Reckless Hearts Preview

 

Chapter 1

Dahlia

 

Full moons in the fall always raise the hairs on the back of my neck.

But fear isn’t always necessarily a bad thing.

Sometimes, it’s a good thing. Or at least, an important survival instinct. Fear of the dark, way back when, led to us discovering fire. Fear of the unknown teaches us to conquer it, and fear of death makes sure that we look both ways before crossing the street.

A healthy respect for fear goes a long way. My problem—at least, for the last six years—is that I flirt with fear just as much as I’m afraid of it. It’s like I’m drawn to a tightrope over an abyss I know damn well I’m supposed to stay far away.

Deep down, I think that’s why I like it, though. It’s that ambiguous, swirling, intoxicating mix of excitement and genuine, actual fear. That frenzied, buzzing, chaotically blurred space where the rush of adrenaline that you might get from watching a scary movie bleeds into the bloodcurdling scream of your psyche’s survival instinct, as if you’re milliseconds away from being run down by a freight train.

It’s not that I’m a danger or adrenaline junkie—far from it. I’ve never been one to go out and actively put myself in harm’s way chasing a brain chemical high. Base-jumping? Skydiving? Shark-caging? Yeah, hell-to-the-fucking-no.

But the fluttery, heart-stopping thrill that I get from that forbidden in-between is fantastic. It’s why I love horror movies, but hate big crowds. Why I’ll listen to a blood-soaked true-crime podcast till the cows come home, but warily side-eye every stranger I pass on the street. Considering that I live in New York City, that’s a lot of side-eyeing.

Of course, there’s a second reason full moons in the fall raise the hairs on the back of my neck and make my pulse skip a little faster.

Him.

My villain. My darkest fantasy. The one who shattered me. The devil of the darkness who sent me running six years ago.

Blood on his hands.

A body at his feet.

And the threat spilling from his perfect lips.

“Are we doing another?”

I pull myself from my thoughts as I glance across the small candlelit table at Raph. Raph, to whom I’ve spoken about my oddities—at length—and who calls me “a conundrum of the human mind”. Which I suppose is his very polite way of calling me a fucking weirdo.

We’re not best-best friends, and we sometimes drift apart. But we always drift together again, and after knowing him for seven years, I consider Raph one of my closest friends. So, he can get away with it.

“Dahlia? Are we doing another glass?”

I clear my throat and make a face. “I’m gonna go with…yes?”

“Was that a question?”

I grin. “Erase the question mark. Yes. I’ll do one more quick drink, but then I have to jet.”

My stepbrother rolls his eyes and dramatically lifts a wrist to a cute passing waiter.

“Deux de plus, s’il vous plaît,” Raph purrs in an overly-emphasized French accent—something he can get away with, considering that he is French. The waiter, who’s been eye-fucking my stepbrother about as hard as Raph has been eye-fucking him all evening, blushes a little and grins before he nods and scurries off.

I roll my eyes as I watch Raph’s gaze follow him to the bar.

“Down, boy.”

 “Oh, what,” he sighs, smirking at me. “He reminds me of the one who got away.”

I snort. “And who might that be?”

“Oh, who can even remember these things.”

My eyes roll again as Raph exhales and reaches across the table to take my hand in his, shaking it a little. “But enough about me and my wandering libido. How are you doing?”

Goddammit. I’ve been quite enjoying the fantasy that Raph and I are merely out having a few drinks for the hell of it. And not because, well, the sky is falling.

Or at least my sky, and my mother’s.

“I’m fine,” I lie.

“Do you want to practice that and try again in a few?”

I give him the finger. Raph smiles sardonically and squeezes my hand harder.

“Dahlia, talk to me.”

“Permission to speak freely?”

“Always.”

“Your dad is a real fucking asshole.”

Which sucks to say out loud, because I used to consider him the closest thing to a real dad I had.

Raph frowns, nodding slowly. “I completely agree with you.” His brows knit deeper as he looks across the table at me, the overhead string lights of the rooftop garden lounge we’re sitting in twinkling above us. “I’m truly sorry, Dahlia. I never once thought he would pull something like this.”

I’m aware that I’ve beaten the odds—and cheated death—to be even sitting at this table at Gallow Green right now. Never mind living in New York in my gorgeous apartment, or wearing such nice clothes, or attending Columbia Business School.

