Nox waxes poetic about justice at my back. Or something. That was the plan, at least, to surprise the Truceguards who willfully defied the order to report for punishment. The ones who tried to hurt our little moon. What was her name again? Selk keeps saying the wrong one to piss me off. So now I can’t remember. I only know what it isn’t…
There’s a lump of white cloth lying on the ground nearest the door. Shattered glass glints across the dark. A damp splash pattern shows where the glass shattered from. And there, laid out for everyone to see, is the pretty little moon we tried to hurt. If possible, her face is even paler today. What was her name?
Smarmy fuckin Porsein is already firmly in my grasp, his flesh puckering beneath my strong grip. It only tightens.
I should be moving. I’m meant to be locking down any threats from the other side of the room like a standard breach formation, but all I see are *his* fucking hands. Her eyes flicker to me for an instant, flashing like ballowbugs in the night. My emerald shards extract a millimeter. My fist is clenched around something, digging in. I squeeze harder. Something tries to pry my hand away, but it’s irrelevant.
One of Haffir’s hands spans the breadth of her back, holding her to the table tightly enough that her rear raises in support. Her heels try and fail for purchase. Another millimeter extracts from my ear tip to my collarbone. His groin meets the moon-pale skin of her thighs as he kneels into her, whispered words ghosting against her neck. Her heels scrape and dig against the floor again until she lets them drop.
The next extraction stings, sliding too far, too fast from my tender flesh. I’ve never had an issue with control. Not since childhood. Not since the war. But I feel it now, the unstable pulse of power in my veins.
Nox’s cold presses in against my back as we move forward. One mechanical step. Another. He should see. He should know why Haffir isn’t going to make it to punishment.
Her back flutters with shaky, thin gasps as his other hand vanishes beneath his hunched body over hers. Inches separate them. Only a few breaths. Her forehead curls into the table. Her hair trembles as she flattens again.
Why won’t she give me her eyes? She’s staring at the floor, limp and quiet, like this will all just pass her by if she doesn’t acknowledge it. He smiles, his arm flexing between them until she grimaces.
My fingers clench, emerald jutting away from my knuckles into something meaty. A yelp. A jerk. A fist? It grazes my temple enough to snag my attention. Porsein’s eyes widen when our gazes meet. Shards sink so deep they puncture his lung.
The lucky bastard will survive, but he’ll hurt unbearably until the Curine help him.
“Fucking coward,” I say, my throat refusing to settle down. I can’t control the reverb so there’s no point in Nox coaxing me to. He has to know, right? What she is… what she wakes in me… in us all…
My shards imbed deeper in his gut before another blow can be dealt. And then the fucker on the table, the one pinning my little moon beneath him, smirks, licking a path from her shoulder to—
Every shard of emerald leaves my body before he finishes—before he finds whatever piece of her flesh he intended to taste. Screams. Thuds. Nox yells something, but I’ve already dropped the howling body from my fingertips. I rip the shards away from their targets, calling them back to me as Haffir’s eyes widen. Finally, he sees the danger as every shard forms a circle around the table.
The ruby in his ring tries to rise, turning to dust. But he can’t form it. The power doesn’t answer, doesn’t budge. It’s how I differ from every other Unsettled I’ve seen. Their power wavers. Mine surges.
My fingers itch. Warm wetness coating them down to the knuckle.
“Emerdis!” Nox shouts, rounding my body until I’m looking down into his eyes. The vein along his temple pounds relentlessly. Mine too. “You cannot kill an heir. Not like this.” He swallows, a glittering blanket of Onyx rising between us and them. “You cannot kill him for a middling. You *cannot*, Emer. We need something else on him. *Think. Focus.*”
I blink, focusing on the cowering Thur females hiding behind their chairs. The incapacitated, bleeding males sprawled around the room. Porsein’s raspy, wet breaths filling the room. Fists clenched, I step back.
“Leash your fucking DOG, Noximar! He thinks he can—” Haffir screams, incensed. He rises from the woman and rounds the table, but the Onyx reacts faster, forming a collar that pinches off his last words and two wrist cuffs linked with stiff bars. Nox hauls the foaming, rabid Thur to the door.
“Come, Emer, leave her,” he says gently after he shoves Haffir onto the landing.
Her. *Her*. Devi, I finally remember. Deviera, the intel said. “No.”
The flashing lights from the club beyond illuminate her on her knees, panting. Long lashes wet along her almond-shaped eyes. She crawls around to the front of the table, oblivious to the glass littering the floor. Thin translucent mesh barely covers her. It’s skewed near her arms, so it barely holds. She swipes her long, hazel waves forward until they cover more of her flesh. All of it looks silky soft in the beams of light. But she’s thinner than I thought—too many sharp edges.
She’s shaking as I’d expect…but breathing calmly as she stares at me. Why? Her eyes are gentle. Why are they gentle? Did she not see me—how monstrous I become?
She peers up between the sheet of waves. So lost. So small. “No,” I say again, already moving to pull her up. She’s coming with us.
“Ah, gentlemales, is everything alright?”
“Everything is fine, Jack Starlet,” Nox says, slipping into the monotonous cold mask he wears. “This is a Thur matter.”
“Well, sirs, not to contradict you,” he says, quivering like the weasel he is, “But my middling girl is just there, cowering on the floor. So this a matter that concerns me as well. I only seek to understand her purpose in this. If she’s at fault, she’ll be punished severely.” I toss a glance over my shoulder to find him staring daggers at her huddled form. Tension bleeds from his posture, and all of it is directed at her. Someone he thinks he… owns? Someone he aims to punish.
I turn just as my hand curls around Devi’s slim arm. “Yours?” Surprisingly, it’s Nox who voices the word, grating against my nerves. She is not his. Not this weasel who doesn’t care if she’s properly clothed or taken care of.
“Yes, one of mine,” he asserts. “My sister, in fact.” When he realizes his words only enrage Nox further, he corrects. “Well, she- erm- works here, for me, of course. That’s all I meant. I know Thur own all…”
He misunderstands. Knows nothing of Thur bonds.
“Were there no cameras?” I ask, my voice unrecognizable like this. “Did you not see how she was accosted?”
Jack clears his throat, glaring at the middling woman slinking behind me as much as she can. Her flesh trembles beneath my warm palm, but she curls protectively against me. That means it’s not me she fears. “It’s illegal to have cameras in these suites, as you gentlemales well know. So, if the whor—”
Nox moves like a blur, invading Jack’s space while he stumbles over his words. “Careful, middling.” Dust swirls around us, stinging against my skin like microscopic blades.
“—th-the girl was accosted then unless she is bleeding or breeding, no rules have been broken here. The girl comes with the room…” His eyes are wide, and as I register his words, I’m forced to take another step in front of Devi. “So if the Thur matter is closed, I will be taking my prop—worker…”
“No.”
“Emer,” Nox says, his cold voice demanding I meet his eyes. *Don’t.* His eyes say. *Not now. Not here. Remember the mission.* He means the Lithe. I understand it, but no. No, we cannot hand her over to this—
“She committed no wrong against the Thur,” Nox says. “Punishment is unnecessary.”
“As you say, then, sirs,” Jack mutters, but he’s already untangling her from me roughly, muttering scathing words as she shrinks herself smaller. I glare at Nox.
*She cannot go with him.* Does my bond not feel how strongly she calls?
*She must.* His eyes say. Final.
And then they’re gone, taking her sad eyes elsewhere.