Chapter 7: The Taste of Ruin

Luca, in a move of pure, calculated theater, did not lead Althea to the shadows. He led her to the center of the floor, directly into the light, his hand a firm, hot pressure on the small of her back. The music began again—not a polite waltz, but something slower, more invasive. A tango.

He pulled her close. Too close. His hand slid up her back, his fingers splayed, his thumb brushing the bare skin just below her shoulder blade. It was an educated, proprietary touch meant for an audience of one.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured, his voice a low, hot breath against her ear, his lips almost brushing her skin.

“Is it the family? Or is it him?”

Althea’s face was a mask of cold composure.

“It’s called rage, Luca. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Oh, I’m not.” He spun her, his body a hard, unyielding line against hers. He was good. He was dangerously good.

“I know exactly what this is. He’s a coward, Althea. Look at him.”

Across the room, Hiraya’s hand tightened on Odesa’s arm. She could feel it - the sudden, arctic drop in the air around her sister, a spike of cold volatile power. Odesa’s eyes narrowed, her gaze fixed on Althea. She’s losing it.

She was. She couldn’t help it. Her gaze flicked over Luca’s shoulder.

Noah.

He was still on the floor, trapped, his body moving in the practiced, empty steps of the waltz with Georgina. But his face… his facade was gone. He was a man on a rack. His jaw was locked, a vein beating at his temple, and his eyes… his eyes were black, fixed on Luca’s hand on her back. He looked fucking feral.

“He’s rather let me touch you that cause a scene,” Luca purred, his voice velvet wrapped, pulling her focus back. He was enjoying this, feeding off the tension, but this was his true motive: to force her to see the truth. To prove that the man she was aching for would, in the end, fail her.

“He’d rather break his own heart, and yours, just to be the ‘good son.’ Is that wast you want? A man who will always choose his prison over you?”

The music ended. The applause was a distant, hollow sound. Althea was suffocating. From Luca’s intensity. From her family’s stares. From the raw, agonizing, paralyzed fury in Noah’s eyes. She was a bomb, and she was about to take down the entire hall.

“Excuse me,” she said, her voice arctic. She pulled away from Luca. He let her go his smile triumphant. He’d won the first round. She walked off the floor, a straight, fast line, past her family, past the whispers, and fled.

She escaped. She didn’t run. She retreated, her heels clicking on the stone floor like a countdown. The ballroom glittered on, oblivious. But beyond the tall doors, the air cooled and the silence turned intimate. The corridor to the west wing led to the gallery - a place meant for reverence, not ruin. Paintings of benefactors and saints hung in orderly rows, their varnished eyes watching in eternal judgment. The hush there wasn’t peace; it was waiting.

She needed the quiet. She needed to breathe. She was so angry, so humiliated, her magic was a live wire under her skin. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to deepen, pulling toward her, drawn to the cold, chaotic energy.

“Althea Sombra”

The voice came from the shadows - smooth, familiar, and wrong.

Adrian Holt. Senior. Beautiful in the way bad habits are - expensive, entitled, and certain of forgiveness.

Althea didn’t slow. “No.”

“No?” He laughed, stepping out, blocking her path. His tux was rumpled, his eyes bright with champagne and arrogance. “That’s not an introduction. I’m Adrian fucking Holt. You don’t just say ‘no’ to me.”

“I’m leaving.”

“I don’t think so.” He took a step, invading her space. She could smell the sickly sweet alcohol on his breath.

“I’ve been watching you all night. Watched you with Laurent. Watched you with Ashford. All that… ice. All that perfect Sombra composure. I’m just curious what it takes to make you break.”

“Just leave me alone, Adrian.”

His hand shot out, casual and testing, and grabbed her bare arm, his fingers digging in, bruising.

“I just need to see what happens when someone finally tells me no.”

“Don’t.” Her voice was soft, but it was a warning.

He leaned in, his face too close.

“That’s not a real word in rooms like this.”

