Two armored guards supported Kassian's weight, but they couldn't separate him from her. Vera had to walk awkwardly in the middle, her hand clasped in Kassian's death grip, her body pressed against his side. Every time she drifted an inch too far, his temperature would spike, and the guards would look at her with panicked eyes.
They passed through corridors of gold and velvet, past shocked servants who bowed low, pressing their foreheads to the floor. They had never seen their Emperor asleep. They had certainly never seen him clinging to a dirty, copper-haired thief.
By the time they reached the double doors of the Royal Suite, Vera's legs were shaking from exhaustion.
The room was vast—bigger than the entire building where she and Milo lived. But it felt cold and sterile. The gigantic bed in the center looked like it hadn't been slept in for years. The sheets were pristine, untouched, dust covers still draped over the furniture.
"Put him down," Damon ordered.
The guards lowered Kassian onto the massive bed. Vera tried to let go of his hand to back away, but Kassian's fingers were locked around her wrist like a manacle. He pulled her down with him.
Vera tumbled onto the silk sheets, landing awkwardly beside the sleeping Emperor.
"Hey!" she yelped, trying to pry his fingers loose. "Let go!"
Kassian didn't let go. Instead, he rolled onto his side, throwing a heavy leg over hers to pin her down completely. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply, and went completely limp.
Vera lay there, trapped. She looked up to see Damon standing at the foot of the bed, watching them with an unreadable expression.
"Comfortable?" Damon asked dryly.
"I'm going to kill you," Vera said, staring at the ceiling. "When I get out of this, I'm going to steal your sword and melt it down into spoons."
"You are not getting out of this," Damon said. He pulled a chair from the corner and sat down, crossing his arms. He looked like a statue that was intended to stay there for a century.
"Listen to me, Vera," Damon said, his voice dropping the mockery. "For years, the curse of the Eternal Ember has been eating him alive. He hasn't slept more than an hour at a time. The madness is consuming his mind. The Church said he was beyond saving. The Alchemists said he would burn out and destroy the capital within a year."
Damon leaned forward, his amber eyes intense. "And then you fell through the roof. You are the only thing that has ever worked. Do you understand what that makes you?"
"A prisoner?" Vera guessed bitterly.
"A savior," Damon corrected. "Or a resource. It depends on your cooperation."
Vera turned her head to look at the man sleeping beside her. Up close, Kassian didn't look like a tyrant. The lines of pain that usually etched his forehead were smoothed out. His eyelashes were long and white against his pale cheeks. He looked... young. And exhausted.
But she remembered the twelve dead knights in the hallway. She remembered the heat.
"I can't stay here," Vera whispered. "Milo is waiting for me. If I don't go home tonight, he'll think I'm dead. He'll do something stupid."
"I have already sent a squad to the Gray District," Damon said calmly. "They will secure your brother."
Vera tried to sit up, but Kassian's arm weighed her down. "If you hurt him—"
"They will protect him," Damon interrupted. "If you cooperate, your brother will be moved to a safe house. He will be fed, clothed, and educated. He will never have to pick a pocket again. You will be paid a salary higher than any noble in this court."
Vera paused. A salary? Safety for Milo? That was the dream she had been stealing for.
"And if I refuse?" she asked cautiously.
Damon's face hardened. "Then I will kill you right now, drain your blood into a bucket, and feed it to the Emperor until it runs dry."
The threat hung in the air, sharp and absolute. Vera looked at Damon's eyes and knew he wasn't bluffing. He loved his Emperor enough to become a monster for him.
"Fine," Vera said, relaxing back into the pillows. "I take the job. But I want it in writing. And I want a hot bath. I smell like soot and fear."
"Deal," Damon said. "Now, sleep. If he wakes up and you are not there to calm him, the deal is off."
Vera closed her eyes, exhausted, adrenaline crashing over her. Lying next to the most dangerous man in the world, with his heat seeping into her perpetually cold side, was strangely... comfortable. The humming chill in her bones quieted down, balanced by his fire.
For the first time, Vera wasn't cold. And Kassian wasn't burning.
*
Vera woke up to the feeling of suffocation.
It wasn't a bad suffocation, exactly. It was warm and firm.
She blinked her eyes open, disoriented. The room was bathed in the soft, golden light of dawn. For a second, she thought she was back in her leaky attic.
Then she realized she was staring at a chest. A very broad, very bare, very muscular chest.
Memories of the night flooded back. The heist. The wrong room. The tongue.
She froze.
The arm that had been draped over her waist was gone. The heavy leg pinning her down had moved.
Slowly, terrifyingly slowly, Vera tilted her head up.
She found herself looking directly into a pair of eyes.
They were blue. Ice-blue. Crystal clear and sharp as shattered glass. There was no red madness in them anymore. But there was something else.
Confusion. And a cold, deadly calculation.
Emperor Kassian was awake. He was propped up on one elbow, looming over her, staring at her face with an intensity that made her skin prickle.
His large hand was resting lightly on her throat. Not squeezing. Just... holding. As if checking for a pulse. Or deciding where to cut.
"You," Kassian whispered. His voice was raspy from disuse, deep and vibrating in his chest.
Vera swallowed. The movement made her throat brush against his thumb. "Good morning, Your Majesty."
Kassian didn't blink. He looked down at her copper hair, spread out over his royal pillows. He looked at the soot smudges on her cheek. He looked at the silver snowflake mark on her collarbone.
"I slept," he said, as if stating a fact that shouldn't be possible.
"You did," Vera whispered. "Like a rock. You drooled a little."
Kassian's eyes narrowed slightly. He leaned closer. The heat was gone from his skin, but his presence was overwhelming. He didn't smell like a king. He smelled of iron—the rusty, copper scent of dried blood—mixed with the heavy, salty tang of fever-sweat. Beneath it all was the faint, acrid smell of ash, like a fire that had finally burned itself out.
"Why are you in my bed?" he asked softly.
Vera's mind raced. Where was Damon? The chair in the corner was empty. The traitor had left her alone with the waking beast.
"I'm your... treatment," Vera said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "Commander Damon hired me. Apparently, I'm a human ice pack."
"Damon allowed a woman in my bed?" Kassian murmured. He shifted his weight, pressing Vera deeper into the mattress. "He is usually more paranoid."
He lowered his head, his nose brushing against the curve of her neck. Vera stiffened.
"You smell like the winter storm," he murmured, inhaling deeply. She smelled of wet slate, the bitter soot of the city chimneys, and freezing night air. It was a sharp, biting scent that cut through the stifling heat of his fever. He pressed his nose against her skin, finding the source of the metallic tang.
"And blood," he whispered, his voice dropping to a dangerous rumble. "Fresh blood."
His tongue darted out, licking the sensitive skin just below her ear.