Page 2 of The Syndicater (Dark Verse 6)

PART I

Fountainhead

"This thing of darkness, I acknowledge mine."

—William Shakespeare

Chapter 1

Dainn, Gladestone

Darkness felt like home.

No, he corrected himself. Darkness felt like a house he had lived in for many years, the rooms and nooks and crannies of which he was utterly familiar with, so much so that he could navigate it with his eyes closed. Home, home washer—a small, petite woman with flame hair and rare laughs and moonlit soul that made him believe in things he had only known about conceptually, things he knew but did not understand, not until her.

"That's cheating!" she exclaimed, giving him a glare that had killed lesser men, her verdant gaze glimmering with the life he felt proud to have resuscitated in her. He wondered when he would see it shining the same again, something in his chest tightening with each passing second that he knew their time was limited. He wondered, as he watched the tiny furrow of concentration between her brows, her lips turned down in the corners as she focused on her cards, how things were going tochange. Because change they would. The moment he told her what was to come, the moment her world expanded to include other people who were going to become important to her, and in extension to him, things would change.

Dainn didn't like changes where it concerned her, especially the ones beyond his control.

Yet, for her, he had to sacrifice something without sacrificing her. That was her definition of love, wasn't it?

He had to tell her. But knowing her, how her mind worked, how her anxieties ate her from the insides, he knew he had to wait until the last moment or she would spend the entire time overthinking to the point of getting dysfunctional, possibly sick. His littleflammahad strength even she couldn't see, but she was fragile right now. Her heart—the tiny organ under her delectable breasts—was too large, felt too much, and beat too fast, and yet, if it ceased to do any of those things exactly as it did, he didn't know who he would become. She was his north star, the only thing constant, bright in his tenebrous world.

"Not cheating," he told her, quietly etching this moment into his memory to relive during the time he wouldn't have her. "You have to learn how to bluff better."

Her lips moved into a pout, pillowing in a way that reminded him of small, harmless creatures the world called cute.

Fuck, she was cute when she was like this. Not a word he ever thought he'd think about anyone. Babies and puppies and kittens were cute enough, but they didn't make him warm on the inside as she did, as though the cold could never touch his bones again as long as she flickered within him.

She threw the cards down on the table, sighing loudly with exaggerated exasperation that amused him. She was a grump when she didn't get her way.Adorable.

A light wind caressed her open locks, moving them lazily like flames in a hearth as they sat outside on the balcony of theirhotel suite high up. It was late, and if it were up to him, he would have simply kept her in bed the whole time, devouring her, defiling her, destroying her in ways he would be etched into her bones, so nothing and no one could take him out of her being. But she, unaware of what was about to happen and to distract herself from the revelations thrust upon her in the last twenty-four hours, had wanted to do something normal, something benign, something ridiculously regular. And so, he was teaching her how to play cards, which, much to his amusement, she was failing at miserably. Hisflammawas many things, but a mathematical card-counting bluff master, she was absolutely not.

She stared out at the darkness of Gladestone. The view was nothing noteworthy. The city wasn't either. It was a dark concrete jungle of shiny veneer polished with desperation and destitution. Building after building, street after street, alley after alley—corporate and manufacturing hubs that hid hideous horrors underneath. But it was the fact that the view was now laid out for her, right at her feet, ready for her to stomp and smash it. It seemed almost poetic in a way, the things she was going to do by his side, watching over everything that had used and abused her, deliberately and unknowingly. And she was sitting at the top with him, looking down at the very city that had chewed and spit her out, one amongst the many faceless humans. But the faceless weren't his.Shewas.

The soft, pondering energy engulfed her frame as she pulled her feet up on the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her head on them, gazing out. He marveled for a moment at her ability to do that—fold herself and make herself so small she could hide on the furniture. He wondered if it had been something she had learned over the years and did so unconsciously now when she felt anxious. He placed his cards down on the table and gazed at her, taking in his fill. She lookedethereal, unreal, almost like a magical little waif who would disappear if he blinked.

She would.

It was almost twenty-four hours since he had sent his text to Morana. The clock was ticking. His time with her like this, when their world was just the two of them, existing purely with the other, was coming to an end soon. She was going to have others who would love her, want her, protect her, and he would be alone again, existing in the shadows while she did in the light.

Something tight sat in his chest.

"Dainn?"

Her voice brought his focus singularly back to her, the sound of his name making a familiar rush of sweetness explode on his tongue. Fuck, he would miss the physical sensation of hearing her talk, of feeling her close, of her just being. It was incredible how she could make him the calmest he had ever been yet the craziest, how she could inspire both his chaos and his cool to the same degree.

He reached out, tugging a strand of her hair, feeling the softness on his fingers. "Hmm?"

"What do we do now?" she asked him finally. He knew it had taken her a while to process everything, and he had been giving her time. With Lyla, he had learned patience was the key. She was like the black roses he liked to grow for gifting to her. She needed the right soil, the right amount of sun and water and nourishment, the right amount of care and patience to blossom. Most importantly, just like the rose, she needed someone willing to take the thorns, someone willing to bleed for her bloom.

"What do you want to do?" he asked. Though he had sent the message out, knowing instinctively it was what she needed. But if she said the word, he would disappear with her in a heartbeat until she felt ready. Deep down, the selfish part of him hoped she wasn't ready. But the part that remembered herdefinition of love, of what she needed, and that part knew that she needed nourishment outside of what he could provide. And though sacrificing his selfish desires was never something he had thought to do, was never something he would do, she was the only exception.

For her, he would do anything.

But he would hate every second of it.

Lyla turned her neck and brought her eyes to him, her gaze knocking something within his ribs, the life, the vulnerability, thetrustshining in her eyes shooting straight up his veins.

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