The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1)(104)

38





SéVERIN


Séverin’s seventh father was Lust.

Lust taught him that a broken heart made a fine weapon, for its pieces were exceptionally sharp.

One day, Lust became obsessed with a young man in the village. The young man shared his affection, and both Séverin and Tristan spent many a night laughing at all the strange sounds that echoed through the halls. But then one day, the young man came to the villa and said he had fallen in love with a woman of his family’s choice, and he was to marry her within the fortnight.

Lust was furious. Lust did not like to be jilted, and so he found the young woman. He made her laugh, made her love him. And when she told him she carried his child, he forsook her. The girl took her own life, and the young man she would have married went mad.

So, Séverin suspected, did Lust. He spent days sitting on the stone balcony, his feet dangling out, his whole body tipped forward as if he were daring the world to give him wings at the last second.

The day before Séverin and Tristan left for Paris, Lust whispered to him:

“Lust is safer than love, but both can ruin you.”



* * *



SéVERIN BROKE OFF the kiss, startling backward.

“What the hell was that?” he spat.

Confusion flickered on Laila’s face, but she masked it quickly.

“A reminder,” she said uncertainly, her eyes on the floor before she lifted them to him. “To live again…”

Live?

“Turning into ghosts is not what the dead deserve.”

She came closer. There was so much hope in her face that he felt the ache of it in his bones. Memory bit into Séverin. He remembered how he reached for her instead of Tristan, how he shielded her against one he’d sworn to protect. How could she dare to speak of what the dead deserved?

Ice crept into his heart. A sneer twisted his mouth, and he laughed, walking back to his desk and leaning against it.

“Laila,” he said. “What do you want me to say? Would you like me to quote poetry? Tell you there’s witchcraft in your lips that resurrected me?”

Laila flinched. “I thought in the catacombs that—”

“Did you really think that kiss meant something?” he asked, smirking. “Did you think one night meant something? I can barely remember it. No offense, of course.”

“Stop this, Séverin. We both know it meant something.”

“You’re delusional,” he said coldly.

“Prove it,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Séverin’s eyes flew open. She was standing right in front of him, her footsteps silenced by the plush rug beneath them. He steadied himself as he reached out to touch her cheek. The slightest tremble ran through her body.

“You’re blushing, and I’ve hardly touched you,” he said. He forced another sneer onto his lips even as his foolish heart leapt. “Do you really want me to go through with this proof? It will only humiliate—”

Laila wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him against her. Séverin’s hands gripped her waist, as if she were an anchor. As if he were drowning. And maybe he was. A sigh, once trapped in her throat, turned into a moan when his tongue slipped into her mouth.

“Laila,” he murmured. He said her name again, whispering it like a prayer.

He lifted her off the ground, turning sharply and settling her on the desk. Her legs fell to either side of his hips. They were pressed so closely together that the light from his nephrite desk could not squeeze between them. He filled his hands with the black silk of her hair. This was what a kiss that meant nothing supposedly felt like. As if he could not touch her enough, taste her enough, as if this movement alone would leave his body riddled as an addict’s. Her neck was hot silk against his lips. He felt drunk. And then, he felt her hand skimming to the space where his shirt joined his pants, and he stopped short.

He stepped back. Her legs, once wrapped around his waist, fell, and her heels hit the front of the desk.

“See?” he said hoarsely. “I told you. Nothing.”

Fury flashed across her face. “You know it wasn’t. And if you really think that, you’re a fool, Majnun.”

He winced at the last word. When he finally looked at her, her sable eyes appeared raw. He didn’t even remember reaching for the words that flew out of his mouth, but their venom chilled his teeth. “Go ahead,” he said. “Call me whatever you wish. It’s impossible to be hurt by someone who’s not even real.”

He couldn’t doubt what he felt afterward. The lightning crack in the air as something in Laila unmistakably broke.





39





SéVERIN


Two months later … November 1889

Séverin held up a gigantic fur stole that, until very recently, might have been a silver fox. Or may have been a shiny weasel. He could never tell with these things. Glossy chips of garnet shone in the fur so that it looked blood-flecked.

“What the hell is this?”

“It’s your birthday present, cher!” said Hypnos, clapping his hands together. “Don’t you love it? Perfect for our upcoming trip too. Russia is frigid, and the last thing you’re going to want at the Order’s Winter Conclave is to sound snobby through chattering lips. It just won’t suit.”