Evie sits up. “Misha, what’s—”

“Don’t touch me,” Misha hisses, backing away from her across the bed. His eyes are still solid black, his expression tense. “Just, don’t—”

Evie’s ringtone saws through the air again, abrasive and insistent. She glances over at her cellphone as it vibrates on the bedside table. “Shit, it’s Claudia. I have to get this. She’ll call the cops if I don’t.”

Misha turns his head away, curled in on himself, and waves a hand at her. It’s fine. Do it.

Evie grabs her phone and swipes at the screen a few times, swearing under her breath at the old model’s refusal to do basic things like allow her to answer a call.

“Chica! I’m on break. What the hell is going on? I’ve texted you like a million times!” Claudia says, and Evie can hear the sound of glasses and plates clinking in the background. It’s noontime in New York City on a Sunday, which means Claudia is probably setting up for a charity brunch.

“Look, Claudia. This isn’t a good time,” Evie begins.

“Are you okay? Because if that guy…”

That guy is currently leaning against the window, his back to her as he stares at the indifferent, cloudy sky, his sweatpants low on his hips. Evie shivers slightly, watching the play of muscles across his bare back, and her voice cracks slightly as she answers her roommate. “He’s fine, Claudia. He’s not a serial killer or anything, relax.”

Misha snorts and turns, about to say something, but Evie glares at him and makes a shushing motion. He closes those freakish, ebony eyes and shakes his head at her.

“Mmhmm,” Claudia says, disbelief thick in her voice.

“I’ll call you later and fill you in, I promise, but I have to go,” Evie says.

“Fine,” Claudia sighs.

“Okay. Good luck at work today,” Evie mutters, and hangs up the phone. She tosses it towards an empty corner of the bed, and groans her frustration as the phone slips across the sheets and thuds onto the carpet. Misha is watching her, something predatory in his dark eyes, and it makes Evie feel every bit of her nakedness. She reaches for her pajama shirt and slings her arms through it, hands tangling in inside-out sleeves.

“I’m sorry,” comes the soft, rough whisper from across the room.

“What happened?” Evie asks, careful to keep her voice neutral.

Misha’s lips twitch. “Control issues,” he says. He slides his back down the window until he’s sitting on the floor. “Apparently I can only have what I do not want. It’s a clever curse. If I allow myself what I desire, it includes possible results such as killing you, or releasing enough energy to give every single person in this hotel the best orgasm of their life.” There’s a dull thud as he hits the back of his head against the window. “And that would bring priests.”

Evie swings her legs over the side of the bed, and starts to button up her pajama top. “This happen often?”

“No,” he says, staring down at his long fingers. His eyes are clearing, the black fading to a bruised ring around the blue. He makes a small, futile gesture with one hand. “When I get emotional…”

“Oh,” Evie says. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be; it’s…” Misha mumbles. “It’s everything right now. You. The book. My past. The thought of someone as powerful as Eric Overstreet, someone who likes pain as much as he does, becoming… like me.”

He pushes himself off the floor and comes and sits near her on the bed. “I can handle it. Usually.” Then the warm weight of his shoulder is against hers. “But if my eyes go dark, or I pull away suddenly, don’t… don’t be offended. Sometimes I need to have a moment to collect myself. For safety.”

“I can touch you now?” Evie asks.

Misha nods.

She slides her arm around his waist, and it’s magnetic, the way it feels like it belongs there.

“You don’t have to go through this alone,” she whispers, leaning into him, into all that warmth and muscle.

Evie feels Misha’s arm curl around her waist as well, and the soft press of his lips to her temple as he squeezes her tightly in a wordless thank you.

Too tightly.

“Ow! Strong!” Evie says. “If you accidentally squish me you will have to go through this alone.”

Misha bites her, because he is a shit. But Evie can feel that he’s smiling again, which makes it all worthwhile. “My squishy human,” he murmurs. She pinches his waist, and he giggles.

“Are you ticklish?” she says, delight dawning on her face.

“No!” he says, too fast.

Evie cackles and turns, both hands diving for Misha’s waist. She knows he’s fast enough to avoid her but at first he doesn’t, falling back onto the bed and writhing to avoid her fingers. If he had lungs, the expression for his current state would be breathless with laughter. As he flails, he bumps her with a knee. She overbalances, falling on top of him.

“Hey,” he says, his hands curling up her thighs to the base of her ass.

“Hi,” Evie smiles.

Misha shifts slightly, so her legs slip between his. She can feel him against her thigh, thickening, hardening. “What’s your opinion on trying again?” he says, his voice going husky.

“I’d, uh, I’d be up for that, if you think you, uh…”

Misha rolls his hips against her, his head falling back. “… I think I can manage. I want to.”

“’Course you do, incubus,” Evie snorts.

“We’ve been over that,” Misha says, his grip tightening on her ass.