Twenty-five years ago, I was born—as the blues singers like to croon—under a bad sign. Conceived through violence and horror, to a seventeen-year-old French cleaning girl and the forty-year-old Iranian businessman who employed her, and then later assaulted her.

Somehow, Mom and I beat that. I managed to come back from the horror that happened to me later, when I was twelve. My mother, Adele, found a way to be human again, and to stand tall. To use the money we got when my monster of a father was killed and his fortune landed in our laps to give us both a new life and to start a foundation that helps women like her.

She even—somehow—found happiness, with an incredible, loving man who saw past every single one of her demons and scars and loved her for her heart: Raphael’s father, Gerard Dumouchel, a handsome, charming, big-hearted French businessman who swept my mother off her feet seven years ago.

And who as of last week has gone completely radio silent with her.

…Radio silent, that is, aside from serving her with divorce papers and a stack of legal motions that essentially say he’s stealing her entire fortune out from underneath her.

“May I still speak freely?”

“About my father? Please.”

“Fuck your dad!” I spit venomously, startling the cute waiter as he arrives back with our glasses of Viognier.

Raph pats my hands and then turns to wink at the waiter. “Merci.” He turns back to me after the young man leaves again. “Look, Dahlia, he and I have had our differences, especially when he left my mom. But…” He sighs and shakes his head. “You know if I’d ever had the slightest inkling of something like this, I’d have warned you, right? Adele too, for that matter.”

I nod slowly, gazing into my wine as I twist the stem of the glass between my fingertips.

“How’s she doing, by the way?”

I smile wryly. “She’s a Frenchwoman. How do you think she’s doing?”

“Hiding her feelings, outwardly putting on a nonchalant, carefree front, and stabbing her pillow with kitchen knives behind closed doors?”

“Nailed it.”

What I don’t mention to Raph are the tears. My mother has never been one to cry, choosing instead to always put on a brave face. She learned young to do that. But when we’ve Facetimed over the last seven days—her in our townhouse in Paris, me here in New York—I’ve seen the puffy redness not even her fancy Parisian concealers can hide.

It’s not the fact that Gerard is leaving her. I doubt it’s even that he’s trying to royally fuck her financially on the way out, either.

It’s that after a lifetime of closing her heart off, she finally…finally…opened those doors to him.

And then she got betrayed for it.

“What’s, the, ahh, state of your personal finances?”

I raise my eyes questioningly to Raph, who clears his throat.

“What I mean is, are you okay for money right now?”

I smile. “Oh, yeah, no, I’m totally fine.”

I’m totally fucked is what I am. Attending business school in New York takes up an enormous amount of my time. Which means I don’t have a job, at least not until I can secure an internship, which is part of my school program. Even if it’s paid—and that’s a big if—it will only pay peanuts anyway. So for now, my money for food, the nice clothes, my fancy apartment, and everything else, comes out of an allowance doled out by the trust that holds my mother’s and my money.

A trust that, as of five days ago, has been frozen, thanks to Gerard’s legal motions. And that means I’m going to be living off a credit card until, well, fuck knows when.

So. No, I’m not fine at all. And if Gerard manages to succeed in robbing us blind—and the prognosis on that isn’t great—I have less than zero idea how I’ll pay for school, or any of the rest of it.

Raph gives me a look. “Just ask.”

“For?”

“Money, my dear.”

I wave him off. “Raph, I’m totally fine, but thank—”

“My God, you’re as stubborn as you are proud, aren’t you?”

Yes.

“Raph, I don’t need your charity.”

“Oh, it’s not a gift, honey,” he grins. “It’d be a loan. And I charge a steep interest rate.”

I smile as I pat his hand. “I’m good. Really. But thank you. I appreciate the gesture so much. You have no idea.”

He lifts his shoulders and hands elegantly in surrender as I glance at my watch.

“Shit, I’ve gotta run,” I hiss before downing the rest of my wine in one gulp.

“Ahh, yes, to your mafioso friends,” Raph sighs.

I give him a look. “Really? As if your dad isn’t good buddies with Andre LeBlanc, not to mention the rest of the French mafia.”

“Yes, dear, but I don’t get invited to their twenty-first birthday parties, now do I?”

Touche.

