Page 111 of Burning Ice
They stood under the leaking awning until the rain thinned to a hiss. No one spoke. The city had gone still in a way that made sound feel obscene.
“Nothing left,” Kylix said at last. “Just ghosts.”
Helianth drew a red cinder cigarette from his coat and lit it slow. The ember glowed like a small wound. He held it out. “You want to go for a drink?” he asked, voice softer than before.
Kylix’s jaw worked once. The anger had settled into him like a second skin, quiet, steady, waiting for release. He watched the smoke rise and thought about what still needed fixing in this city, what had been left to rot while they kept chasing ghosts.
“Not a drink,” he said. His voice was low, precise. “Unfinished business.”
Helianth tilted his head. “Where to?”
Kylix met his gaze. For a moment his eyes flared, gold catching the rainlight, too sharp to hold. The air seemed to tighten around him, heat flickering under his skin. When he spoke again it was almost calm.
“The graveyard.”
Helianth’s grin came back, thin and bright. “Then let’s finish it. You’ll be thirsty after.”
Kylix’s mouth curved, nothing like a smile. “Count on it.”
He slid his wrist com on and spoke, voice smooth and cold. “Jonah. Pull the team. We move east.”
Engines answered, lights cutting across wet asphalt. The vehicles rolled out slow, deliberate.
Sirens threaded through the rain, long thin things that cut the air and went on. They rose and fell across the rooftops, answering in distance. The sound followed them as the convoy disappeared down the street, and the city closed over a different kind of hunt.
29
The door slammed. Sound ran the corridor, hard and final.
Kylix stepped in alone, soaked in sweat and smoke and a buzz of slow-burning liquor. The sweat clung to his neck, his coat steamed faintly from the rain. Gold-threaded embers clung to the fabric, worked into the black, seamless. He didn’t even shrug it off. He let it hang.
The night had bled him dry again. Outside, the storm still rumbled low across the city, distant thunder rolling, a threat left open.
No Bekn. No bodies. Just shadows and static and one more missed chance. And now it was late. And he’d stayed out too long. Let himself think too long. Let himself drink just enough to make it worse.
It left him scraped out. Breath thin. Chest tight.
Anger followed quickly, sharp and clear. Attica had slipped through his fingers again, the same bastard who had drugged him, made him black out, left him humiliated. It made his jaw ache and his hands shake. He wasn’t done. Not until Attica paid for it. He would save those prisoners, that Dariux boy, and end every one of the people who stood in the way.
His gloves creaked when his fists closed. He didn’t want comfort. He didn’t want forgiveness. He wanted something he could hold. Bruise. Bite. Bleed for. He needed to take it apart before it took him with it.
“Mirel,” he called, but the house was eerily quiet. His darae was most likely asleep, though Kylix felt a faint hum in their bond suggesting he wasn’t. Kylix walked up the stairs and headed for their bedroom. The bed was empty.
“Mirel?”
He wasn’t in the bathroom either. Kylix’s hands fisted, the alcohol a pleasant buzz crossing with the opium puffer. His eyes went dry, his incisors itched. His cock hardened in his pants. A faint static buzzed under his skin as the Dariux responded, restless.
“Where the fuck are you, little darae?”
He wasn’t inside the house.
Kylix got to the roof. The Waltr greeted him with silence. Its curved walls flickered in reflection. No frost. No warmth. Only Mirel…
The bond flared. The itch turned to burn.
“Good Light, baby. You have no fucking clue what trouble you’re about to get in.”
Standing across the room stood Mirel.