Evie grinds down on Misha, because two can play at that game. The way he reacts, moaning and burying his face into her neck, makes her have dangerous thoughts. She wants to push him again, chase him to the edge of that feral, almost-lost-control state, even though she knows it’s a terrible idea. But the urge is overwhelming, to take apart the boy who takes everyone else apart with such ease.

And then he looks up at her, a hardness in the set of his lips. His eyes are nearly black again. He shakes his head, a tight, frustrated motion, and sits up, effortlessly maneuvering her so she’s sitting too, both of them on the edge of the bed, legs dangling off like awkward teenagers. Misha bows his head, his hair falling forwards to cover his face. His hands grip the edge of the mattress, and Evie can see the tension that runs up his arms and into his shoulders, every muscle standing out, the mattress creaking in protest. She watches him from the corners of her eyes.

“I think,” he says, after his hands slowly unclench, “that it might be best if I… if I play a role.” He looks up at her then, and the rawness in his beautiful face is heartbreaking. He smiles, small and hesitant. “I want to be myself, more than anything.” Those long eyelashes flutter closed over eyes that are still an eerie mix of ice-blue and black, no white to be seen. “But perhaps for now there should be a layer between myself and… everything.”

Evie sighs and leans against him, against his shoulder. “You don’t have to. We don’t have to—”

“I want to,” Misha snarls, twisting, and holy shit, Evie can feel the rage roll off him, running through her and igniting all the anger she’s tried to bury along the course of her life, setting it smoldering again like peat fires, deep down under the dirt where her foundations lie. “I want something, for the first time in nearly a century.”

Evie knows his fury isn’t directed at her, it’s inward, towards the bargain he made and the powers he can’t always control. But it’s still there, filling everything with its red heat.

She breathes, grinding her teeth, trying not to scream, not to break something. Misha is watching her, lips twisted in a horrified self-hatred. “Great,” he whispers, edging away from her. “That’s just… well done me.”

He stands up and paces, arms out wide in a mix of supplication and frustration. When he reaches the farthest point in the room from her, he rakes his hands through his hair, staring down at the floor. “Are you okay?” he mutters.

“Yeah. That was. Um.” Evie swallows, trying to process the sharp spike of fury she’d felt. “It all seems so harmless when it’s just about pleasure,” she says.

Misha chuckles, and it’s a low, nasty sound. “Welcome to the full measure of the monster.”

Evie’s eyes slide off him towards a safer view. She stares at one of her fancy boots, fallen over onto the floor. What can she say to him? That she’s beginning to think the priests are right? That his kind shouldn’t exist? That glimpsing even the tiniest hint of his powers, not to mention what he could do at full stretch, was terrifying?

And there he is, the monster, digging his bare toes into the carpet, twisting his fingers. Trying so hard to be a person, and hating himself for every little failure, every time he puts others at risk. Unable to return to the boy he was before, because that person—impetuous, passionate, with emotions running as fast and strong under his skin as a spring flood—that person, as an incubus, would be the death of anyone he loved. The most heartbreaking thing of all was that Evie could still see the faint outline of that reckless boy who sold his heart to the Devil in the taut, bitterly disciplined man before her, like a nuclear shadow, like scorch marks on a wall marking where a life had been obliterated.

Misha rolls his shoulders and stretches his neck. “I’m going to take a shower,” he says quietly, to nobody in particular. “Get the stink of pheromones off my skin.”

Evie nods.

She can barely hear his soft footsteps towards the bathroom, and only knows he’s reached it by a slight creak of the door’s hinges. But then she hears heavy strides approaching her, and his arms circle her from behind. She flinches. It takes two breaths for a normal human to walk from the bathroom to the bed, and Misha had done it in less than one. He tightens his arms around her, and buries his face in the side of her neck. She feels more than hears him as he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

His arms relax, and as she turns to look at him he shifts away, avoiding her eyes. Evie reaches out, running a hand up the too-warm, solid breath of his shoulder, burying her fingers in the soft baby hair at the back of his neck. When he looks at her in confusion, she presses her lips to his cheek, tender, chaste. “You’re doing okay, Misha. I won’t lie and say I’m not scared of you, but you’re okay.”

Misha makes a little disbelieving huff into her neck, but snuggles in closer, some of the tension bleeding out of his body. They sit like that for a while, like shipwreck victims, leaning into each other, scared that the land they can see on the horizon is just another trick of the light.

Finally Misha shifts them so they’re both lying down on their sides, facing each other. “You should get some sleep,” he murmurs, stroking down her arm with two fingers. Then as his fingers draw back up her arm, she can feel a few little golden sparks curling through her, down towards her groin. Her eyes dart up to Misha’s, now ice-blue again, and he’s raising an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah,” Evie says, and realizes in that moment that she’s happy. Everything is on fire and has ceased to make sense and she’s in bed with an actual demon and she’s happier than she’s been in years. “Yeah, Misha. Do the thing.”