Raph grins. “I’m just giving you a hard time, Dahlia. I’m happy that you’ve found this little tribe of yours. You deserve it: I hope you know that.”

I smile as I pat his hand. “Thanks, Raph.”

I haven’t historically done the most spectacular job of making friends. When I was a kid, it was mostly just my mom and I, and of course Aunt Celeste and Uncle Adrian. School wasn’t usually a barrel of laughs, either. When everyone knows the sordid tale of your conception, not to mention your family ties to British mafia legend Adrian Cross, they’re not exactly lining up to make friends with you.

When mom met Gerard, his connections and her money got me into the infamous Knightsblood University here in the US, which Raph attended a year ahead of me. But even there, in a school notorious for its student body full of mafia heirs, I was the weird one, an outcast.

And then I was literally cast out.

By him.

But then, a year ago, I found real friendship with an awesome girl in my program—Eilish Kildare, an Irish mafia princess and all-around incredible friend. We clicked immediately, and she and her older sister Neve and I have been close ever since. And through them, I also became great friends with their sister-in-law, the Greek mafia princess whose twenty-first birthday party I’m on my way to tonight.

That’s where things get complicated.

Complicated, and downright dangerous.

“You won’t be too proud to call if you need anything, will you?”

I smile. “No. I promise.”

We stand, and Raph hugs me close. “Again, I’m so damn sorry, Dahlia. Please, please, tell your mom that I’m on your side. And whatever you guys need, I’m here, okay?”

I leave Raph with his gaze lingering on our waiter and make my way to the elevator. I do love Gallow Green, where we’ve been sipping wine, and I appreciate that Raph picked this spot on a quiet night midweek, since he knows my thing about big crowds.

Downstairs, I shiver as I step out into the cool autumn air and raise a hand to hail a taxi. I swallow as I glance up at the big full moon looming over the city, and a chill creeps deviously up my spine.

It’s not Halloween yet, but it’s close.

Devil’s Night.

His night.

And it reminds of a Halloween night six years ago. A night of devils and darkness, of mayhem and death.

The night my life changed forever.

A short cab ride later, I’m pulling up outside the forty-story building on Central Park South. That same creepy chill finger-walks up my spine as I step out of the car and smile at the doormen and Drakos family guards, who all know me well by now.

In a parallel universe, one where I have any sort of sanity, I never even cross paths with Calliope Drakos, much less become friends with her. Not because she’s not an amazing person and one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and not even because her family is Greek mafia.

No, it’s because six years ago, I crossed paths with the very devil himself. And that devil happens to be her brother.

Deimos Drakos.

My terror. The prince of darkness who stalked my shadows and haunted my inkiest dreams back at Knightsblood, not to mention has continued to do so virtually ever since.

Every story has a villain, and he’s the one in mine.

Callie is the youngest in her family with four older brothers—and all five of them were named after various Greek gods, muses, and titans. Her oldest brother, Ares, who runs the Drakos empire now and is married to Eilish’s sister Neve, is named after the god of war and courage. After him comes Hades, the god of the underworld…though I have to admit, Callie’s wild-man of a brother has certainly chilled out a fair bit since he got together with his fiancée, Elsa.

Kratos, my friend’s largest brother, is well-named after the god of strength and might. Meanwhile Calliope and I joke all the time about her being named after the muse of “eloquence, epic poetry, and harmony of voice”, because my brash, sassy friend is possibly the least eloquent person I’ve ever known, and much as I love her, she can’t sing for shit.

And that leaves Deimos: the god of dread and terror.

There has never, ever been a person so aptly named.

Run from this place, now. And if you ever speak of any of this, I’ll destroy everything you love.

I shiver at the memory as the elevator rises to the roof of the original building atop which the Drakos estate sits. Almost a hundred years ago, Callie’s great grandfather used his newfound criminal wealth to buy a neo-classical mansion in England, take it apart brick by brick, and then transport it to America and rebuild it on the roof of this forty-story building overlooking Central Park.

It’s stunning.

Sprawling, massive, with panoramic views of all of Manhattan and Central Park. There are grounds, complete with classical Greek sculptures, two pools, a tennis court, and rose gardens. It’s without a doubt one of my very favorite places on earth.

Except…

I shiver as the elevator doors open revealing the foyer of the gorgeous estate.

