Page 6 of Nikolay

Silence had served me in courts, councils, negotiations across species and centuries. It had never felt so much like defeat.

At last, I turned.

The door was still shut behind me, black lacquer gleaming dully in the lamplight. I crossed to it in three strides that were almost controlled. My hand landed flat against the frame instead of the knob, because the wood was there and solid and because if I had needed, for one disgraceful instant, to feel something yield beneath my strength. The frame groaned under my palm. Old timber protested. A fine crack whispered somewhere in the joint.

Behind me, Bohdan did not speak. That was perhaps the only kindness he offered all evening.

I opened the door with my other hand and stepped through without looking back. I left it hanging wide behind me because closing it quietly would have required a degree of composure I no longer possessed, and because if I had remained in that room one second longer I might have either confessed too much or broken something expensive.

The corridor beyond lay cool and dim, lit by wall sconces that made gold pools on dark carpet. Beneath my feet the club throbbed on, indifferent to the private revolutions of princes. Somewhere below, Maddie moved through the floor with her tray and her smile and her short, unforgivable skirt, earning her place while I unraveled in increments too fine for anyone but my brothers to see.

I walked away with the taste of restraint like iron in my mouth and the certainty—cold, complete, impossible to dismiss—that this was not over.

Not with Bohdan.

Not with her.

Most certainly not with me.

Chapter 2

Maddie

By midnight, I had learned the trick of Obsidian wasn’t surviving the place—it was letting it breathe around you without swallowing your head whole. The bass moved up through the soles of my boots in a slow, dirty pulse. Crystal flashed purple and gold under the low lights, and the air carried liquor, expensive perfume, and that faint copper scent that never let you forget exactly what some folks came here to drink. I had a tray balanced on one hand, six blood cocktails trembling ruby-dark in their glasses, and I moved through the floor like I’d been doing it half my life instead of a handful of nights.

It helped that I had waited tables since I was old enough to tell when a customer wanted flirting, silence, or a quick hand with a coffee refill before he worked himself into a complaint. Men were men no matter the setting, and women with power tended to expect the same thing from service staff whether they wore a wolf’s grin, a witch’s rings, or a vampire’s old-money boredom. Obsidian just wrapped all that up in silk and fangs and made it prettier.

“Your smoked old fashioned, and your Black Velvet,” I said, setting two glasses before a pair of vampires seated deep in one of the curved leather booths. “And this one’s yours, sugar.”

The last glass went to a demon whose skin in human glamour still held a little too much heat, his eyes a little too bright as he took the blood cocktail from me. He let his stare drag from my mouth to my chest and lower, not bothering to hide it. I’d dealt with worse at Pearl’s from men in oil-stained caps and wedding bands. At least here the predators usually had the decency to be honest about it.

“You always serve with a smile,” he said, voice rough as gravel rolled in whiskey, “or am I special?”

I gave him one right back, sweet enough to sting. “Now, honey, if you were special, your tab wouldn’t be so high.”

The two vampires snorted into their drinks. The demon blinked, then laughed, and sure enough he reached into his jacket for a black card embossed with sigils I wasn’t supposed to ask about. I took it from between his fingers before he could make the handoff feel more personal than necessary.

“I’ll close you out in a minute,” I said. “And if you keep being good, I might even bring you another.”

He grinned. “There’s the Texas charm.”

“There’s the payment,” I shot back.

I moved on before he could answer, tray tucked to my hip, boots whispering over the dark floor. The room was in one of its good moods tonight—hungry but not ugly. Conversations ran low and intimate under the music. Bodies leaned together in corners, bargain and appetite blurring into one glossy thing. Up near the stage, a pair of witches in sleek black dresses watched a human couple dance with the detached focus of women judging a horse at auction. Near the bar, one of Kyra’s bartenders shook silver over ice while a vampire in a charcoal suit bent close to murmur in a willing donor’s ear, the obsidian pendant at her throat glinting every time she laughed.

I was about halfway to table twelve when a sharp snap of fingers cut through the music on my left.

I stopped because ignoring that kind of thing usually made it worse, then turned with my best professional expression already set in place. The woman doing the snapping was a witch, maybe fifty if you counted by human standards and impossible to place if you didn’t. Her hair was wound in a severe twist at the nape of her neck, and enough jewels glittered on her hands to fund a decent used truck back home.

“Yes, ma’am?” I asked.

Her mouth pinched. “We have been waiting.”

I glanced at the untouched glasses on her table, the fresh carafe of water, the appetizer plate that had been delivered all of four minutes ago. “For the second bottle recommendation?”

Her eyes narrowed, not pleased I’d remembered. “Yes.”

I nodded, easy as church. “Then I’d say the merlot if you want something bold, but if you’re having the lamb when the kitchen sends it out, the pinot noir is going to treat you kinder.”