A smile spreads over his face like sunshine. His fingers run along her shoulder and over her collarbone. He wrinkles his nose and it’s strangely adorable. “I like doing this. I like that you know what I’m doing.”

Evie just bites her lip and wriggles closer to him, because it feels really good.

“So,” he says, dragging his fingers slowly and softly between her breasts, then spreading his hand down over her stomach, “I was thinking.”

Evie doesn’t manage more than a soft, questioning moan, somewhat wishing he’d shut up so she could focus on the warm tide of arousal washing over her, the building pressure in her loins. Her brain goes a bit sideways, thinking about how much she wants to fuck him, again.

He traces two fingers down her stomach, over her mons, and then stops, right at the beginning of her labia. Evie makes a hurt little sound, which gets an amused snicker from Misha. He’s propped up on one elbow, relaxed and radiating contentment. And also sex. Because Evie still remembers the first time he’d done this to her, and it had been one of the best orgasms of her life with him only touching the side of her face. Now with his fingers barely a half-inch from her clit, the feeling is staggering.

Her leg starts to shake and she arches up, trying to get his fingers a little lower. She knows she’s making the most ridiculous noises right now but she doesn’t care. She presses her eyes shut and concentrates on the feeling building inside her, how wet she knows she is already, how much the muscles of her walls are already starting to flutter.

“I was thinking that when we try to fuck again, because we are going to try again, that it might be fun if I was your sub,” Misha murmurs.

Evie opens her eyes to look at him, and he smiles softly at her, touching his tongue to his bottom lip. He lowers his chin and looks up at her through his lashes. This man is absolutely going to be the death of her, in an infinite number of ways. And then he says, “You could put a collar on me, and I would do whatever you asked.”

“Gluh,” Evie says, and from the angle of Misha’s head it’s easy to imagine him kneeling between her legs, looking up at her, waiting for her command. She knows it’s deliberate; the arch-seducer’s masterclass, now in session.

His fingers finally move lower, further in, and she sucks in a hiss as he carefully circles around her clit, never touching it, over the lips of her cunt, fat as they are with arousal. He leans forwards and presses a gentle kiss to her mouth as he thrusts three fingers inside her. At the same time, he rubs her clit with his thumb and she arches up and screams his name into his mouth.

The thing he does is overwhelming enough when he’s just touching her face. But when he’s managing to hit her G-spot and her clit at the same time and that’s where all his magic is going into her body, it’s way beyond too much. Her brain dissolves into a cascade of light; her body spasms in bliss and somehow he’s moving with her, staying on target, and his power is still flowing into her through those fingers and she has a second orgasm straight after the first, wetness streaming out of her, eyes rolled back in her head, completely giving herself over to the waves of pleasure rocking through her.

Evie comes back to herself slowly, and Misha is still with her, his eyes clear and fond. “You okay?” he says, brushing an errant curl out of her face.

“Mm,” she says, snuggling closer, her body so relaxed she feels halfway to jelly. “I got off a bunch of times and you didn’t, though.”

“It’s not a contest,” Misha replies. “I also didn’t kill you or seriously fuck up everyone in the hotel, and it was touch and go for a while, so I’m fine with how everything turned out.”

“Still, though,” Evie says, and lazily traces her hand down Misha’s chest, and she’s still not over those abs, no sir, not by a long shot. She runs her hand over that sharp hip bone peeking above the low waist of his sweatpants, and chases the line of muscle down from it towards his cock. He’s half-hard, and as she pulls his sweatpants down over the curve of his perfect ass, she establishes that, no, her memory was not exaggerating about the size of him. She makes a happy, sleepy little hum as she gets a hand around him and begins to stroke him; she’s more pleased than she’d like to admit by the way he bites his lip and hisses as her thumb passes over the bundle of nerves underneath the head of his cock.

“I think I’m gonna need two hands. Maybe my mouth too,” she mumbles, wriggling her way down the bed. “Lemme know if you need me to stop.”

“I really hope that won’t be—hnnh—necessary,” Misha gasps, as she runs her tongue up the slit at the head of his cock, gently licking under his uncut foreskin.

Evie hums as she takes as much of him as she can in her mouth, which is, to be fair, not a lot, and the feeling of him moving to full hardness while in her mouth is pretty amazing. Aside from the whole ridiculously handsome thing he has going on, he’s completely shaved, and the only thing she tastes on him is herself.