Except there’s no escaping the tingling sensation I get whenever I’m here. The warning light blinking on and off in the back of my mind.

The feeling that a malevolent spirit is about to emerge from the shadows, snatch me up, and drag me down to Hell.

The thing is, I didn’t know who Callie was when we first met. Or rather, I didn’t know who her family was. Eilish invited me to a bar early on in our friendship, and just introduced me to her friend Callie.

We hit it off instantly, like we’d been friends our whole lives. We hung out again. And then a third time. Then she friended me on social media, and my heart just about choked me to death.

Callie, as in Calliope Drakos.

As in little sister to my very devil.

Thinking about it now, I should have cut my losses and run. But again, I don’t make friends easily. And besides, Deimos lives in London, running the Drakos family’s European enterprises.

Six years ago, he told me to stay away. I feel like the entire Atlantic Ocean between us is enough, right?

Right?

“Dahlia!”

I flinch, my pulse spiking. The dark images of Deimos’ dark, vicious, lethally gorgeous face swimming feverishly through my head melt away as I turn and force a smile to my face.

“Hey!”

Eilish gives me a big bear hug, beaming as she grabs my wrist. “C’mon, we’re all outside on the veranda.”

I make a face. “Little cold to be outside, isn’t it?”

She shrugs. “You know Dimitra.”

I grin. Do I ever. Callie’s bird-like grandmother, who technically owns this mansion, is a hoot. But part of her obsession with honoring her family’s Greek origins is dining al fresco under the arbor in her rooftop rose garden basically until it starts to snow.

“There’s heat lamps, don’t worry.” Eilish winks at me. “And lots of wine.”

I swallow back the ominous feeling that I get from time to time in this house, along with the swirling images of Deimos’ snarling face. A grin curls my lips.

“Well, in that case, lead the way!”

She frowns. “Hey, how’s Adele—” She stops when she sees the look on my face. “Oh. Well… You know I’m here whenever you want to talk about it.”

“I know,” I reach out and squeeze her hand. “Thanks. But first…”

“Champagne?”

“Lots of champagne.”

* * *

Soon enough, surrounded by “the tribe”, as Raph put it, that I’ve found, my apprehension has melted away.

He’s not here.

Honestly, he’s never here. Which is the only reason I haven’t cut and run when it comes to my friendship with Callie. She’s mentioned before that for some reason Deimos hates New York City with a passion bordering on concerning. That, and the fact that he runs the entire European side of the Drakos empire single-handedly, means he’s never here.

Apparently not even for important family birthdays.

Thank God.

But even minus one brother, Callie’s beaming when she steps out of the house to an enthusiastic cheer from all of us. Which is great, because for a long time, her twenty-first birthday was a black spot on the horizon none of us wanted to think about. A decade ago, Callie’s late father made a deal with a vile, cruel, and way older Italian Don, Luca Carveli, promising him Callie’s hand in marriage when she turned twenty-one.

A few weeks ago, though, rumors started swirling that Luca was dead from a heart attack, which means no more arranged marriage between my friend and that ghoul.

So, birthday aside, that’s cause enough to celebrate. I give Callie a huge hug and wish her a happy birthday as Ares passes us all flutes of champagne.

“I really want to know what the fuck is going on with your mom and Gerard,” Callie hisses in my ear, pulling me aside. When I give her the same look that I gave Eilish, she sighs and nods. “Okay, totally get it. Maybe later?”

“How about we just enjoy your birthday tonight, yeah?”

She smiles wryly and gives me another hug.

“Not to mention the glorious death of your late and unlamented arranged marriage.”

A weird sort of look flashes across her face, but just as quickly disappears.

“Oh, definitely,” she blurts. “We’re definitely drinking to that.”

A second later, though, she’s being pulled away for pictures with her grandmother. I smile as I watch the Drakos clan joke with and jostle each other. Next to them, the Kildares—Eilish, Neve, their uncle Cillian and his wife Una, and of course their former bodyguard who might as well be their older brother, Castle—do the same thing.

Sometimes—okay, a lot of times—I’m jealous of the big families my friends have and have had their whole lives. But then I remind myself just how lucky I am to be a part of all this, even only on the periphery.

