Semua Bab Venom & Vows : Bab 1 - Bab 6

Seven hours later, I am absolutely, comprehensively, no cap, shitfaced.Olympus is the kind of club that other clubs aspire to become. It lives in the heart of Manhattan, belongs to my family, and is large and loud and beautiful and the champagne is always cold and the music always hits different. Tonight it is draped in deep burgundy and gold for my birthday, and the whole room smells like expensive perfume and the particular quality of a night going very well.Amara, it turns out, is a full-blown savage on the dance floor with zero inhibitions and a bottomless tolerance for tequila shots. She has matched me drink for drink since she arrived, which is bussin behaviour in the best possible way. She goes off on the dance floor like she was born to it, and every thirsty man in this club has clocked her within the first ten minutes and has been lurking near the floor like a saucy NPC ever since. She understood the assignment and earned extra credit without being asked.Across the room, L

Leander and Caspian are watching when I return to the dance floor, their attention shifted into something quieter and more focused, the kind of watching that comes from people who notice when something has changed even if they cannot name the specific thing. Unusually for me, I do not mind it. I find it steadying. I lean into it instead of resisting it, and I let the music and Amara's laughter fill the space where the hurt was sitting.We are dancing when it happens.Amara spins beside me with her arms up, fully in her main character era, and then she is simply not there anymore. Gone from beside me, replaced by empty space, and I stumble sideways in my heels and round on whoever just pulled her away."What the hell," I say, to the broad back of a man who has just pulled Amara against his side like something he is in the process of reclaiming.He begins to turn toward me.I see Caspian and Leander move before I finish the thought. Simply there, flanking me, Leander a half step in fron

Leander is already at the table. An almost identical hoodie, different colour, sunglasses somehow even larger than mine, and his head is resting directly on the table with the resigned quality of someone who has accepted his circumstances and stopped fighting them.Our parents are seated. Our father has coffee. Our mother, Elara, has tea and the expression of someone who had a full night's sleep and finds the sight of her two children deeply amusing in a way she is making a gentle effort to conceal."Neither of you," our father says, "listened to a single word I said about pacing yourselves.""Food," Leander says, without lifting his head. "Please just start the food.""Leander told Mrs V to wake me up," I say, settling into my chair and reaching for the water. "I want that formally acknowledged."Leander lifts his head. One eye opens. "I didn't have a choice.""You had options.""She was the only viable option and you know it.""That," I say, turning to face both parents with the gra