She pulls off him and carries on stroking him with her hands. “I know you have mixed feelings about the choices you made,” she says softly, pausing to run her lips and tongue over his balls, loving how responsive he is, how his cock twitches in her hands and beads with precome, “and I know I’m biased,” another lick up the length of his shaft, a kiss to the tip with a little thrust of her tongue to dip under his foreskin, and that gets her a hand around the back of her neck, “but I never would have met you if you hadn’t become an incubus.” Another kiss, and she sucks him down quickly into her mouth again before coming off to an audible groan from him, “and I’m pretty sure you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Misha snorts disbelievingly, but the fingers on the back of her head skritch gently at the nape of her neck.

She pops off one more time, grinning. “Still infuriating, though.” And yeah, the view up that chest to that face, that’s not something she’s going to tire of, possibly ever.

That face is currently managing to give her a look that balances desire and exasperation almost perfectly. But his eyes are still clear and blue as he growls, “Evangeline Cross, I have been on the edge of coming for about two hours now and if you don’t stop talking and get on with it, I might die.”

“Drama queen,” she mumbles, as she kisses her way down past his balls. She lifts one of his muscular thighs onto her shoulder and keeps heading south with little kitten licks, until she reaches the tight furl of his ass. When she tongues Misha there, he twists and arches, letting out the most sinful, erotic moan she thinks she’s ever heard. She’s still fisting his cock, but admittedly she’s slowed her pace as she navigates southwards. So she’s not surprised when a large, strong hand wraps over hers, gripping harder and speeding up the tempo.

Evie tries to match the thrusts of her tongue to the rhythm Misha has set around her hand, as they both stroke his cock, and judging from the way that Misha has completely failed to speak English for the past few minutes, she’s doing something right. As his strokes get harder and messier on his dick, the rhythm completely gone, she thrusts her tongue in as far as it can go. She takes her free hand and runs it between her legs; they don’t have lube but she’s still wet enough for them both, and so she adds a finger in him next to her tongue.

Misha positively keens as he arches, and he barks out something that sounds like a command and might be in Russian or Georgian but Evie ignores it in favor of seeing if she can make him cry out again. But he says the thing again, low and rough and apparently hot guys growling in fluent sex-wrecked Eastern European languages is a kink that she very much has and didn’t know about until this exact moment.

The command is accompanied this time by a hand gently tugging in her hair so she reluctantly gives Misha’s ass a kiss goodbye, and then his balls, and then the top of his cock, and then she has to stop because he hauls her up over him, lifting her easily with one arm, and that also hasn’t stopped being amazingly hot.

Misha is shining, his eyes crystalline-bright, his face angelic as he looks at her. Their joined hands are still thrusting over his cock, and she realizes he’s done that to show her what he likes, what works best for him. One edge of his mouth quirks up in a smile and he stutters a few sentences in what she’s guessing is Georgian.

Evie shakes her head. “Baby, I don’t understand, speak English,” she says.

He blinks at her, then his brain seems to switch on a bit more and he rumbles, “You’re going to come again when I come. It will happen. Be prepared.” He bites his lip as a shudder of pleasure goes through his body, his head tipping back. “And kiss me,” he breathes.

Evie’s lips brush his and at first it’s gentle, controlled, their lips barely touching each other and the sensation so much more for being so little. Then Misha moans, and he’s coming, she can feel the tautness in his body, the hot wet spurt of his release on her stomach. And out of nowhere, she’s coming too, her orgasm pounding through her already oversensitive, exhausted body. Evie makes a startled noise and their kiss turns messy, animalistic, teeth clacking against each other, lips catching and bruising. Neither of them are really there, too wrapped up in their own pleasure to coordinate their mouths. And the fact that Misha is so messed up he can’t even kiss straight is, Evie thinks, possibly the hottest part of the whole morning.

Misha makes a low, contented sound in his throat, and Evie looks up at him, heavy-lidded and satisfied. His eyes have started to go dark again, but not all the way; just the white of the sclera fading to a dark grey, leaving the ice-blue irises and lust-blown black pupils.

Their hands have stilled on his cock, but Evie is reluctant to take hers away, enjoying the feeling of it as it softens. Misha’s torso is officially the wet patch, but he’s warm and she’s exhausted from more orgasms than she’s ever had on a Sunday morning (or any other morning) so she just makes herself at home and curls up on that broad chest.

“You going to let go of my dick?” Misha whispers, and she can feel the smile in his voice even if she’s too wrecked to actually look up and see it.

“Nah,” she says. “I like holding it.”

Misha wraps his arms around her in a lazy hug. “Believe me, I’m not going to stop you from spending as much time with my dick as you want.”

“Good,” Evie mumbles. “S’ a nice dick.” She gives it a little pat.

He starts to stroke her hair, humming a soothing little tune. Evie’s losing the battle to stay awake, and as her eyelids grow heavier she feels Misha shift beneath her. “Go to sleep, chemo sikharulo. Meet me for dinner later.” He presses a kiss to her forehead and murmurs into her hair, “Make sure you shower. Smelling like an aroused incubus is…” he huffs out a quiet laugh, “… well, you’ll attract a lot of attention.”