So, I smile as they all take photos, sipping my champagne as I turn to the side table Dimitra has had set up near where we’re all eating, filled with framed pictures of Callie and her family growing up. I grin at one of her at maybe age ten wearing the infamous “Drakos birthday hat”—this absurd Cat-in-the-Hat looking monstrosity that for some reason they all traditionally wear on birthdays, and that Callie hates.

There’s one of Ares and Hades riding their bikes as kids. Another of a teenaged but already massive Kratos hoisting Callie out of a pool. Another, of baby Callie in her grandmother’s arms, has my lips spreading into a wide grin.

And then I get to the next framed photo, and my heart turns to stone.

It’s him.

The shot is of six-year-old Callie, with Deimos’ arm slung around her shoulders.

And he’s positively glaring into the camera.

My pulse thuds in my veins as I swallow thickly. He must only be something like twelve in the photo. Twelve, and he’s already got the look of a combat veteran with several hellish tours of duty under his belt. The look of a full-grown man who knows death far too intimately.

The haunted look of the very devil himself.

My devil, staring right into my soul.

I swallow the sudden hard lump in the back of my throat with a largish gulp of bubbly. That same ominous feeling, like I had when I first walked in, returns with a vengeance. It’s as if having a picture of him here has conjured his malevolent spirit here, too.

It’s like I can feel him.

Like I can sense him.

A dark, inky spirit of death slipping between the branches of a gnarled tree with outstretched claws ready to sink into my jugular. I shiver in the chilly fall air and start to go back to the warmth of the heat lamps and the smiles of my friends.

But I don’t make it.

Because the second I turn, something tall, dark and venomous slides between me and everyone else, like a dark cloud blotting out the moon.

Like a dragon swallowing the sun.

Like black ink on wet paper, slowly bleeding into the pulp.

Something broad-shouldered and looming with fierce dark eyes, chiseled cheekbones, and a lethally sharp jaw. Something that smells like bergamot, pine, leather and spice, with black tattoos swirling like warning signs up his neck.

Something with a lean, muscled arm with the sleeve rolled halfway up that stabs out, stealing my breath and arresting my pulse when a powerful hand wraps its iron grip around my throat.

Everything dims. The rest of the world goes silent and frozen as Deimos lowers his terrifying and illegally beautiful face to my chilled and horrified one, his black eyes narrowed at me like death itself.

“Exactly what the fuck are you doing here?”

 

Chapter 2

Dahlia

I knew the risks.

It was a little over a year ago, after that third time hanging out with Callie. We’d just had an absolute blast screaming our way through Madonna, Taylor Swift, and the Talking Heads at karaoke. I was back home, sweaty from all the dancing, hoarse, and slightly buzzed, when my phone lit up with the friend request.

That’s when the record scratched, and my heart went still when I realized that the “Callie” I’d been having such a grand time with all night was Calliope.

As in Calliope Drakos.

I’d even checked her profile just to be sure. But of course it was obvious in seconds, from the family pictures and the “also friends with” section where his dark, black eyes lanced right out of my phone screen and straight into my very soul.

It was a frozen moment, one that I knew even a little drunk was my fork in the road. I could ignore the friend request and let our fledgling friendship fizzle before it even got started. I could fade away and make damn sure I’d never chance crossing paths with Deimos again.

Or I could take a breath, and an even bigger leap.

Obviously, that’s what I did. I hit “accept friend request”, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Part of it was that I really liked Callie. Another part was that, as I’ve said, I’d never had an easy time making friends. And now my group of two—Eilish and Neve—could potentially expand to three whole friends.

But another big part of it was my obsession with riding the line between excitement and fear. My ill-advised need to tiptoe as close to the edge of the cliff as possible, feeling the tug of gravity right before it yanks you over into the abyss.

So, no. I didn’t befriend Callie or allow myself to be welcomed into her family without knowing the risk. I knew deep down that there was a chance I’d find myself in front of him again. Even if I played as carefully as I could.

I have a social media presence, but I don’t have any photos of myself up, nor do I use my real last name of Roy. That’s not because of Deimos, either. I’ve done that since before my brief time at Knightsblood.

Because there’s way too many demons in my past to make it wise for me to put pictures of myself up on the internet.

