The East Guard.
Ruby let the name resonate in the back of her mind. A phantom legion of armed men commanded by the East's very best, their existence a secret held tight by the nation's top echelon. They were the invisible fist that had kept the West in check, pulling the strings, committing even massacres in the past to prevent the 'rot' from festering too far.
Ruby felt a wicked satisfaction.
She had expected this confrontation. Valez was not like any other leader the West had ever birthed. He was a force of nature, a man who saw the glass wall not as a shield, but as a challenge. His calculated inroads into the East had not gone unnoticed, but the East Guard had failed to check his advances in time.
Why? Reasons Mysteriously unknown.
But, the water had finally gone over the head.
There was a new leadership in the East now, unforgiving and absolute. The bitter irony of it all was that it was the heavy-handed, chaotic actions of the East Guards themselves that had brought Valez—their worst nemesis—into such undeniable power.
A slow, private, thrilling smile bloomed on Ruby's face.
It did not go unnoticed by Valez. His deeply appraising gaze found her, cutting through the tense air of the room like a laser beam. As he smiled back—a hot, possessive, challenging curve of his lips—the familiar heat pooled low in her stomach, sharp and irresistible. She knew, with absolute certainty, she wasn't going to get much sleep tonight. The air, thick with power, violence, and forbidden desire, was already too charged for rest.
Ruby stared into the forest-green of Moraine Valez's eyes, the silk sheets pulled carelessly up to cover the delicate curve of her bare breasts. Her skin was covered in a pale, damp sheen of sweat, still cooling from the intense, shattering heat of the moments before.
Her thoughts were a glorious, mushy ruin, a pleasant, sensual fog through which she still saw flashes of his face, fierce and utterly absorbed.
Her body felt deeply satisfied, yet somehow vibrating with an excess energy that had nowhere to go. This was not the polite, passionless coupling of her social sphere; this was a reckoning. Moraine had taken her with a force that bordered on violence, yet with an acute, demanding tenderness that made her feel seen, known, and utterly possessed.
She reached out a languid hand, intending to trace the scar on the hard, clean line of his jaw—but before her fingers could make contact, Moraine moved. The transition was immediate, complete, and terrifyingly abrupt and she wondered what she could possibly have done wrong.
The passionate, demanding man —simply vanished.
Moraine Valez—the King of the West, the ruthless, calculating entity—was back.
Yet he didn't leave. He lingered.
Ruby watched the rise and fall of his chest, the sculpted expanse of muscle catching the muted glow of the bedside lamp. And when that stern, commanding mouth of his softened into an unexpectedly wistful smile, her breath caught.
"Moraine?" she breathed, her hand reached out before she could stop it, drawn to the pale, puckered scar slashing diagonally across his jaw. The mark looked violent, purposeful—an intimate reminder of danger.
"Who could have possibly marred such a handsome face?" she murmured, tracing the cold ridge of the wound. Her voice dipped, soft and intrigued. "Did he live to tell the tale?"
Valez recoiled from her touch again as if her fingers had burned him. The ghost of his smile vanished, wiped clean from his face with terrifying ease.
"He lives quite well, actually," he said quietly.
The timbre of his voice had changed—no longer smooth with confidence, but hollowed, distant. He stared at the ceiling, yet Ruby knew he wasn't seeing it. His mind had drifted someplace else…
"You let him?" she asked, enthralled despite herself. This man—this ruthless, calculating titan—was unraveling at the edges. And she could not look away. What could have possibly happened to leave cracks in this statue of cold marble?
Moraine wore many expressions on his face but they were like a mask, more a reflection of his purpose than his feelings. She had heard cruel tales about him, one even went to say that he had killed and maimed his own brothers. She would be damned to hell if someone existed that could make this man feel vulnerable.
"It isn't him I despise for picking up the knife." A faint smile touched his lips—not gentle, but sharp-edged, threaded with an old, dark pride. "I taught him how to use it."
His gaze turned to her then—direct, unguarded for a single heartbeat. Ruby felt breathless at the raw intensity in his eyes. There was affection there. Pain. Memory. A tenderness so shocking it felt like witnessing the cracking of stone.
"For a moment," she thought, heart squeezing, "he looks… human."
But the moment dissolved.
His features shuttered abruptly, shutters slamming closed over a window she hadn't been meant to see through.
"Turns out," he said softly, his voice turning to steel, "I was nourishing a serpent in my bosom. A diamond-backed viper… waiting for the right moment to strike the hand that fed it."
Ruby attempted a teasing lilt. "I assumed you were a better judge of character."
But she knew—within seconds—that the mask was back in place. Hard. Implacable. Moraine Valez had returned to himself.
She steeled her spine, lifting her chin. She knew this terrain better—the world of power, of veiled barbs and hidden stakes. The intimacy was gone; in its stead lay a battlefield she understood.
"I hear you're quite close to Regales," he said. The words were flat, without curiosity. A statement.
Ruby suppressed her sigh. The bubble had burst. But she welcomed the familiar footing.
"Your sources are quite astute, Valez."
A gleam of wicked mirth lit his dark eyes. He thrived on this—on control, on knowing, on maneuvering. And she recognized the satisfaction of a man who had successfully loosened her defenses, even unintentionally.
"They say you are soon to be Mrs. Vance Regale."
She held his gaze steadily. "I suppose I should praise your sources again. Unless"—her smile sharpened—"you're not fishing for compliments."
His low, velvety laugh curled through her, stirring sensations she did not dare to name. "No, sweetheart. I'm not."
"Then what is it you want?" she challenged softly. "Say it plainly."
"I already have what I want." His voice was a dangerous caress, his eyes holding hers with unflinching intensity.
"Do you?" she murmured, liking the way the air thickened between them.
She couldn't help comparing him to Vance. Both men were magnificent in their ruthlessness, their ambition, their unapologetic arrogance. Vance was wild, unpredictable, a prince raised on privilege and fire. He laid war fields to waste, burning and blazing on his whim.
Valez….. he was ice—methodical, calculating, a serpent coiled in dark shadows.
One could be understood. The other fascinated her because she couldn't.
"I keep my friends close," Valez murmured, "and my enemy closer."
Before she could react, he pulled her flush against him. The move was effortless, absolute. Her breath caught, stunned by the swift possession.
"I'm not your enemy," Ruby whispered, her voice muffled against his bare chest. She added quietly, "Nor is Vance. He can be fair… in his own way."
Valez lowered his lips to her forehead, the kiss unexpectedly gentle—devastating in its tenderness. It made her eyes sting, made her heart ache in ways she didn't want to understand.
"He is not fair when it comes to the West," Valez said. "He is one of the Regale who somehow has ties with the mysterious East Guards." Before she could interrupt, he insistently added, "We both know that." His tone turned cutting, certain. "Isn't that why the prodigal son has returned? The West pushed East too far. They dared to touch what they considered their birthright."
Ruby wanted to deny it. To insist Vance wasn't the monster the East whispered he was. But she couldn't.
The tension between the East and the West was no mere rumor. It was a sleeping beast. One wrong move, one spark—this city would burn.
And worse…
Her thoughts drifted, unwillingly, to Askai.
Askai, with too many secrets and too much history wrapped around him like barbed wire. She wondered what would become of him if Vance ever found out his muddy past. Ruby desperately prayed he had abandoned his old ways completely.
While she slumbered in the arms of the man she had come to fancy, Askai woke up to a loud thud outside.