He gently detaches himself from her grip and rises gracefully and silently to his feet. Evie whines and flails out an arm, her hand ending up on the plush curve of his ass. “Stay,” she mumbles.

“Can’t,” he says. “The Tweedles will have sent me about a dozen emails demanding updates by now.”

“Why?” Evie groans. “It’s Sunday.”

“Yes,” Misha says. “Saturday was the Sabbath. On Sunday they both jump back on electronic devices like starving men at a banquet. I must go write up a semi-fictional report to get them off my back. After I have my own shower.” He grasps Evie’s hand where it’s been rubbing idle circles against his right ass cheek, and bows down to her, pressing a courtly kiss to her fingers. He gazes through his eyelashes over her hand to her, and murmurs, “Much as I’d rather stay in bed.”

Evie giggles sleepily. “How many girls have you gotten using that look?”

Misha snorts, goofy and awkward. “So many. Boys too.” He smirks and shifts his stance, something a little less louche, a little more military. He bows to her hand again, but doesn’t kiss it. Instead he presses his thumb down onto her knuckles, and does something with his fingers on her palm that wakes up parts of her she thought would be down for the count for the rest of the day. At the same time he licks his lips—not ostentatiously, just enough to be noticeable—and then he says, his voice husky, “I remain, sir, your obedient servant.” There’s a little faked catch of breath before he says obedient, which comes out as a low purr.

He raises an eyebrow, silently asking for her opinion, his face halfway between wry and serious.

“Ten out of ten. The tongue over your lips and the fingernails on the palm at the same time, that’s effective,” Evie says. Her tone turns thoughtful as she adds, “I’d always figured seduction was something bad, but with you it’s just… fun.”

Misha grins, pleased. “Of course. It’s making people feel good about themselves. Best game in the world.” He squeezes her hand one more time before letting go. “I’d like to say it was all art, but I was young, easy, and looked great in cavalry breeches. I didn’t have to put nearly as much effort in as I thought I did.”

Evie yawns and plumps the pillow around her. “If mankind ever builds a time machine, I bet the first thing the scientist does, instead of killing Hitler or something, is to go back and tell their eighteen-year-old self to worry less and shake their ass more.”

“Quite,” Misha says. But then he falls silent, so she glances up. He’s biting his lower lip and looking down at her, his eyes soft and fond. He reaches down and gently boops her nose. “Sleep well, little one. Call me when you get hungry.”

Evie rolls out of bed around 4pm, still somewhat dazed. She staggers to the bathroom and parks herself under the hot spray of its huge shower-head. Her and Claudia’s little apartment has pretty good water temperature (if you get the mixer tap exactly right) but the volume is nowhere near the forceful cascade of the hotel’s modern water system assaulting her shoulders and back. She thinks she might stay under here forever. She’s sore, but not badly so. Just a pleasant morning-after feeling, a little floaty, a little bow-legged.

Her eyes close and, as she begins to soap herself, she thinks of Misha. She has to stop and lean against the tiled wall as a sharp twist of feeling goes through her, fluttery and warm, as she remembers his lips on hers, of the way the muscles in his shoulders moved when he was over her.

She shifts the water to a cooler temperature.
She’s barely known Misha two weeks and in that time he’s turned her world upside down, made her admit things she’d been desperately ignoring about herself, about her own dreams and desires, and she’s… she’s gone and fallen for him, hard.

She’s sure it’s not love, not yet. More an infatuation, brought on by an easy wit, an incredible body and, seriously, the best sex of her life. But, she thinks, as she looks forward to the affair’s inevitable end, this one’s going to bruise.

Evie finishes showering, throws on a long T-shirt, and pads over to the armchair by the floor-to-ceiling window. She curls up in it and looks out over the Palo Alto skyline, flat and green and spread out in a way New York never is. And she thinks back to the Evie Cross of a mere four days ago in Manhattan, hopelessly naïve and grasping in all the wrong places for answers. Cross-referencing slow poisons and Russian assassination-by-radiation techniques and worrying that Misha was a serial-killing sociopath. If only the answers had been that simple. Stripped of context, of course, the answers were the same: he had killed Greg Pickford; he’d admitted to killing others. It’s different, though, knowing what he is, that he can’t survive without a measure of harm to others.

She knows she should feel more disturbed about Misha having to feed on people to exist, but he genuinely seems to try to hurt others as little as possible: a few days, a week off a stranger’s life, time that they’d never miss or even realize were being taken, and would probably waste anyway. She thinks of all the hours she’d pissed away playing video games and reading fanfic and doing literally anything other than working on her own stories. She’d give all that up, to keep Misha around. She’d give up a lot more.

