Page 32 of Nikolay

“Well, it is for me.”

Another lie. Better delivered.

He moved then, not enough to crowd me, but enough to make the corridor seem narrower than it already was. The fluorescent light caught in his amber eyes and made them look almost molten for one dangerous instant. If I had been less angry, less humiliated, less determined not to give an inch, I might have noticed something in his face that didn’t fit the explanation I had assigned him.

But I was all nerves and bruises by then.

“Listen carefully,” he said, every word dragged into control. “You do not know what you saw.”

I let out a laugh. “That is rich coming from you.”

“It mattered that you saw it.”

That stopped me for a moment.

Then pride stepped in where pain had opened a door. “Sure it did. Because now this is awkward.”

His entire body went still. “That is not what I meant.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

I was so tired all at once. Tired of him. Tired of wanting him to be better than he was. Tired of every stupid spark between us that had made me feel skinned alive in his presence. Tired of how much it cost to stand here and talk like I didn’t care.

So I gave us both the mercy of an ending.

“I’m going to head out,” I said. “And you are going to do whatever it is men like you do when they’ve settled something with themselves.” I tipped my chin toward the way he’d come. “Go back to your beautiful vampire. Go brood in your office. Go find another throat. I genuinely do not care.”

His mouth opened.

I lifted my hand again, not sharply this time. Just enough.

“No. We are done.”

Then I turned.

This time I did walk faster because I had said what I had to say, and if I stayed another second the composure I’d stitched together with wire and spite might split right down the center. The corridor stretched ahead in a white hum and shadowed corners, service doors and shelves and the ugly practical guts of a place designed to look luxurious everywhere that mattered to paying guests.

Behind me, I heard nothing.

No footsteps. Not my name. Not an apology, or denial, or the sound of him following.

Just fluorescent lights buzzing overhead and the distant pulse of Obsidian bleeding through the walls while I walked away from him like I meant it and prayed to God I could keep meaning it for at least the next ten minutes.

By the time I hit the next turn in the corridor, the first tear had risen hot and furious enough to make me hate it on principle. I was reaching up to kill it before it could fall when I nearly ran face-first into another body coming the other way.

A hand caught my arm.

Fast. Sure. Warm.

I jerked to a stop with a muttered curse and found myself staring at the only other wolf on Obsidian’s floor staff. She wore the same server black I usually did, though her apron strings had already been untied and hung loose, and her dark eyes had that alert, slightly feral brightness some wolves carried even standing still. Not aggressive. Just alive to everything a beat before the room caught up.

“Sloan,” I said automatically, more breath than voice.

She didn’t answer right away.

Her fingers stayed wrapped around my forearm while her head tilted just a little, nostrils flaring once. The change in her face was immediate and so direct it stripped the last scrap of my pride clean off.

“You smell upset.”