Chapter 6: The Gilded Cage

St. Valen’s grand hall did not just welcome guests—it judged them.

Polished stone floors gleamed like frozen moonlight. Gold leaf, older than most countries, climbed the vaulted ceiling where imitation gods stared down with bored plaster eyes. Violins were coaxing sin from air made holy by money, and the entire room hummed with the sound of empires assessing one another.

Noah stood near the grand staircase, a marble statue of the perfect heir. His tuxedo was a brutalist piece of tailoring. His face, an impassive, aristocratic facade. He was the picture of a man who had his shit together.

He was suffocating.

Draped on his arm, a perfect suffocating weight, was Georgina Westwood. Blonde, impeccable, from a bloodline so old it was basically scripture. She was the woman his family approved of. She was beautiful, she was kind, and she was not Althea.

“Isn’t it divine, Noah?” Georgina murmured, her hand a proprietary, gentle weight on his forearm.

Noah’s jaw was so tight it ached. “It’s definitely… a room.”

He’d told himself this was his duty. His atonement. After the library—after he had fled from Althea, horrified at his own raw, unhinged impulse—this was his return to the rigid artifice of his life. This was him being what they made him.

But his eyes kept betraying him, sweeping the archway, his every sense tuned to a frequency only she created. The absence of her was a physical, hollow ache in his chest. Fuck.

He hated the hand on his hand. He hated the polite, dead smile he was wearing. He hated that he was a fucking coward.

Across the room, Luca leaned against a fluted column, nursing a glass of something dark. He saw it all. Just the way he always had. He saw Noah, the perfect soldier, trapped in his dress uniform. He saw the pretty, vacant, approved woman on his arm.

“A Westwood,” he thought. “Impressive.”

And he smiled, a slow, dissecting unfolding of absolute amusement. This was going to be good.

Then the air changed. It didn’t just get quiet. The entire frequency of the room shifted. Conversations faltered. The violins seemed to thin.

The Sombras have arrived.

They didn’t walk in. No. They descended.

A procession of beautiful, terrifying judgment.

Ricardo, a shark in a charcoal suit, his smile a genial, calculated threat.

His wife, Nerissa, wore a midnight blue gown and had a smile like a benediction that could become a verdict without uttering a syllable.

The eldest, Odesa, a flawless, cold sculpture, her gaze already cataloging the room’s exits and weaknesses.

And Hiraya. She was luminous; her softness is a lure, but her eyes were wide, her clairvoyant’s gaze frantic. She was searching.

Then Althea.

Noah forgot how to breathe.

She wasn’t just in a gown. She was a weapon. It wasn’t a color. It was an insult. A shade of black so dark it seemed to drink the light, a living, breathing void in the glittering ballroom. The fabric—a heavy, liquid silk—was poured onto her body. It didn’t just cling; it slid over her skin with every step, accentuating every curve of her perfect body.

The neckline was a sharp, geometric line that didn’t just hint at her collarbones, it worshiped them. Her skin gleamed like warm, polished ivory against the absolute black. And the slit. If you could call it that, it was a fucking dare. A dark, obscene promise that ran from the floor to the high, sharp crest of her hip, revealing a wicked length of thigh and the shadow of her kris strapped there.

Her hair was a chaotic knot that looked like she’d just been thoroughly satisfied… or was about to be. Tendrils clung to the damp skin of her neck as if after a fever.

She was sin personified.

She didn’t walk but glided down the stairs. Her movement was so fluid that you couldn’t even see her dress wrinkle. Her face was an impassive, perfect facade. She smiled where she was told to smile. Laugh when she was told to laugh. But Noah, who knew his own so well, could see the rage underneath. The boiling, volatile energy she was holding back.

Her eyes finally did a sweep of the room and found Noah. And saw the woman on his arm.

It was a physical blow. Althea’s breath hitched, just once.

There. There stood the man that begged her, “Please.” The man who confessed, “I don’t know how to stop.” There he was, with a pale, perfect, docile creature draped on him.

Luca was right. It was a mistake. He was ashamed. He was a fucking hypocrite.

The pain was so sharp, so cold, it was clarifying. The humming in her blood, the volatile, chaotic power she had been fighting—it sang. It was a low, cold, angry note of pure, unadulterated power. The nearest chandelier—a massive and priceless antique. Probably older than the school—threatened to stutter. The crystals chimed, a high, dissonant sound, as if struck by a sudden, arctic wind.

No one noticed. No one except for three people.

Luca’s smile widened. Ah. There she is.

Hiraya took a sharp, hidden breath, her hand clutching Odesa’s arm.

And Noah.

He saw the light bend. He felt the cold. But he couldn’t look away from her. Her eyes, which had been wide and soft in the library, met his. It wasn’t a glance. It was a collision.

He saw her see Georgina. And then he saw the contempt. The fury. And fuck, it felt like she just disemboweled him with a look.

“Noah, darling, what’s wrong?” Georgina whispered, her smile faltering. She felt the jolt that went through him, a physical tremor of… what? It wasn’t desire for her.

“Nothing,” he bit out, his voice a low rasp. His composure was cracking.

The Sombras were a vortex.

Ricardo’s hand rested for a moment at Althea’s shoulder: Remember who you are. Do not give our enemies an opening.

Hiraya’s cool fingers brushed Althea’s wrist as she passed: He’s not worth it, Althea. Breathe, bunso. Just breathe.

We behave. We blend. Althea told herself and moved toward the terrace, needing air. She grabbed a champagne flute from a passing tray, her hand shaking.

She was staring at him. He was trapped on the dance floor, moving like an automaton with Georgina. He saw her watching. Across the room, their eyes locked. He was holding another woman, but he was fucking her with his eyes. His gaze was a physical, desperate touch that she felt everywhere at once. His step faltered. Georgina, in his arms, looked up, a shadow of confusion on her perfect face. His grip on Georgina’s waist was a vise. His jaw was a brutal line. He was a man on a rack, and his eyes… his eyes were a raw, desperate apology. A scream.

Althea’s hand was shaking. The magic in her veins didn’t just lash out. I answered. It was a hot, jealous, violent surge of power. The champagne flute in her hand didn’t just crack. It detonated.

*Pop*

The sound was sharp. Glass and champagne exploded over her hand. Hiraya gasped, instantly at her side.

“Althea!”

The spell was broken. Althea stared at the blood welling on her palm.

Noah stopped dancing. “Noah?” Georgina said. He didn’t hear her. He’s seen.

He was starting to move—to her—

“How… clumsy.” Luca was suddenly at Althea’s side. He didn’t ask. He simply took her bleeding hand, pulling a silk pocket square from his tuxedo.

“You’re drawing fire, Sombra,” he murmured, his voice a low, hot intimacy for her alone as he wrapped her hand. His touch was firm, almost proprietary, and definitely not ashamed.

Noah froze, watching Luca touch her, his self-loathing warring with a furious need that made his vision go red.

Luca looked up, his gaze locking with Noah’s across the floor. He smiled. A vicious, triumphant smile.

“He does his duties well, doesn’t he?” Luca purred to Althea. “He’ll break his own heart, and yours, just to be the ‘good son’. It’s pathetic.”

He tucked the silk, his thumb deliberately brushing the blood on her palm.

“Let’s give him something real to look at.” He offered her his arm. Althea looked at Noah, still frozen on the dance floor with his perfect date.

She took Luca’s arm.