But even still. Even with no photographs, and my new friends knowing how I felt about that and honoring my request not to post any pictures with me in them, and even with using the obviously fake “Dahlia Gahlia” instead of Dahlia Roy on my profile…

There were risks. And I knew them. And I still took that step out over the edge.

And now gravity is coming for revenge, for cheating it all this time.

My pulse jangles in my ears, the color fading from my face as I lift my wide eyes to his lethal, menacing, dark orbs. I remember thinking when I first laid eyes on him that they were like a shark’s eyes—midnight black and glinting with a dangerous edge, just like the teeth that come with them.

And in this moment, just like any other time I’ve ever found myself locking eyes with this devil, it’s like I lose the ability even to move.

I’ve been a complete idiot. There’s no running from Deimos. There’s not even any blinking around Deimos. Or breathing. Or remembering how to force your mouth to make words.

His lips curl up dangerously at the corners. But it’s not a smile. It’s not even one of the supremely off-putting grins I’ve seen on his face before.

It’s pure malice. Sheer anger. Utter destruction. It’s war, famine, pestilence, and death—all four horsemen of the apocalypse together, etched across his face and haunting the black shadows in his eyes.

He’s classically beautiful, too. Which I always thought was such an outrageously fucked up thing for chance to have to done to a man like him. That something so malicious and devious—someone so cold and calculating and inhuman inside—could have won the genetic lottery and have such a physically  perfect exterior.

Full lips. A strong, sharp jawline, with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. The shock of dark hair which only makes his pale skin look even paler, almost supernaturally so. The height, and the broad shoulders. The muscles. The tattoos snaking up his neck and down his forearms.

The flash of completely straight white teeth, like a wolf before the pounce and the tearing of the jugular.

That’s what he is, and what he’s always been: a wolf. A beast masquerading as a human being.

“I’m going to ask this one more time,” he rumbles quietly, his deep, rasping voice like leather and velvet, like smoke and whiskey as it teases into my ears. I choke back a gasp as his strong fingers and veined hands tighten just a little more around my throat. The overhead string lights glint in his eyes. “What the fuck are you—”

“D!!!”

The change is instantaneous.

Deimos has never once been accused of being remotely charming, smiley, or jovial. And plenty of people have been unnerved by him, if not more than a little scared.

But I know I’m one of a very select group who’ve truly seen the darkness behind the mask. I’ve looked the devil in the eye and seen the true psychotic nature he hides behind that beautiful face.

It’s Ares who interrupts us. And the second his voice hits Deimos’ back, the looming, throbbing malevolence on his face fades to its normal stony coldness. His hand drops from my neck, leaving pulsing tingles of danger on my skin as his darkness rearranges itself into its usual blank facial expression.

He turns away from me as Ares approaches. And it’s not until those eyes stop looking into mine that I realize I’ve been unable to breathe since they first eviscerated me.

“Ares,” he says calmly, even smiling a little as he extends a hand. His brother rolls his eyes, knocking Deimos’ hand away and hugging him fiercely.

“Dude, I wasn’t sure if you were actually going to come!”

“Well, here I am,” Deimos growls quietly, with all the excitement of someone attending a funeral.

“Callie’s going to freak, bro. She doesn’t know I was trying to set this up.” Ares grins at his brother before his eyes slip past him to me. “Oh, shit—have you met Dahlia? She’s one of Callie’s besties these days.”

Deimos turns away from his brother and back to me. And once again, those eyes stab right into me as the darkness throbs under his face. The change from semi-normal to psycho—for my eyes only—is so abrupt that I physically flinch and find myself backing up against the table full of pictures. My throat works as I vainly try to swallow the cold knot that has instantly formed there.

“Is she, now,” Deimos murmurs, flaying me alive with a look.

I say nothing. I can’t, not while he’s looking at me like that.

“Hey, come on over,” Ares tugs on Deimos’ arm, chuckling. “Callie’s going to lose her shit, man.”

He pulls his younger brother away, heading in the direction of the rest of the party. Deimos hurls one last cold, piercing, look at me with all the force of a class five hurricane, then he’s turning away and Callie is shrieking in surprise.

I have to get the hell out of here. Now.

* * *

My fatal error is stopping by the kitchen before I leave. My hands are shaking as I pull open the wine fridge and pull out one of the dozen or so bottles of champagne chilling inside. I pop the cork deftly and quietly with the help of a hand towel, and then pour generously with hands that are still shaking into a plain water glass.