“It will be for you.”

He laughed. “Feisty.” His other hand came up, grabbing her opposite shoulder. He shoved her, hard, against the wall. The back of her head slammed into the stone, making her gasp, stars bursting behind her eyes.

“I just want to see what all the fuss is about—”

He caught the zipper at the back of her dress; with one violent yank, he ripped it down to her waist.

“Let go, Adrian.” Her voice was dead calm. The air in the room dropped. The ancient portraits on the walls seemed to groan, their canvases rippling. The hum under her skin was starting to get stronger. It was starting to scream. The monster was at the door, begging. Let me out. Let me turn him into ash.

She couldn’t. Her family, Noah, and hundreds of people were just down the hall. If she lost control, if she unleashed what was praying to be released, the raw power Hiraya had felt, she wouldn’t just kill him. She would kill everyone.

“Stop,” she whispered, her voice shaking, raw with the effort of control. Hinga, apat… She was fighting herself harder than she was fighting with him.

He laughed again, a wet, ugly sound.

“Harder, then.” He brought his open palm across her face.

The slap echoed, brutal and sharp, in the gallery. It whipped her head to the side, a crimson burst of pain. The taste of blood flooded her mouth instantly.

He mistook her stillness for surrender. “You’ll thank me—” He fisted his hand in the torn fabric of her dress at her shoulder and pulled; a savage, ripping sound echoed throughout the gallery. The heavy silk, with no support beneath, gave way completely.

Althea gasped, the sound of pure, cold shock. The gown gaped open, baring her to the waist. Her shoulder, her collarbone, the perfect uncovered curve of her breast—all exposed to the cold, judging air of the gallery.

Adrian’s breath hitched. His eyes went dark; his arrogance turned into raw, insane hunger.

“So fucking… perfect…” he hissed. His other hand left her arm and went to her throat, his thumb pressing into the hollow, silencing her. He fumbled with his free hand to unbuckle his belt and undo his pants, his fingers grazing her bare skin, his mouth seeking hers.

He didn’t finish.

A hand, a blur of motion, seized his wrist—the one at her throat. The sound of bones cracking was obscene in the silence. Adrian screamed, a wet, choked sound. A voice cut through the dark like flint striking stone.

“Try again.”

Noah.

He stood between them, calm only in appearance. His eyes—normally cool and composed—were the color of an impending storm. The kind of dark that promised consequences. He didn’t just twist Adrian’s wrist. He broke it. He grabbed Adrian by the throat, the “Laurent enforcer” fully uncaged, and threw him across the gallery. Adrian crashed into a priceless portrait, the frame splintering, before he crumpled to the floor.

“Noah… please…” Adrian gurgled, his face turning purple, trying to crawl backward. Noah’s jaw was tight, his precision surgical and terrifying. At that moment, he was a weapon.

“Noah…” Althea whispered, her voice a wreck.

He didn’t look at her. He stalked toward Adrian, his voice quiet and devastating. “If you ever look at her again… If you ever think of her name again… I will end you. Not your reputation. You.”

He let go. Adrian collapsed to the floor, gasping, clutching his broken wrist. He scrambled away and fled—like a man who had finally seen a real monster.

The silence he left behind was deafening. Noah’s breath became ragged, tearing gasps. Every muscle in his body was still fighting the command to stop. He was vibrating with violence. He turned.

Althea was still pressed against the wall, her head throbbing where it had hit the stone. Her hand was clutching the torn, gaping silk of her dress, trying to cover her exposed breasts.

As she tried to steady her breathing, she felt something wet and warm slide into her hair, just above her ear. Blood. A slow, hot trickle from the back of her head.

She was still processing this new cold terror when he saw her.

He saw her. The torn dress. The bare skin. The terror. And then he saw it all. The stark, red imprint of a hand across her cheek. The bright, fresh blood welling on her bottom lip. And, worst of all, the dark, wet slick of crimson matting her hair, a slow trickle of it sliding down her neck. His rage vaporized, replaced by the wave of protective, furious guilt so strong it buckled his knees.