She knows it’s her crush talking, because her rationalizations still ring hollow, even to her. As much as she wants to let go of her concerns about what he is, she can’t. He feeds on people, and it seems okay because you can’t see the wounds. But he still takes pieces of their lives. And if he takes too much, too fast, like he did with Greg Pickford, their hearts give out.

She watches a red-tailed hawk spiral in the middle distance as it idly scans for prey, and she wonders what to do. They have to finish this thing with the Overstreets, stop Eric from becoming an incubus like Misha, and then… then everything will revert to some measure of normal. They’ll go back to the office in Manhattan. Gemma will hopefully blossom further, now that she’s in an environment of peace and safety. Claudia will achieve recognition, Beatriz will get her happily ever after, and Evie will find her purpose. She’ll have time, after all this mess in Palo Alto is over, to get used to what Misha is, to what they’re doing. And, once the first flush of infatuation fades, to figure out whether this is where she really belongs.

She calls Claudia next. Her roommate is at home, exhausted from a high-society charity lunch, and watching Sunday-night reality TV while downing a nice bottle of Sancerre left over from work. Evie can hear women yelling at each other in the background as Claudia says, “So why couldn’t you talk earlier?”

Evie exhales. She figures truth is the best option; Claudia will worm it out of her sooner or later anyway. “I was sleeping with Misha.”

“He can still be crazy even if he sticks his dick in you, babe, and not gonna lie but you have form with that,” Claudia says, as the TV in the background grows quieter.

“There’s a bunch of things I can’t tell you, but, uh…” Evie says, curling up in her armchair as if to dissuade eavesdroppers in the empty room, “… he’s actually pretty amazing. And I’m happy.” She is; even as she says it Evie can feel the warmth in her chest, the smile spreading across her face. “For the first time in a really long while, I feel like I’m on the right path, even if it wasn’t the one I planned for myself.”

“Wow,” Claudia deadpans. “That must be some USDA prime dick.”

Evie giggles. “Yeah. It kinda is.”

Claudia groans in frustration. Evie can hear the sofa cushions squeak as she shifts her weight. “Evie,” she says, drawing out her name over several long seconds, like she was talking to a particularly inattentive little cousin. “Felicitations on sleeping with your hot boss, I’m sure that totally won’t end in disaster. But listen to your gut, not your pussy. Your gut said he was scary. And he’s a lot bigger than you. I get… I get a bad feeling from him, okay?”

Evie just sighs into the phone. She can’t think of anything to say that’s not either an outright lie, or something that will cause Claudia to become even more concerned.

“Okay.”

“Call me every day, Evie, or so help me I will call the cops and report you as abducted.”

“That’s not—” Evie begins. “Claudia, I have a mom. I don’t need another mom. Misha would never hurt me.”

“But he’s hurt other people in front of you?” Claudia says. “Look, I watched this play out with my aunt and uncle. I sat at the kitchen table while Mom iced her broken cheekbone and listened to her say that it was her fault because the dinner was cold. Don’t try to pretend everything’s okay when it’s not.”

“Fine, Claudia, you win!” Evie all but shouts. “Everything is not okay, but it’s not okay in a way that I cannot explain to you right now, and I am in no danger from Misha.” In her mind’s eye, she pictures Misha in hunting mode, aggressive and brutally graceful as he takes down the two bodyguards Greg Pickford had sent to retrieve his husband. “We’re mixed up in something dangerous on this investigation, but Misha is probably the safest person in the world for me to be with right now.”

“I don’t know why I bother,” Claudia whispers. “You don’t listen. You don’t listen!”

“You bother because you’re my friend,” Evie replies. “Besides, I always tell you to ask for a raise and you don’t listen to me.”

There’s an uncomfortable pause at the other end of the line, and it gets quiet enough for Evie to hear the TV in the background even at lowest volume, the women still yelling at each other, something crashing to the ground.

“I asked, though,” Claudia says, her voice small.

“What?” Evie squawks. She sits up so fast her head spins.

“They said no, some bullshit about a review next season, blah blah blah.” Claudia snorts. “So fuck them, I’m applying to other catering companies. And a couple hotels.”

“I’m sorry, Claudia. They’re jerks.”

“Yeah. I know,” Claudia says, tired. “I worked so hard for them, I thought they had to have noticed.”

“We’re here only a couple more days, I think,” Evie says. “I promise I’ll call you every day, and when we get back we’ll go out and drink lots of margaritas. I have a job now, it’ll be my treat.”

“Okay,” Claudia sniffs. “Evie, be careful.”

“I will,” Evie says. She hangs up and tosses her phone on the bed.

She pulls on some of the clothes they’d bought on Saturday morning, a flattering pair of jeans and a pretty embroidered tunic, and texts Misha about dinner.

He texts back and says he’ll be down in ten, so Evie takes one look at her hair, gives up, and wraps the hot mess of curls in a scarf. She’s just finished slipping on her sneakers when she hears a tap at the door.

