Chapter 379: Been There, Done Him

Every man in the room shifted forward at the same time. The movement was subtle, instinctive, the collective lean of six apex predators who had just watched a mask come off and were recalculating threat level in real time.

Emma’s eyes tracked the movement the way a cat tracks a laser pointer. Amused. Aware. Completely unbothered.

"If any of them take a step closer, this turns into something else. Right now, it’s a conversation. I’d prefer to keep it that way. Wouldn’t you?"

The sentence was aimed at Blair but the threat was aimed at the room, and the room heard it, because a woman who had infiltrated Drakencrest Keep for seven weeks undetected was not a woman who made empty promises about what happened when conversations ended.

Blair held up one hand. Palm flat. Fingers spread. The gesture was aimed behind her at six men who were, to varying degrees, ready to close the distance.

Nobody moved.

Kael’s jaw tightened. Nicholas’s weight settled back onto his heels. Sterling’s arms stayed crossed but his right hand had migrated two inches closer to the blade at his hip and stayed there. Ryker exhaled through his nose. Griffin looked at Ryker for instructions. Ryker gave him none because the instructions were the hand and the hand had said stay.

Damon, who had been the stillest person in the room since this started, remained exactly where he was. The stillness was not compliance. It was a coiled spring choosing to stay coiled because the woman running the operation had told it to, and the spring trusted her.

"Good boys," Emma said to the room. "All of you. Really. Obedient."

Blair’s expression didn’t change. "You’re on thin ice, Emma."

"I’ve been on thin ice for seven weeks and the ice held. Give me some credit." She stretched her arms out wide. "Any chance one of those obedient boyfriends could grab me a whiskey? On the rocks. If you have the good stuff. Which I know you do because I reorganized the bar cart in the officers’ lounge last Tuesday."

"Why are you here in a disguise?"

"Whiskey first. Confessions after. That’s how this works. I don’t do interrogations sober, princess. It’s tacky."

"You’re in no position to negotiate drinks."

"And you’re in no position to get answers without giving me one. See how that works? Reciprocity. The foundation of every healthy relationship."

Blair’s eyes stayed on Emma. "Why are you here?"

"Let’s start small." Emma’s smile widened. "I’ve been leaving you gifts."

Blair’s brow moved a fraction.

"The lavender sachets? Me. Cedar is for coffins and grandmothers and you are neither, so I intervened. Personally. At two in the morning. In your chambers. While you slept." She let that land. "I finished the book, Blair. In your chair. In your robe. With your tea. On a Wednesday. The ending destroyed me and I had to go serve dinner fourteen minutes later with mascara damage. Your taste in fiction is elite. Your taste in men makes me want to host an intervention."

"Emma. This is your last chance."

"Fine, fine," Emma sighed. "To start with, this isn’t the first time I have infiltrated this keep. As a servant, yes. Last time as something else entirely." Emma’s eyes moved past Blair to the back of the throne room, scanning the men arranged along the walls like decorative threats. "Since we’re all here and pretending this is casual. Let’s do introductions properly."

Her gaze landed on Sterling first.

The smile that crossed her face wasn’t for public consumption. It took its time, like it knew it was contaminated. History. Half-life. Still hot. Still a problem.

"Sterling Emberfell. The Third in Command. Nine out of ten in bed. Remember me?"

Sterling’s face went white. The color didn’t drain. It evacuated. His jaw locked with an audible click that every person in the room heard and nobody commented on because commenting would require acknowledging the thing that was currently detonating inside the most composed man in Drakencrest.

"I almost feel bad about that one." Emma’s voice softened by exactly one degree and the degree was worse than the roasting because the degree was genuine. "Been there. Done that. Engaged, actually."

The word engaged hit the throne room floor and bounced three times before settling into a silence so complete it had its own weather system.

"Different scent. Different appearance for that one. Warded my own magic. Burned through a full glamour for six months, which, if anyone’s counting, is a personal record. Faked my own death to get out because he started putting things together. Smart man. Inconvenient quality in a fiancé. He blamed himself for my death. Poor guy." She waved with the casualness of a woman greeting an ex at a dinner party. "Hi, honey."

Sterling didn’t move. His face gave the room nothing. But behind his eyes, somewhere in the architecture that held the man together, a support beam cracked, and the crack was audible only to people who had known him long enough to recognize the difference between Sterling’s silence and Sterling’s ruin.

They were hearing the second one.

Ryker’s head turned to Sterling. The look on his face was the look of a best friend who had just been handed context for a grief he’d watched from the outside for years.

Kael’s eyes went wide for one full second. The calculation behind them ran fast enough to smoke. Sterling’s fiancé. The one who died. The one nobody mentioned. The one whose absence had turned Sterling Emberfell from a man who cracked jokes to the locked-down version of himself he’d been ever since.

Emma moved on. Devastated to delightful in under a second, like she’d just remembered the other guy had a bigger dick.

"The High General. Ryker Stormvale." Her eyes swept him head to toe. "Eight. Solid eight. Lose the coin and you’re an eight and a half. You come across light-hearted, but you aren’t, which is why you’re dangerous and single."

Ryker’s eyebrow went up. The coin in his pocket stayed where it was.