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“But you can do it to anyone?” I pushed. A pause. Then he shook his head. My heart sped up. “Only to me?”

“Only to a very few people. Three.”

I stared at him. “Your sister?” He nodded slightly. “Me. And Kage?” I guessed. His lips turned up just slightly: I was right. “I can understand why your sister is one of them. But why me? Why Kage?”

“Getting cozy, are we?”

I whirled around. Speak of the man, and so he appeared. Sliding through the doorway like the blade he’d so effortlessly sliced up a roomful of feral highbloods with just a few minutes before.

Kage stood there like he belonged. He crossed his arms over his chest, gaze moving between me and Lysander and then to the curls of steam coming off the bath. His mouth tipped into the slightest smile, and he crossed the room without hurry, stopping directly in front of Lysander. For a moment, I stared in confusion. Then Kage slid his fingers into the pale spill of Lysander’s hair, gently tipped his face up, and kissed him. It wasn’t a fucking peck on the cheek either. This was intimate—full of need and familiar. They’d done this before.

Lysander made a sound in the back of his throat, and a current went through me that I didn’t want to explain. He gripped the back of Kage’s neck hard, deepening the kiss. I felt choked. Like all the air was disappearing from the room. I couldn’t look away. This was my room, after all. My room they were kissing in. And yet … I hated that the sight of them together was doing something strange to me. A chain inside my chest seemed to be tightening and unwinding all at the same time. Watching them was like a key fitting into place. They looked … right. Beautiful in a way that was oddly infuriating—because it made me feel lonely.

Kage pulled back, breathing hard. He rested his shoulder briefly against Lysander’s, then brushed his thumb over the other man’s jaw, almost absentmindedly. He looked over at me, but when he spoke, it was to Lysander. “So, you’ve told her?”

My temper flared. “Told me what?”

Kage’s smile returned, faint as a secret. “Oh. One step at a time, then.”

“One step at a …” I jabbed my finger at them. “You do not get to stroll into my room, kiss each other like that, and then say one step at a time.”

Kage lifted his brows, then inclined his head toward the hot bath. “You planning to take it?”

I glared at him. “With both of you in my room? I sure as hell am not.”

Lysander flinched slightly. “I ran it.”

Kage shrugged. “Fair.” He looked at the tub again. “Well, it’s hot. For now. If you’re not going to use the water …”

My eyes narrowed. “Oh, don’t you dare.”

But it was too late. Kage already pulled his shirt over his head. I tried not to react to the sight of his body, all hard lines and promises of power made flesh. Broad shoulders, corded arms, a chest you could … I swallowed.

He caught me looking, and his smile sharpened, turning wolfish. “What? You want us to waste it?”

I threw up my hands. “You are unbelievable.”

Kage winked. “I think you knew that the first night on the cliff.”

Lysander’s head snapped to the other man. “Kage,” he said, warningly.

Kage smirked; the Avari wasn’t a smirker. He’d never fucking smirked at me before. I knew that because I’d have remembered the way that smirk made me feel, the way something hot spread straight off that smirking mouth of his and went straight into my fucking veins.

“Fine,” I bit out. “Go ahead and use the bath. Since we’ve all apparently decided this is a common room.”

Kage didn’t do modesty. Maybe it was the wolf in him. I supposed he’d had to get over it a long time ago. He shrugged off his trousers, not even bothering to turn his back. My cheeks felt hot. “Blood-fucking-dammit,” I muttered under my breath as he finally turned around and climbed into the bath. He lowered himself in, water climbing up over his ribs and beading across his skin. Then he leaned back, arms draped over the edges, looking completely at ease.

“You can stop bracing for another wave of the plague,” Kage stated.

Lysander’s head snapped up. “How do you know that?”

“Because the ones back in the office weren’t just infected.”

“They were,” I protested, remembering the black veins, the mottled skin.

“They were infected, but not recently. They’d been raised.”

A chill went through me. “What?”