My pulse is still thudding in my veins as I lean on the counter by the farmhouse-style porcelain sink and knock back half of my glass.

This was a huge mistake. I never should have come—

“I’m curious.”

I almost choke. The champagne stops halfway down as my throat closes, making me sputter and wince as I finally manage to swallow it awkwardly. My face goes white as I whirl, my heart thudding, to see Deimos and his wrath filling the doorway.

Oh God.

It was dark outside. But in here, with the lights on, I can see every detail on his cold, beautiful face.

Every dangerous, toxic, monstrous detail.

It’s been six years since I last saw him. And in that time, I swear, he’s only grown darker, more gorgeous, and more hauntingly terrifying than before. His face is a little older, and a little more etched. His eyes are a little colder and fiercer. His body is bigger, and more muscled. Definitely more muscled.

The dark energy swirling around him is the same, though: like a bomb about to explode.

His lips curve up—again, it’s not a grin, or a smile. It’s not even a deliberately scary smile meant to instill fear or suggest a threat.

It’s just as if there’s so much malice in his face that the sheer toxicity of it pulls at his facial muscles. Just the lips, though. Cover his mouth, and you’d never in a hundred million years guess that his lips were curled up this way.

“Exactly what are we celebrating here?” he rasps, nodding at my glass in one hand and the bottle of champagne in the other.

Before I can even open my mouth in an attempt to speak, or before I can think to escape, he crosses the kitchen toward me. And then, there’s no way I’m running.

There’s no way I’m physically able to.

I’m frozen to the spot, like his gaze is a spear through my heart, pinning me to the counter behind me. He doesn’t rush, either. He knows that I know I’m caught, and he approaches like a tiger padding with amusement toward a prey that’s already lost all ability to flee.

“I—” I swallow, or try to, at least. But I can’t do even that, never mind speak as he moves closer and closer, until he’s looming over me, mere inches away. His dark eyes stab down into mine, freezing my pulse.

“Well?”

I shiver. “I…”

“I recall you having no issue speaking before, Dahlia…” he growls.

My name coming from his lips sounds like a curse.

“So, unless you’ve gone mute—and if you have, we most certainly do have reason to celebrate—then I’m curious why it is you seem to be un-fucking-able to articulate precisely why it is you are in my grandmother’s house, drinking her champagne, and mingling with my fucking family.”

Speak. Say something. Anything. Give him ANYTHING.

“I…” I swallow. “I was just leaving.”

His face curdles into a snarl.

“The fuck you are.”

Wait, what?

“I promise,” I whisper. “This was a mistake. I made a mistake. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” Fear has me rambling. His proximity has my brain glitching out like the Matrix. “I’m going now, I promise.”

I knew the risk. I didn’t care. I was blinded by my desire to finally have friends.

“I’m leaving—”

“Ah, not mute,” he murmurs almost to himself, like he’s making a scientific observation. “But maybe you’ve had a head injury, or something genetic has turned you fucking stupid.”

“I’m not stupid.”

I spit it with utter clarity, my voice laced with fury. It’s an automatic response over which I have no control, because being told I’m stupid, or being questioned as if I am, is a huge trigger point for me.

It’s been like that since grade school, after Nasser died and Mom and I were finally free from his wrath and reach. She enrolled me in this super ritzy and exclusive private school for London’s “most gifted and promising” young students. Because, as it happened, I am very smart.

I’m a little too smart, to be honest.

Except “gifted and promising”, in most cases, really just meant “filthy rich and insufferable.” And when those little shits found out who I was—and who my parents were—it was open fucking season on Dahlia Roy.

Back then, I’d completely shut down in the face of any bullying. So when they’d lay into me, I’d close myself off and stop talking. Which of course only got them accusing me of being deaf or mute. But then they found their favorite one: that I wasn’t responding to their bullying because I was stupid.

It lasted until I was in Year Ten. At that point, I was a year younger than everyone else in my grade, I was the top of the class by a mile, and I had zero friends.

But that’s also the year I stopped accepting it when people called me stupid.

