Chapter 4 · Steam and Shards

"Strip it off, Bianca. Now."

His fingers sat on my zipper like he had all night. Maybe he did.

My lip was still bleeding. I could taste copper and the salt that had blown in through the wrecked keypad.

"Go to hell," I said.

"Already live there." He hooked a hand in the back of my dress and walked me across the suite like I was luggage. "Bathroom. You smell like my dead driver."

He was right. His blood was on my wrists and on my veil. It was in my hair. I wanted it off me more than I wanted to fight him.

That made me furious.

He shoved the black marble door open with his shoulder. Steam rolled out thick and white. The shower was already running hot, loud as applause. He'd had somebody set it up. Of course he had.

"Ten minutes," he said. "Then you're mine to deal with."

"You took my knife."

"I took everything." His mouth barely moved. "Don't make me prove it twice."

He didn't leave. He leaned in the doorway with his jacket off and his sleeves shoved up, watching. Forearms corded. A cut on his knuckle that wasn't his blood either.

My pulse hammered in my ears.

Nobody was coming. Mia was behind a camera screen somewhere in this tower, and I'd seen her face on that feed. She was too still, like a kid told not to move near a dog.

So I did the only dumb thing I had left.

I reached for the glass soap dish on the sink, a heavy crystal thing, and slammed it against the marble edge.

It cracked like a gunshot.

A shard came away in my fist, long as my finger. The edge bit my palm and I didn't care. I turned and went for his throat.

He was faster.

His forearm hit my chest and the room spun. My back slammed into the mirror, and the glass fogged under my shoulder blades, cold through the wet silk. The shard was still in my hand. I'd gotten it up to his jaw.

He caught my wrist an inch from his skin.

"There she is," he said, almost soft.

"Let go."

"Cut me." His thumb pressed into the pulse point, hard. "Go on. You've been wanting to since the church."

"I'll do it."

"Then do it."

I shoved. The glass dragged along his neck and left a thin red line. He didn't even flinch. He looked at me like I'd finally said something honest.

Heat came off him in waves, worse than the shower steam. His chest was hard against mine. I could feel every breath he took. His shirt was soaked through where the steam had caught it, and under it he was warm and solid and not nearly as controlled as he looked.

Neither of us was breathing right.

"You're shaking," he said.

"I'm angry."

"That too."

He slid his hand down from my wrist and pushed his fingers between mine. Not gentle. Just locking in. The shard was caught between our palms, and the edge sliced us both.

I gasped.

He didn't. He tightened his grip.

Blood ran warm down my wrist, and his ran down next to it. It slicked between our palms until I couldn't tell where mine ended. He pushed our joined hands flat against the mirror beside my head. The fogged glass squeaked, and a long red smear streaked down it.

"Look at that," he murmured. "Two De Luca bleeders in one bed."

"I'm not a De Luca anymore."

"No?" His mouth dropped to my ear. His breath burned. "Then why'd you pull a blade on your husband?"

"You're not my husband."

"I put a ring on you."

"You put a ring on a hostage."

He went still. For a second his grip actually eased. I felt it. A tiny give in the iron.

Then his knee pushed between mine and I forgot what I was arguing about.

The silk clung to my thighs, soaked through at the hem. His leg pinned the dress against the marble. Every place we touched was hot and slippery. My heartbeat knocked against his ribs like it wanted in.

I hated that my body answered him.

"Say it," he said.

"Say what?"

"That you want me dead."

"I want you dead."

"Better." His nose brushed my temple. "Now say it like you mean it."

I tried. I really did. But his thumb moved over my knuckles, slow, tracing the cut, and the words came out cracked.

"I want..."

He waited.

"I want my sister," I whispered.

Something moved across his face and was gone. I couldn't name it. It wasn't pity. Lucian Corvo didn't have pity.

"Then stop trying to bleed me," he said, rough. "You're only making this longer."

"Making what longer?"

"The part where you lose."

I laughed. It came out wet and ugly. "You think I haven't been losing since I was sixteen?"

His hand tightened on mine. The blood was getting sticky now. The mirror was gone to white fog around our joined fist, with a red print dead in the middle.

I should have been scared. I was, a little. But I was also pressed against him with my breath gone ragged, and I couldn't tell which one was making my knees weak.

He dipped his head. His mouth hovered over mine, so close I could feel the shape of it.

"Last chance," he said. "Drop the glass."

"Make me."

His eyes went black.

Then the wall by the door lit up.

A small panel I hadn't noticed started flashing crimson, again and again, throwing red light across the steam. The whole bathroom pulsed with it. His head snapped toward the sound before he could stop himself.

A click. Static. Then a voice, slow and warm and horribly familiar, dripping out of the speaker.

"Bianca, sweetheart. Did you poison his drink yet?"