The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves #1)(106)

His bed was already occupied.

“Hello, Majnun.”

Perched on the edge of his bed and wearing a gown that looked cut from the night sky was Laila. She shifted under his stare, and faint stars zoomed across the ends of her dress. Blearily, Séverin wondered whether it was really her. Or whether she was some phantasm scraped together from all his longing. But then the corner of her mouth lifted in a knowing smile, and he was jolted back to this moment.

They hadn’t spoken in weeks, and yet the way to talk to her—the push-pull of jokes—floated back to him, as easy as breathing. She no longer looked wide-eyed and bruised, the way she had when they had last spoken in the study. If anything, she looked like an icon. Terrible and beautiful. Untouchable.

And here he was. Disheveled and tired and not willing to show it.

“And what brings the celebrity of the Palais des Rêves back to my bed?” he asked.

She laughed, and even though he was clothed he might as well have been standing naked.

“A proposition,” she said lightly.

He raised his eyebrow. “One that has to do with my bed?”

“As if you’d know what to do with me in your bed,” she said, glancing at her nails.

He most certainly did know—

“My proposition has to do with the Winter Conclave in Russia.”

“You’ll come with us?”

“On my own terms.”

“What do you want?”

Laila tipped forward. The light clung to her skin. “I want special access. I don’t want to hide in a cake. Or pose as a maid.”

And just like that, he understood.

“You want me to make you my mistress.”

“Yes,” she said. “Hypnos declined, which left you as the only logical option. With the fête in three weeks’ time, I can hardly expend the effort into ingratiating myself with someone else.”

He tried not to think about how she had gone to another man first. He tried, and he failed.

She reached for his hand, and he noticed that she wore jewelry now. Heavy, uncut rocks on her index fingers and thin, beaten strands of gold around her wrists. She had never worn jewelry in the hotel. They had always gotten in the way of her baking.

When she touched him, he stiffened.

“What do you say, Majnun? It will only be in name, I assure you,” she said. Her voice was low, suffused with an almost professional quality of seduction that knocked the wind from his lungs even as every corner of his mind fought to withstand her. “You need me. You know it. If I am not there, then all your plans to find The Divine Lyrics disappear.”

Now her fingers traced the line of his neck, the underside of his jaw. He couldn’t breathe.

“Fine,” he bit out.

“Promise?” she whispered. “I need to hear you say it.”

He swallowed. “I promise I will declare you my mistress and take you to the winter fête,” he said.

“Promise that whatever you discover you will share with me?” she pressed.

She had undone his first button. Her hands were on his chest.

“Fine, yes, I promise,” he said hoarsely.

Laila leaned in, her face inches away from his, damson-dark lips parting softly.

“Good,” she said.

Something was burning his skin. He hissed, looking down at his wrist to see that her stack of bangles had not been bangles at all, but coils of iron wire, Forged from the same material as an oath tattoo and now seared into his skin by his own promise. The burning lasted for less than a blink before the metal disappeared beneath his skin.

“I have learned not to trust what you say,” said Laila. “So I took my own precaution.”

“How—”

“I learned from the best,” she said, patting his cheek.

He caught her wrist in his hand.

“You should be more careful with the promises you extract,” he said, his voice low. “Do you know what contract you have just entered?”

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

“Do you?” he asked. “Because you have just agreed to spend every night in my bed for the next three weeks. I will hold you to that.”

“I know that, Majnun,” she said, softer this time. “Just like I know how that will hold no temptation for you. You might even have to kiss me on occasion, simply to prove that I am to you who you say I am. But that means nothing. Remember?”

She slid down from the bed and made her way to the door.

“Happy birthday, Majnun,” she said, as the door closed. “Sleep well.”

He did not sleep at all that night.





40





HYPNOS


Hypnos walked briskly down the halls of Erebus.

It was freezing outside, and the fires had been banked for the night, which meant that it was bound to be a chilly reception for the matriarch of House Kore. Her fur stole was wound tightly around her body. If she hadn’t bothered to take it off, then that meant it would only be a short visit.

“Why did you come here at this hour?” he asked tiredly.

If she was offended with his lack of decorum, she did not show it.

“The Winter Conclave is nearly upon us.”

“Hilariously, Madame, I do own a calendar.”