One of my teachers, a Mrs. Willard, found me in the bathroom one day, trying to get the chocolate milk that one of my bullies had dumped all over me out of my uniform. And I’ll never forget what she told me:

“Dahlia, my, dear. There are a lot of things those little beasts, and other older beasts, can and will call you over the course of your life. Some of it may be true, even if it’s cruel and beyond your control. But you are not, and you never will be, stupid. Don’t let them have that one.”

A week later, I got my first and only detention, for hitting a girl for calling me just that. The bullying never really stopped entirely. But after that, they stuck with rape-baby, mafia whore, and the rest of it, and they never called me stupid again.

I never once regretted the decision that led to that detention. But the second I open my mouth and spit the words at Deimos, I feel nothing but regret.

His eyes narrow. And his outrageously perfect lips curve into the closest thing to a smile he gets.

Which is objectively, genuinely terrifying.

“There it is,” he purrs roughly, his teeth flashing. “There’s that fight I remember so well.”

I swallow with difficulty. “I—just let me go, please. I’ll leave right now, okay?” I choke out. “And I never…I mean, I’ve never said anything to anyone about—”

“And as I said,” he growls, “you’re not going fucking anywhere. In fact, you’re going to walk back the fuck out there, sit your ass in a chair at the table, and stay until you’re the last fucking one here.”

My brows knit. “I—”

“It would seem,” he snaps, “that you’ve ignored every threat you knew damn well I could make good on and wormed your way into Callie’s good graces.”

My face pales. “I… I never meant to. It was an accident—”

“I don’t fucking care.”

The pure venom in his tone feels like a blade across my skin.

“You’re not leaving, because accident or not—though I haven’t the slightest fucking clue how you ‘accidentally’ befriend someone—you seem for some inexplicable reason to be one of her nearest and dearest these days. And if you ghost her party on her fucking birthday and make my baby sister sad, believe me, there is no length to which I will not go  to make you severely regret it.”

I gasp as he surges into me, until our bodies are literally touching. I shudder, feeling the rippling muscles and sheer power of him throbbing against me as his powerful arms shoot to either side of me, caging me against the counter behind me.

“And I know you’re clear exactly how far that is.”

It’s at that precise moment that movement catches my eye. I flinch, my eyes somehow ripping away from his to look past his looming, broad shoulders…

…To where Callie is standing in the doorway to the kitchen with a puzzled expression on her face.

“Callie…”

I croak out her name. Instantly Deimos stiffens, his lips curling in a dangerous snarl. But then, his hands drop from the counter.  And I watch, transfixed, as the psycho look on his face melts back into its usual unemotional state, just like it did with Ares.

He smiles thinly at his sister, who frowns curiously before glancing back to me again. I swallow, feeling my face heat.

“I…was just looking for the bathroom,” I blurt. I cringe the second I utter it, realizing how fucking stupid it sounds, given that I’ve been to Callie’s house fifty or so times.

Callie looks like she can’t tell if she’s amused, confused, or concerned. “Uh, it’s still where it was the last dozen times you’ve been over here?”

“Oh, right. Yeah, thanks.”

I slip away from Deimos, though I swear I can still feel his malevolent energy clawing at me, trying to drag me back. But I power through those feelings as I turn to go, shooting Callie a quick and slightly awkward look.

“Happy birthday,” I blurt. “Great party.”

In the guest bathroom, I shut the door, lock it, then sink against it, my heart hammering a mile a minute in my chest. I exhale heavily and feel the tension twisting my muscles slowly uncoil.

I shudder as I move to the sink, running cold water as I grip the sides of the marble vanity. My hands slip under the chilly stream, and I lean down and gasp sharply as I splash a little cold water on my cheeks, gently so as not to wreck my makeup, then reach for a towel.

I blot my face with slow, careful, pats before I pull the towel away. My eyes meet my own reflection in the mirror, and I shiver.

How the fuck will I survive this?

I only barely survived Deimos Drakos the first time. And the only way I did was to swear he’d never see me again.

Now I’ve broken that promise.

Will he break his?

I swallow the lump in my throat as I look into my own eyes again. I’m hoping to see strength, or bravery, or resolution, but all I see is fear.

Not the good kind, either. Not the kind that discovers fire, or makes sure you look both ways before crossing the street.

I just see cold, naked, dangerous fear. I see a little girl still scared of the dark and the things that go bump in it.

Things like him.

 

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