The girl who hunts kings

“I'm sorry, sir—”

She had practised the tremble in her voice, just enough breath to make it sound nervous but not foolish, like a girl too green to be dangerous, the kind men like Lucien Torres never looked at twice unless they were undressing them with their eyes.

And that was exactly what she needed. She stepped through the rising mist of the private spa, her tray trembling just so, crystal glasses balanced like promises on polished silver.

The scent in the room was teakwood and something darker—cardamom maybe, or smoke—coating the marble with a kind of heat that didn't come from the steam alone. Lucien didn't answer. He hadn’t even looked up yet.

He was half-submerged in the steaming bath, one arm flung lazily over the edge of the stone rim, black ink curling up his forearm, a scorpion caught mid-sting. His chest rose and fell slowly beneath the rippling surface, dark hair slicked back, lashes wet.

His silence was deliberate. Designed to make people sweat. Valentina—no, not here, Catalina Marín—inhaled once, blinked twice, and moved. Her heels clicked once against the stone floor before she let them fall silent. She was barefoot by the time she reached the steps. Her silk slip, thin and dark, clung to her thighs.

This was her second day at The Velvet Room—the Torres cartel’s hidden den for politicians, loyalists, and discreet violence—and she'd already learned how to disappear into the wallpaper.

But today she wasn’t here to fade. Today, she was here to begin. She stepped down one marble stair. Then another.

“Your drink, sir,” she said softly, just above the hiss of the water, as she lowered the tray beside the pool. His eyes opened. Slate. Cold.

The kind of eyes that didn’t just look at you—they read you. Peeled back the layers. He tilted his head once, slowly, as if deciding whether she was worth the effort of a single word. And that’s when she moved. Her hand slipped. The tray tilted. The wine tumbled.

A stream of deep red splashed across his chest like blood. The glass followed, shattering somewhere behind her with a noise that should’ve sounded like an accident, if not for how intentional her hands had felt around the tray.

If not for the way she immediately dropped to her knees, her breath catching, her fingers darting to his skin.

“I’m so—so sorry,” she breathed, swiping quickly at the wine across his chest, her hands firm and trembling all at once.

She pressed a damp cloth to his skin, his sternum, his collarbone. She could feel the heat coming off him, not just from the water, but from the way his muscles tensed beneath her touch. Then she felt it. A shift. His hand caught her wrist.

The cloth slipped from her fingers. He held her there, fingers tight around bone, eyes locked on hers. She didn’t flinch. She let her eyes widen just a little, let her breath hitch, played the part of the frightened girl who'd made a mess in a room where mistakes got people disappeared.

But something flickered in his eyes, and it wasn’t anger. It was a curiosity. Recognition. Heat. “You new?” he asked, voice low, barely more than a growl.

“Yes, sir,” she whispered. His grip tightened. “You always this clumsy, Catalina?” The way he said it—Ca-ta-li-na—like he was tasting it, like it already belonged to him. “I can be better,” she said. He didn’t blink. Then he let go. And she should’ve moved back. Should’ve stood, apologized again, and collected the broken glass.

But instead she stayed there on her knees, eyes dragging up his torso, over the lines of muscle, the scars on his ribs, the slow rise and fall of his breath.

“Then show me,” he said. She didn’t ask what. Didn’t hesitate. Her hands found his chest again, not to clean this time, but to explore. She moved slowly, her palms warm against his skin, her breath threading between her lips in soft waves as she leaned forward and kissed the wine stain still dripping down the edge of his collarbone.

She tasted it—dry, expensive, full of smoke—and then tasted him beneath it. The salt of sweat. The clean edge of heat. Her tongue dragged along the dip of his clavicle, and she felt his hand fist in her hair.

His control shattered like the glass behind her. He yanked her into the bath, fully clothed, silk clinging to her skin in seconds, water crashing around them. Her back hit the tile wall as his mouth crashed against hers.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t even a kiss. It was a warning.

A promise.

A declaration of war.

She kissed him back.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, her dress twisting around her thighs as his hands slid up beneath it, finding nothing but bare skin.

He growled something unintelligible against her neck, and she tilted her head to give him more.

He bit.

She arched.

He pressed her harder against the wall, his hands finding her hips, gripping like he owned them.

She let him.

But she controlled the pace.

Her hands moved slowly down his chest, under the water, finding him already hard and dangerous. She stroked him with soft, cruel patience, loving the way his breath caught, the way his jaw clenched.

Then she shifted, positioning herself over him, her lips brushing his ear.

“Still want me to show you?” she whispered. He answered by thrusting up into her, hard, without warning.

She bit back a cry, nails digging into his shoulders, riding the edge of pain and pleasure. The bath sloshed around them, red wine floating in ribbons as their bodies moved together, slick and raw and fast.

The water turned hotter, or maybe that was them. She moaned into his mouth, into his neck, into his hand when he silenced her. She bit his shoulder when she came, and he laughed—low, dangerous, wild.

He pulled her down with him as he came too, burying himself so deep it felt like a threat. They collapsed in the water, her head against his chest, his breath ragged.

No words.

No lies. Just war declared in moans and fingernails.

---

When she emerged from the hallway twenty minutes later, her hair was damp, her dress clinging to her skin like something she'd barely escaped.

She paused at the mirror beside the door, reapplied her lipstick with practised precision, and wiped the corner of her mouth with one elegant swipe of her thumb.

The guard standing outside the spa glanced at her.

She didn’t acknowledge him.

She just smiled.

A slow, knowing, dangerous smile.