It’s Masha, in the same simple day dress she’d worn on Saturday. She smirks, and says, “I thought it might be better if I stay in girl mode tonight. In case there’s anyone who recognizes boy-me from the party.”

Part of Evie’s mind is still freaking out over how Misha can just… be a girl when he wants to be. And is arguably better—no, scratch that—definitely better at the whole performative femininity thing than Evie is. The other part, the part that’s basically ceded control to her lower half, sees that smirk and drives straight off the road and into the nearest gutter.

Before she can overthink it, she steps forwards and kisses Masha. It’s not the same as kissing Misha. Her lips are softer, fuller. There’s still a lot of chest in the way, but it feels of lace and yielding fullness, not Misha’s velvet and steel. Her hand finds its way to Masha’s hip, and that’s also different, how much her waist curves inwards. How there’s a perfect place for her fingers to rest.

The kiss isn’t lengthy, or overly passionate; it’s just a hello kiss. But it’s nice, and Evie’s a little surprised by how much she likes it.

Masha’s surprised too, judging by the look on her face as Evie steps away.

“I like both of you,” Evie stutters in explanation. “All of you?”

Masha grins and reels Evie in for another kiss, this one a little dirtier. Her nails run down Evie’s back, and curve over her ass possessively. “Both of me is fine,” she says.

“I’m having confusing thoughts about gender,” Evie says when they come up for air, a little dazed.

Masha shrugs. “It’s a confusing subject. Especially with me. And it’s all right if you prefer one version of me more than the other.” She links her hand into Evie’s and pulls her into the hallway.

“No,” Evie says, as Masha links arms with her and they walk towards the elevators. “I always wanted to, with another girl, but… I’d never met the right one.”

Masha raises an eyebrow and shoots her an amused look.

Evie laughs, and blushes at the same time. “I didn’t want to be that girl, you know, the one that’s curious but can’t go through? My roommate’s a hundred percent gay and she’s had some bad experiences with girls who weren’t as bi as they thought they were.”

“Well,” Masha says, as she presses the elevator button, “whatever happens, happens. And if you find out you prefer your fantasies to stay fantasies?” She bites her lip and shoots Evie a suggestive look under her lashes. “I know a boy.”

Evie rolls her eyes and leans into Masha. She’s comfortable, and fits against her in a different but equally pleasurable way as Misha. “Are his lines as bad as yours?” she sighs.

“I have it on good authority they’re worse,” Masha hums, throwing her arm around Evie and leaning into her in return.

“The Kieselsteins happy for now?” Evie asks.

“The Kieselsteins are never happy. But they have been temporarily pacified,” Masha says. “I’ve told them they have to go through Gemma for anything during the working week.” Then she grins. “And Gemma only has your cell, not mine.”

“Ugh,” Evie groans. “You are the worst boss.”

They take a taxi to a Japanese place in downtown Palo Alto. Real sushi is one of Evie’s favorite things, but she hasn’t been able to afford it for a while. Even the bodega $9.99 takeout Salmon Lovers’ Special has been out of her budget.

Masha worms this information out of her the same way Misha did when they first met: ask a question, and then leave so much silence that the person answering feels compelled to fill the space. Evie had started off with “Anything, whatever you want,” before doing an actual facepalm in the back of the taxi. Masha had snorted in amusement, then grabbed Evie’s hand and laced their fingers together.

The place is small, plain, pleasantly dark, and full of Japanese people. The guy at the sushi counter is about a hundred years old and looks like he misses the days when you could smoke in restaurants. When he’s not slicing fish, he’s watching a baseball game on the TV that’s hung over the corner of the bar. Evie’s feeling pretty good about the likelihood of excellent sushi in her very near future.

Masha bats her eyelashes at Evie as she pushes the menu towards her. “Remember, yesterday I bought myself a fourteen thousand dollar jacket because it made me sentimental about my old cavalry uniform. Order anything you want.” Then she hooks her ankle around Evie’s, under the table, and it’s lovely, the casual, tactile way Masha is with her, how easy and pleasant it is to have contact with that too-warm skin. It’s grounding, a simple you’re here, I’ve got you that Evie hadn’t realized how badly she needed until she was given it.

Evie orders a mixed plate of sushi, and a seaweed salad, and a couple à la carte pieces. Their waitress assumes it’s for both of them, and neither woman corrects her. Masha orders Evie a carafe of warm sake and, as the first sip burns down Evie’s throat, she acknowledges what a good idea it is.

Her miso soup has arrived, as had a small plate of uni and another of salmon roe, when the baseball game on the TV gives way to local news. Evie glances over her shoulder and notes a very blonde newscaster in a bright-red suit droning on about air quality warnings. She goes back to her sushi in time to see Masha go completely still.

Evie turns, slowly, a cold dread clutching at her stomach.

