All Chapters of LOVE AND DEATH : Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

CAEL“No, no—please don’t kill me.”The words came out wet, gargling through blood that had pooled where his front teeth used to be. I watched, while my face stayed still. Not because I was trying to be cold, but because nothing stirred anymore when a man begged for his life im this basement. The first year, maybe. The second year, I’d flinch. By the fifth, I’d learned that flinching was a tell, and tells got people killed in Adrian’s world. By now, my heart rate didn’t even change.He was a frail man, the one in the chair. Some accountant who’d skimmed from the wrong offshore account. His tie had been ripped off and stuffed into his own mouth earlier in the evening, then discarded when Adrian decided he wanted to hear him confess. His shirtfront was more red than white now. His fingers—those were the worst part, and I’d looked at them only once before my stomach had given a warning lurch. I didn’t look again.Adrian stood beside me, breathing through his nose slowly. Annoyance was

LUCIAN Shamelessly, no one came.I stood at the arrivals gate for eleven minutes, hands in my pockets, the chrysanthemums dangling from my left hand. “Sir,” Jordan said, he wasn't with any luggage anymore, as he had packed them in the car. “The car is waiting.”“I noticed.”“Should I call the penthouse? Ask if there’s been a delay?”I didn’t answer. My gaze was fixed on the automatic doors, watching them slide open and shut for a family of four, a businessman with a rolling carry-on. But no one in a Frost livery. Nothing.“No,” I said finally. “Don’t call. Let’s go.”The automatic doors opened onto the parking structure. The car was a black sedan with tinted windows. I knew it's from the frost family. My father’s taste, not mine. I would have chosen something louder, something that announced itself before it arrived, but the sedan had been arranged weeks ago and I hadn’t cared enough to change it.“Keys,” I said, holding out my hand.Jordan blinked. “Sir?”“I’ll drive.”“But you

"I heard noises," Adrian said.The sound of his voice cut through the red haze clouding my vision. Ceal's grip vanished from my wrist. One moment those cold fingers were pressing into my skin hard enough to bruise, and the next they were gone, his hand returning to his side with a fluidity that made the entire exchange feel like something I'd hallucinated. He stepped back, his expression settling into that ocean calmness I was already learning to hate.My pulse hammered in my throat. The heat in my chest was still there, coiled and ready, but my father's presence had thrown a bucket of ice water over the flames. I straightened my shirt, tugged at the cuffs, ran a hand through my hair. "Dad," I said.The word came out flat and casual. Like I'd bumped into a college seatmate at a coffee shop rather than the man who'd sired me, ignored me for a decade, and then failed to show up at the airport for my homecoming. My hands were still trembling, but I shoved them into my pockets. Let the f