“Did he hurt you?” His voice was hoarse, dangerous from the inside out. He took a step, his hand reaching for her, but he stopped himself, his fingers trembling violently. He was terrified to touch her.

He tried reaching again, his hand hovering, a ghost of a touch over her shoulder, her throat, and her waist.

“Tell me where,” he begged, his voice cracking. “Althea. Please. Tell me where he hurt you. Let me… let me fix it.”

“I’m fine.” He didn’t believe her. He let out a choked, frustrated sound. She saw the war in his eyes—the soldier who wanted to kill and the man who was drowning in guilt.

“Look at me,” she said softly.

He did. His eyes were wild, lost.

“You’re not him,” she whispered. She saw the confusion in his gaze.

“Breath,” she commanded, her voice a soft, steady anchor in his storm, “Four in. Six out.”

He obeyed. His entire body shuddered with the force of it, a single ragged inhale that was half a sob. He did it again. The violence coiling in his shoulders began to recede. His hand rose, the one split and bleeding, and settled with an agonizing, reverent gentleness against her cheek. His thumb brushed the red, swollen skin… then moved his touch impossibly lightly to the blood in her hair. He didn’t wipe it. He just felt it. A silent, horrified question.

The contact unraveled him. His breath left his body in a single, shuddering exhale. He wasn’t just touching her. He was anchoring himself to her.

“I should’ve - " he choked out.

“You did,” she said, her voice trembling, her own hand coming up to cover his, pressing his bloody knuckled, his pain, against her skin.

He leaned in, slowly, as if moving through deep water, and rested his forehead against hers. It was a gesture of such profound, agonizing surrender that it stole her breath. He just rested there, his eyes squeezed shut, his body shaking, his other hand pressed flat against the cold wall beside his head. He had come undone.

His thumb brushed her cheekbone, once, a reverent, desperate caress. The air changed. It went from perilous to inevitable. The space between them, which had been a chasm of his guilt, became a single, shared breath. Her lips parted. His gaze dropped to them. The moment bent.

He moved first.

His mouth found hers. It wasn’t a kiss. It was a collapse. A confession. A desperate, sacred breaking. It was all heat and hunger and a fucking apology. It was the metallic tang of her blood, the salt of her unshed tears, and the impossible, undeniable heat of his mouth. It wasn’t slow. It was necessary.

His other hand, the one on the wall, slid down, his fingers, his fingers splayed against her bare back where the zipper was torn, his skin on her skin. A low, broken sound tore from his throat as he felt her. Althea gasped into his mouth, her hands finding his collar, clutching, anchoring, pulling him closer. She wasn’t just being kissed. She was answering.

This kiss changed. It went from desperate to deep. From a collapse to a fall. His tongue, hot and wet, traced her bottom lip, begging for entry. She gave it. It was no longer a kiss. It was a drowning. He was kissing her like he was trying to inhale her soul, to erase the last few minutes, to replace the memory of Adrian’s violation with the entirety of his devotion.

When he finally pulled away, it wasn’t just relief - it was survival. He didn’t go far. Just far enough to breathe.

His forehead rested against hers. His eyes were squeezed shut, his body shuddering with the force of the adrenaline leaving him… or the need crashing back in. He was gasping, his breath hot and damp against her mouth. She could taste the metallic tang of her blood and the salt of his exertion, and it was intoxicating.

Althea’s eyes were dark, unfocused, her lips swollen and slightly parted, her own breath coming in short gasps. Her hands were still on his collar, anchoring him, anchoring herself.

The silence hummed. It was just the sound of two people, wrecked and breathing.

His voice sounded raw and broken, a whisper that vibrated from his chest to hers. “What the fuck,” he breathed, his eyes opening, finding hers, “are you doing to me, Althea?”