“It kills me that I was the cause of your father’s death.” His grip tightened. “I have no excuses. And it matters little that I hadn’t even met you yet, or that I didn’t know who he was at the time?—”

“Those sound an awful lot like excuses .” She wriggled within his arms, trying to pry herself loose. His words were too soft, too intimate. And though she’d ached to hear them for years, she couldn’t bear them. Not now, not here. Not when the only reason they were even fighting in the first place was because he refused to put her in any more danger.

“I am sorry for the pain I caused you,” he sighed. “I would take it back if I could. I’m sorry, Mireille. I’m so sorry.”

Mireille’s eyes burned and her throat closed.

A genuine apology.

His arms loosened. “I think we should?—”

She hooked a leg around his calf and toppled him to the floor. She pounced, straddling him, and angled her blade up under his jaw.

His eye blazed with renewed anger—plus a healthy dose of lust—and he threw his arms above his head, dropping his dagger. “Yet again, I’m at your mercy, little she-wolf. What are you going to do about it this time?”

She wanted so much more than an apology. She wanted an admission that he felt the same as she did. Wanted him as raw and vulnerable as she’d been when he’d forced her to admit her truth the other day.

It was the only way to regain some semblance of power. To level the lopsided playing field between them.

She kept her dagger at his jaw while she scooted back to sit on his thighs.

He tried to lift his chin. “What are you?—”

“Shut up ,” she snarled, pressing the blade in harder. Not hard enough to break skin. Not yet.

She trailed her other hand down his torso, running her fingers down those perfectly symmetrical muscles, across his swirling ice-blue tattoos. She reached his pants and his stomach quivered.

“M-Mireille.”

“Hold still,” she whispered. “You said you were at my mercy, right?”

His cock was already half-hard when she dipped her hand below his waistband. And it stiffened further when she wrapped her fingers around it.

His eye snapped shut as he sucked in a breath through gritted teeth and kicked his head back.

She began to stroke, light grazes of her fingers over his warm, smooth length. But no pressure where she knew he needed it the most—the taut skin of his head.

His hands fisted in the dirt as he tried to still his hips. She squeezed him harder, savoring her power. He may still hate her, hate how turned on he was. But he didn’t stop her. And she knew it wasn’t just because of the dagger.

They’d had a safe word, once upon a time. Spiders. If he wanted to utter it, he could and she’d stop immediately.

No, a part of her knew he wanted this, needed this, as much as she did.

She continued to stroke him, twisting and squeezing as she passed over his head then coasting back down his length.

High Gods help her, what she wouldn’t give to tug off her pants and slip him inside of her. To impale herself on his glorious cock and ride him as hard as she used to.

An unbearable ache pulsed between her thighs, followed by a rush of damp heat. She knew he could scent it. She didn’t fucking care.

He groaned then opened his eye, staring at her as he lost control of his hips and thrust up into her fist. “ Fuck , Mireille. I’m about to?—”

His thunderous growl bounced off the walls and beads of sweat gathered in the grooves of his shuddering abs as he came— hard —in her hand, his muscles tensing and releasing beneath her.

She rubbed his spend on his pants as he laid back, staring at her with some of that vulnerability she’d been craving.

She flicked his jaw with the edge of her blade, drawing a tiny line of blood.

She leaned down to lick it, and his cock hardened again beneath her as she whispered in his ear.

“I win.”