GIDEON
AS HE RAISED HIS gun to kill, Gideon made his first mistake of the evening.
He looked at Rune before firing.
Those cold gray eyes bored into him. The same eyes that haunted him night after night. The eyes of a girl he wanted to forget.
Why is she crying?
Gideon squeezed the pistol in his hand.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.
But he couldn’t unsee the tears streaming down her face. Couldn’t not notice the whiskey bottle—significantly less full than when she’d grabbed it while fleeing the ballroom.
The sight of her threatened to crack something in him. It was a dangerous, destabilizing feeling. Gideon needed to steel himself against it.
“Some things never change, do they?”
Rune spoke calmly to the mirror, her gaze locked on him. Gideon resisted the urge to skim the lines of her golden dress.
Shoot her, damn it.
“Stalking a girl into the powder room with the intent to murder her is business as usual for you. Isn’t it, Gideon Sharpe?”
“Funny how you can’t keep my name out of your mouth tonight.”
Her gaze hardened to pewter. “What would your brother say if he saw you right now?”
Those words landed like a slap. He shrugged off the sting, forcing himself to remember that this witch was a master of deception. She’d deceived him into thinking she was an innocent girl. A girl who loved him.
Meanwhile, she’d been secretly saving witches to build Cressida’s army. Not to mention, engaged to Alex.
Alex.
“My brother is dead because of you.”
She turned to face him, and Gideon couldn’t help himself. His gaze raked down the vicious V cut of her dress, now so close to him. Taking in far too much of her.
He swallowed down a sharp breath. “That dress looks ridiculous on you.”
Liar.
Rune rose to the bait, eyes flashing. “Soren would disagree, I think. He can’t keep his hands off me.”
A poisonous feeling swept through Gideon. She lifted her chin and smirked.
Gideon remembered her fingers twined through the prince’s. How generous she’d been with her kisses. Staying close to him at all times. Letting him show her off to his friends.
She’d never done those things with Gideon.
It was a stern reminder of how out of his league she’d always been. How had Gideon ever let himself believe she’d settle for someone like him?
He’d been a sucker from the start.
“You’ve raised your expectations considerably,” he said. “Aiming for a prince.”
Her face hardened into a mask, but not one he was used to. All trace of the frivolous socialite she once pretended to be was gone. This mask was blank as a stone.
“On the contrary. These days, my only requirement for suitors is that they don’t want me dead. Most people would call those low expectations.”
“Whatever you say.” His shoulders straightened and he steadied his aim, needing to get this over with. “I’m just glad Alex isn’t here to witness how fast you’ve moved on.”
The words visibly struck Rune. Her hands clenched. “If Alex were here, I wouldn’t have to move on.”
“Until he discovered the truth: that you’re a conniving little—”
Rune flung the whiskey bottle straight at his head.
Gideon ducked. The wind of its passing ruffled his hair. The glass shattered against the wall behind him, and the spray of alcohol dampened his neck. A blur of gold shot past, and Gideon realized, almost too late, Rune was bolting for the exit.
He’d expected a spell, not a bottle flying at his face.
Gideon grabbed her around the waist and shoved her against the wall. He heard the air whoosh from her lungs. Before she could recover, he pinned her wrists over her head, then shoved his knee between her legs, trapping her there.
Rune gasped, glaring up at him.
Keeping her wrists pinned with one hand, he pressed the barrel of his gun to her temple.
Her smell invaded his senses, like juniper and sea salt. Threatening to weaken him. He swallowed, heart racing. It was dangerous being this close to her.
“I wish Alex never stepped in front of that bullet,” she said. “It should be you who’s dead. I wish it was you!”
The words were like a rusted knife in his gut. How many times had he wished the same?
He remembered it all too well: Cressida demanding Gideon come with her, then lifting her gun and firing when he refused. Alex taking the bullet intended for him.
He could still hear Rune’s scream. Still see her in his mind, covered in his brother’s blood, clinging to Alex as he died.
And yet: if Rune had never helped Cressida Roseblood, Alex would be alive. It was Cressida who fired the gun, but Rune had helped conceal her. She’d been in league with Gideon’s greatest enemy the whole time. Even now, Rune was trying to put Alex’s murderer back on the throne.
This is why you’re here.
He’d failed the Republic by falling in love with his mark. He’d suspected Rune was the Crimson Moth—a villainous witch he’d spent two years hunting—and he’d fallen for her anyway.
Rune had never loved Gideon. It had all been an elaborate farce. The entire time she’d pretended to court him, she was in love with his brother.
What had she said near the end?
Alex is twice the man you’ll ever be.
Rune made Gideon believe that someone like her could love someone like him. And it was a lie. He was beneath her and always would be.
But Gideon hadn’t wanted to see the truth. He’d wanted Rune.
Because I’m weak.
By falling for her, Gideon had failed the Republic he’d helped build, the friends and soldiers he’d sworn to stand beside, the citizens he’d vowed to protect. Rune had weakened him, and that weakness had gotten people killed. It would continue to if left unchecked.
It’s why Gideon was here. To carve out the weakness in his heart by eliminating the source: her. And into the hole left behind, he would pour molten steel. Until he was welded back together. Until he was stronger and colder than iron.
He dug the barrel of his gun into Rune’s temple.
She didn’t wince or look away. Just locked gazes with him. As if she’d been waiting for this moment. Waiting for him.
“Go ahead. Pull the trigger.” “I intend to.”
“Yeah? Prove it.”
