15. Amber

“Drinkingthe potion made me a beacon for shadow souls. They’re drawn to me now.” I steady myself and pull on my own emotions—my own fears and doubts—ready to use them to drive my next point home. “Damien hates me because of it.”

The anger—the pain—that I feel when I think about everything Damien said to me the night it happened is real. And I’m counting on Lucas to see the truth of that feeling in my eyes and hear it when I speak.

Everything around me stills as I wait for his reply.

“I’ve seen the way Damien looks at you,” Lucas finally says. “He could never hate you.”

There’s unmistakable longing in his tone.

I can work with that.

“It’s impossible to know what’s going through his mind.” I sigh, as if exasperated. “But he ignores me. He locks me in the Fairmont at night. He refuses to let me help fight the shadow souls.”

“And I’m supposed to believe he lets you roam free during the day?”

“Like I said—I’m a beacon for shadow souls,” I repeat, firmer this time. “As I’m sure Viktor’s told you, the sun goddess blessed the Fairmont to make it so shadow souls can’t get inside. Unless I want to be tracked down by a mob of them and killed, I have no choice but to return each night. It’s the only place where I’m protected.”

He studies me, as if he’s waiting for me to add more.

When I don’t, he says, “And so, you’ve come to me.”

“I have.”

“For what?”

“For help.” I lean forward, begging him to believe me. “Because you’re right. Damien is weak. Maybe he doesn’t hate me because I drank the potion, but he’s scared for me. So scared that he isn’t backing me up so I can fight to my full potential. It’s completely unfair. Because now that this potion’s inside me, the only way I can protect myself from the shadow souls is to make sure there are no more shadow souls out there that I need to protect myself from.”

Hunger flashes in Lucas’s eyes. “You want to kill them all.”

“I do,” I reply, knowing with certainty that the hunger in my eyes matches his own. “But given my circumstance, that’s not going to happen if I don’t have the support I need to do it.”

He glances around, his movements skittish as he examines every homeless person on the other benches, and the few other people walking by.

He’s suspicious. Of course he is.

Lucas is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. Not even the lustberry can change that.

“He didn’t follow me here,” I say. “If he had, wouldn’t one of your vampires have noticed by now?”

“Hm.” He watches me closely, as if he’s trying to figure out if he believes me. “I think you underestimate my weakness for you, Star Touched.”

“I have a name.”

Irritation burns through my veins, begging to be released, but I breathe steadily and push it down.

I’ve gotten too far to mess this up now.

“Fiery.” He smirks, appearing satisfied. “I like it.”

“Does that mean you’ll help me?”

It’s the perfect time to use the lustberry to my full advantage. I know what I have to do. But yet, if he’ll give in without me having to go there…

It would be much, much preferred on my end.

He leans in, the shadows of the park making his features appear surprisingly softer. “You’re asking for a lot, Amber,” he says, and I can’t help feeling a small sense of victory that he used my actual name. “Trust isn’t easily given in our world.”

“Then tell me, Lucas,” I say, meeting his gaze straight on. “What do you want in return for it?”

He pauses, thinking.

Then, finally, he concedes.

“A year ago, I let my guard down and allowed myself to trust. To love, even,” he starts, and when he lets his gaze roam over me, something else flashes in his eyes.

Something that looks like yearning.

It’s working.

“Her name was Rebekah,” he continues, and I wait patiently, since if he’s opening up to me, I’m not about to stop him. “She was from the uptown clan. She looked like you. Beautiful, fierce, and utterly captivating.”

“Damien’s never mentioned her,” I say, praying he believes the lie.

I know all about Rebekah. Damien told me about her yesterday.

I just have to make sure Lucas doesn’t know I know.

“He wouldn’t,” he says bitterly. “None of them would. They prefer to pretend she never existed than admit they’re so weak that they could be betrayed by one of their own.”

“She died,” I say simply.

Suspicion crosses over his eyes, and my throat tightens.

Two small words, and I might have messed up everything.

My heart pounds, my breaths coming faster.

I have to fix this. Now.

“You spoke of her in the past tense,” I say quickly. “People only speak about others in the past tense if they’re not here anymore. It was just an assumption.”

“A correct one,” he says, and I relax a bit. “The uptown vampires came for her because they were furious about her betrayal. Long story short, it turned violent. She was forced into a corner. Forced to use the last option available to protect herself—biting a supernatural.”

“I’m sorry.” I lower my eyes in respect.

“You know the laws around here,” he says so casually that you’d never guess he was talking about the murder of someone he loved. “She was hunted down by the Guardians and killed for what she did. So, in remembrance to her, I designed these. To represent our freedom from the laws that bind us.”

He raises his wrists, putting the broken shackles tattooed around them on full display.

Tentatively, I reach for one of them and trace my finger along the chains.

He inhales sharply, but doesn’t pull away.

My heart pounds, not with fear or desire, but with the weight of strategy and necessity.

“I understand loss, too,” I find myself saying. “My grandmother passed away a few months ago. It was a car crash. A bad one.”

Lucas’s gaze softens, and it’s in this moment of vulnerability—of shared understanding—that I have to make my move.

And so, I brace myself. Preparing to separate myself from what I’m about to do. To pretend it’s happening to someone else, and not to me.

Before he can react, I lean in, pressing my lips to his in a kiss that’s nothing more than a means to an end. A poison to his senses.

As the urge to move as far away from him as possible rolls over me, I remind myself: I’m the one in control. I’m the one playing with him in ways he can’t imagine. In ways that the spell of the lustberry won’t allow him to start imagining.

And since I’ve come this far, I refuse to back out now.