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My heart is beating so fast I can scarcely draw in a breath, watching him teeter on the edge. Approaching him might make him stumble, though.

“I wanted t’be free of this shit. B’you … y’had one more punishment t’dole out, didn’ you? One more fuckin’ hell f’me t’walk through.”

I quietly clear my throat and step closer. “Mr. Blackthorne?”

His arm flies out as he spins to face me, and he loses his footing just enough that I reach out on a wheeze of breath, before he catches himself.

Holy shit, that was close!

Balanced again, he stares at me for a moment, his eyes dark and appraising, and I can’t even begin to imagine what thoughts are running through his head. “Isa. Isa Bella.” Snorting a laugh, he chugs his drink again. “The fuck’re you doin’ up here?”

“I heard you yelling. Look, whatever is going on right now, you don’t have to do this.”

Brows crinkled to an incredulous frown, he chuckles, and in spite of the fear thrumming inside my veins, the low-pitched sound is a brief distraction. I hate that I like the sound of his amusement, even if it’s meant to mock me. “I’m no coward. I’m Lucian. Fucking. Blackthorne. I make shit happen. People cower t’me.”

“I know. I know that.”

“Y’know that.” His voice is tinged in disbelief, and he licks his lips, his gaze raking over me in disdain. “What things d’you know, Isa Bella?”

“Well, for one ... I know that … alcohol and heights don’t mix.”

His lips stretch to an incredibly dashing smile, despite his scars, and he rubs his eye on the back of his bottle-toting hand, swaying unsteadily. A long moan, like the end of a laugh, spills from his lips, just before his tongue sweeps over them. “’S’how I get off. Bad decisions like this.”

“You’re saying that standing at the precipice of death is arousing to you?”

“Oh, yeah.” A long blink, and his bottom lip slips between his teeth. “What’d’you know, anyway? You’re young. Excessively beau’ful. Men probably pay you t’fuck. Not th’other way ‘round.”

A flare of embarrassment heats my cheeks, the conversation taking an uncomfortable turn. “No … that’s prostitution ... and I don’t consider that good reason to tempt death.”

“Fucking?”

“There’s more to life.”

“Well …” He lifts the bottle for another sip and pauses halfway to his mouth. “Then, you haven’ been fucked properly.”

Another blast of humiliation burns beneath my skin. I try to ignore the clench of my thighs, or the truth in his words, coming from an older man who’s probably had far more practice with countless women. I’ve been used, mostly, and nothing more. “Can you …. Can you come down from there now? You’re making me nervous.”

“Wha’re you afraid’f?”

“Oh, I don’t know … that you might die in front of me tonight?”

Staring down his nose at me, he seems to chew on the inside of his lip. “That’d bother you?”

“Yes. Very much.”

Huffing, he sways again, craning his neck to look back over the edge, toward what I’m certain would be instant death below. “I know why you’really here. Y’came t’haunt me, haven’ you?”

“What do you mean?”

He turns his attention back on me. “The bird. When I was jus’a kid. I hurt it. Now you’re here. Raven beauty. T’get me back for what I did. My curse.”

The words make no sense, nothing but drunken rambling, but his eyes implore me. “I don’t know what that means,” I whisper. “Please. Just come down.”

A long blink, and he chuckles again. “Fine. You win.” The second he steps forward, he loses his footing.

His body slips behind the parapet.

My heart seizes in my chest, but I rush forward.