He’d forgotten the way her eyes raged when she was angry. Like a storm he wanted to walk straight into.
“We both know what you want to do to me, Gideon. Well, here’s your chance.”
His gaze slid to her mouth. “You have no idea, the things I want to do to you.”
From this close, he noticed everything: the puffy redness of her eyes, the pink splotches on her face, the tears drying on her cheeks.
The alcohol on her breath.
Gideon knew Rune occasionally indulged, but this was something else. He frowned. “You reek like an alehouse.”
“Spoken like a true gentleman.” Her voice was a husky growl.
“I’ve never been a gentleman.” He leaned closer. “If you mistook me for one, that’s on you.”
It was impossible not to be aware of every inch of her. The heat of her thighs on either side of his knee. The fevered beat of her pulse beneath his palm. She was as small and soft as he remembered. Flawless. Lovely.
Gideon had a desperate urge to take her face in his hands and ask her what was wrong, to make her tell him why she was so upset.
He shook off the temptation.
This was what she did to him: made him completely irrational.
She’s a coldhearted seductress. Don’t let her deceive you.
Rune had opened her mouth—probably to insult him further—when the shouts of several guards made them both freeze. Boots thudded in the corridor. They must have heard the bottle shatter and were now in search of its source.
Gideon glanced around the powder room. The only exit was the door behind him, which opened into that same corridor. The moment the gun went off, he’d give his location away. And with no exit, the guards would corner him.
He’d be as good as dead. Worse than dead. If they arrested him, he’d be at Cressida’s mercy. He couldn’t fall prisoner to her again. Gideon would take his own life before it came to that.
The pulse in Rune’s wrist quickened beneath his thumb. If she called out, they would find him for sure.
“Scream for help,” he whispered as the guards drew closer, his gun still pressed to her temple, “and I’ll put a bullet in your brain.”
“If I stay silent, you’ll kill me anyway.”
True. But Rune seemed to want to live a little longer, because she didn’t scream.
He cursed himself for hesitating. He should have come in, shot her, and left. No thinking. Just doing.
But he’d always preferred the raw, wild Rune to the one hiding behind a mask of style and poise. If he’d found the latter in this room—a beautiful girl powdering her perfect nose, not a hair out of place nor a crease in her
dress—they probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. She’d already be dead.
Instead, he’d found this Rune.
His Rune.
A total mess.
The basest part of him wanted to tilt her head back and kiss her until she told him why she was crying.
No. He gritted his teeth. That is the opposite of what I want.
But now that he’d thought it, Gideon couldn’t unthink it, and his mind pulled him down more dangerous paths. The last time he and Rune were pressed against each other, she’d been beneath him. In his bed. He’d been worshiping her with his mouth. Whispering delicious things into her skin. They’d given themselves to each other in an act that couldn’t be undone, and now he was suffering the consequences of that decision.
This girl.
He’d wanted so badly to be worthy of her. He’d dared to hope he could be, stupid fool that he was.
Never again will I fall for her tricks.
“Help me understand,” he whispered, listening to the receding footsteps, suddenly needing to know. “You’d put Cressida back in power despite knowing what she’s capable of? Do you long for terror and bloodshed?”
“For the people who want to hunt me down and slit my throat?” Rune furrowed her perfect brows. “What else should I want for them?”
He narrowed his eyes. “And when it’s all over, and your precious witches are safe, with your tyrant sitting once more on her dark throne, you’ll be married to a prince who treats you like a prize. Is that also what you want? To be put on display, like a trophy in a glass case?”
She seemed to hesitate, then tilted her chin in defiance. “Soren will make me happier than some men ever could.”
To think he’d kissed the mouth those words came out of.
“You might fool the rest of them, but you don’t fool me. Look at you, Rune. You’re drinking yourself sick to get through an evening with him.” It made him think of himself, not so long ago. And he didn’t like the reminder. “You’ll hate being Soren Nord’s wife.”
“You have no idea what I hate.” “I have some idea.”
Her eyes crackled like lightning. “You don’t know me at all.”
“I may not know Rune Winters,” he whispered, his mouth an inch from hers. “But I know the Crimson Moth. And she is no caged thing.”
Rune flinched. “Stop it.”
“I pity the man who clips her wings.” “Stop talking.”
“Say goodbye to your freedom, Rune.” “Shut up!”
She bucked against him, and Gideon nearly lost his grip on her wrists. He’d forgotten how strong she was, despite being half his size. He withdrew his knee to regain control.
His second mistake.
Rune thrust her small knee straight into his groin.
Pain exploded like a bomb, lighting him up. The room went bright white. Gideon doubled over, collapsing to the floor as the unbearable pressure in his balls made the world fade away. He curled his knees to his chest to protect himself, in case she tried again.
Rune picked up his gun. “That’s for handing me over to be purged.”
Gideon groaned, lying in a puddle of whiskey and broken glass and pain.
The door flew open.
The smell of blood and roses filled the room as someone stepped inside. “Why, Gideon Sharpe,” came a voice that still haunted his nightmares,
“what a pleasant surprise.”
Her shadow slid over him, turning his blood to ice. Gideon didn’t look up. He knew who he’d find there: a witch with birch-white hair and eyes as cold as a frozen sea.
Cressida Roseblood. Gideon shut his eyes. Fuck.
He’d always told himself it was better to be dead than in Cressida’s clutches. That if he ever fell prisoner to her again, he’d find a way to end it
all.
He glanced at his pistol, still in Rune’s hands. Utterly out of reach.
