LOGINEMBER’S POVA valet who appears to file his teeth for a hobby opens my door.And I step out into Casino Royale, Casino Royale on the invitation, the Slaughterhouse to everyone who actually comes here, and I make myself look bored.It is the single hardest thing I have ever done.Because the place is depravity made flesh.We come up out of the stone into a cavern that somebody has poured a king’s fortune into making beautiful and filthy in equal measure, gold everywhere, black marble veined with something that glows, honeyed light spilling from nowhere and pooling like liquor.And the liveliness of it is quite the surprise.Dancers are on raised platforms and swinging around gold poles, barely dressed and utterly unbothered, moving as though the music flows directly from their veins.A woman is reclining on a chaise being fed grapes by two shirtless men who are visibly competing for the honour.A fountain is running with something dark and effervescent, and people are drinking from it
EMBER’S POVThe mountain swallows the car whole.There’s no door or glittering red sign that announces this as the entrance to the most dangerous casino on the continent.A road runs straight into a wall of black rock. Just as we’re about to hit, the stone opens, and the car glides down a throat of polished stone, deep into the belly of the mountain, and behind us, the rock seals shut like a mouth finishing a meal.“Cute,” I say, because Merrilyn Aster is not impressed by geology. “Very theatrical. Someone’s compensating.”Beside me, Knox says nothing.Knox can’t say anything because Knox is currently a bodyguard in black, with a surgical mask over the lower half of his face, to cover a weeping rash so contagious and so grotesque that no sane creature will ask him to lift it.Only his eyes show. And those eyes have been promising me a slow and thorough death since the moment we left home, which, if I’m honest, is doing something for me.He’s also, at this exact moment, not perfectly h
KNOX’S POVAnd I understand exactly what she’s doing—burying the ugliness of Hale under something warmer, pulling us back out of the cold—so I follow her lead, and I let the corner of my mouth curl, and I dip my head, all mock contrition.“You’re quite right, Lady Aster. A grave error on my part.” I hold her gaze. “How do you plan to punish me for it?”The flush is instant, and furious, and she fights it valiantly.“That is—that is no way to—”“Anything,” I go on, lower, “like the handcuffs?”Her eyes go wide, and the color floods all the way up her throat, and she makes a small strangled sound, and Queenie, behind her, makes an entirely different sound, delighted and scandalized. “That,” Ember hisses, scrabbling for the character and losing, “is no way to talk to your boss—”“No?” I take a slow step in, closing the gap, insufferable, thoroughly enjoying myself for the first time all day. “Then how would you have me talk to you, ma’am? Because I’m your man for the night. I’ll speak t
KNOX’S POVThe imperious mask flickers. Under it, my real Ember flushes, just slightly, pleased, and her mouth softens for half a second before she wrestles the character back on.“Mm.” She reaches out and adjusts my collar with one manicured finger, a small proprietary touch, a woman fixing her possession. “Jealous already. And we haven’t even left.” Her eyes gleam. “You’re going to be insufferable tonight, aren’t you.”“Deeply.” I catch the hand at my collar, turn it, press my mouth to the inside of her wrist, right over the pulse, and feel it jump. “You look like sin in that dress, Ember. I’m going to spend the whole drive thinking about getting you out of it.”“That is not—” and there she cracks, the flush spreading, her voice dropping out of the character entirely into a scandalized whisper, “—Knox, there are people—”“GET A ROOM.”Queenie basically shrieks, and Ember jumps back from me, and Queenie is coming down the stairs behind her with her arms thrown wide in theatrical desp
KNOX’S POVNathaniel is staring at me.“The gala,” I say. “That’s your chance. Not to win her. Not to fix it. To stand up in front of the woman who never once gave up on you and let her see that you know exactly what she was worth—before you’re gone. Give her one thing that’s true. One thing with no engineering under it. And then let her forgive you, or let her not—but let her choose it, with the whole truth laid out in front of her.” I glance over. “Can you do that? One real thing. In front of everyone.”“…I don’t know,” Nathaniel says, and it’s quiet, and it’s the most honest thing he’s said in the car. “I’ve never done a real thing in front of everyone in my life. I don’t know if I know how.”“Then it’ll mean more when you do it,” I say. “Because she’ll know exactly what it cost you to try.”He’s silent the rest of the way into the city, staring out the window at the grey buildings coming up, and I let him be, because I’ve planted it—and Nathaniel, whatever else he is, has never on
KNOX’S POV“Thank you.” He’s staring straight ahead, and his voice is steady, and there’s something in it I’ve never heard from him before—something almost peaceful. “For the mercy of it.”“Mercy.” The word comes out flat and disbelieving. “I’m putting you in a cell for the rest of your natural life, Nathaniel. That is not mercy.”“It is, though.” He turns to face me. “Knox. If I had done what I did to any other man alive—drugged him, engineered the deaths of sixty-three of his people, his mate included, looked him in the eye and lied to him for a decade—I would already be dead. You’d have killed me with your bare hands, slowly, and there is not a soul on this continent who would have called it anything but justice. That was the earned outcome. That was what I had coming.” His jaw tightens. “Instead you’re giving me a trial. A lawful one. A cell instead of a grave. You’re letting me answer for what I did like a man instead of dying like a dog in a yard—and you’re doing it while every
EMBER’S POVWhen I step outside the girls’ cabin with Rayana and Queenie flanking me, Rayana is mid-monologue about the caribou she’s planning to devour at dinner — something about sinking her teeth into tender, perfectly seared meat that borders on orgasmic — and I’m half-listening, half-scanning
EMBER’S POVThe laughter dies. Everyone’s eyes slide to Knox, who shrugs without a trace of shame.“Not much of a secret if you all already know.”“You could have at least tried to be mysterious about it,” Rayana sighs. “Where’s the fun in confessing things everyone already knows?”“You said write
EMBER’S POV“Finally,” Rayana drawls. “I thought we were going to have to hose you two down.”“Shut up,” I say, but I’m grinning. “Let’s go eat your caribou.”Dinner is a production.Rafael has transformed the main lodge into something out of a fairy tale — candles everywhere, a fire roaring in the
KNOX’S POVHe blinks, the picture of innocence. “I’m not sure I understand. I explained the purpose quite clearly at the beginning of the evening. Conflict resolution. Closure. An opportunity for all parties to—”“Bullshit.”The word is deadpan, and I see Logan’s head snap up, see Gale’s sobbing st