The red suit has adopted a tone of great seriousness, while keeping her expression as unmoving as possible so as not to mess up her heavy TV studio makeup. Silicon Valley is reeling from the news of StarTech founder Eric Overstreet’s death on Saturday night, during a summer party at his Palo Alto mansion. Initial reports state that Mr Overstreet surprised a burglary attempt and his neck was broken in the resulting scuffle. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Selene at this difficult time—

Masha’s eyes are wide with terror.

“Anything else I can get you?” their waitress chirps as she puts down the big wooden board of sushi Evie had ordered.

“Uh, no, we’re fine,” Evie manages to say, and the girl finally leaves. Evie looks over all the food, the colorful, expensive little bundles, that she no longer has appetite for.

Masha has withdrawn into herself, staring down at her hands. She looks guilty.

“Masha, what did you do after I left?” Evie whispers.

Masha doesn’t answer for a long moment. “Not that,” she breathes. “I didn’t… at least, I don’t think I did.”

Evie glares at her. “You don’t think you did?”

Masha makes a helpless little gesture, and her beautiful face, that too-expressive mouth, begins to tremble. “I was…” she gestures to her eyes, “… on the edge of control. Maybe over, for a few moments. I don’t…” she puts her hands over her face, “… I don’t remember. I didn’t intend to hurt him that badly, but he… he tried to kill you, and then he shot me.” She sighs. “I may have thrown him too hard.”

Evie leans back in her chair and pushes the raw fish away from her, sick to her stomach. “And you didn’t mention this to me because…?”

“I was hoping for the best,” Masha says, from behind the mask of her fingers.

Evie thinks back to how radiant Misha had looked. “Did you feed on him?” she whispers.

“No!” Masha hisses. “I know I didn’t do that. There was no need. The book. I was so full of the book… I don’t think I killed him either. I threw him hard, but…”

“… but it would be easy for you, wouldn’t it,” Evie says softly. “Accidentally. You wouldn’t even have to exert yourself. Hell, you’d barely notice. How strong are you? Like, lift a car strong?”

Masha looks at her then, raw and scared, her eyes shining with betrayal. “Please believe me, that I had no intention of—”

Evie closes her eyes. “Just don’t.” She waves a hand, cutting Masha off.

They sit there in silence, the chirpy sounds of J-Pop and the soft klak of chopsticks and plates swirling around them. Masha folds her hands over the paper placemat, and says finally, “There was the girl. On the bed.”

“Yeah, the blindfolded girl,” Evie says. “Not exactly something they’re going to mention on the news when giving the obituary of a ‘beloved Silicon Valley entrepreneur’.”

Masha’s eyes roam the room. Everywhere but on Evie’s face. When she speaks, it’s so quiet Evie can barely hear. “I’ll bet you anything that she’s dead, too.”

“If she’s alive…?” Evie says.

Masha shrugs helplessly. “Then… then it was probably me who killed Eric.”

They box up Evie’s untouched dinner and taxi back to the hotel in awkward silence.

Masha hovers in the doorway, not touching, hands tucked under her own arms, as Evie shoves the sushi box into her room’s mini-fridge.

Seeing her body language reflected in the mirror above the dresser, Evie wonders how much Masha needs touch, too. Evie had assumed it was something Masha did for Evie’s sake, part of her whole uncanny ability to read other people’s physical needs. But now, she realizes, maybe Masha craves it just as badly. Needs simple affection, unencumbered by expectation or transaction.

Masha tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear, staring at the ground, and she’s so far away.

That inconvenient feeling in Evie’s chest twists again, that sparkling warmth that Masha-Misha causes in her by their simple proximity.

She wants to stay mad. She wants to just have a moment, a goddamn moment, where she can deal with the fact that Misha might have lost his shit and snapped Eric Overstreet’s neck while in full black-eyed demon mode.

But instead she takes four strides over to the door and throws her arms around Masha.

Masha stiffens for a moment, like she’s going to flinch away, like she thinks she doesn’t deserve this. Then she absolutely melts into Evie’s arms. “Th-thank you,” she whispers. And then, “I’m sorry.” She steps away from Evie slowly, reluctantly, and reaches out and rests her thumb under Evie’s chin. “See you tomorrow?”

“If Eric is dead, are we done here?” Evie says.

Masha presses her lips together. “I have a date with Selene Overstreet on Tuesday night. Taking her to the ballet.”

“Surely she’ll cancel?” Evie says.

“She hasn’t texted me to do so,” Masha says. “I find that curious. I find a number of things about this entire situation curious.” She shakes her head. “I want to find that girl, too. Make sure she’s okay.” Then she refocuses on Evie, her expression honest and open. From Masha, a creature of labyrinthine secrets, it feels like the rarest of blessings. “You don’t have to stay.”

“I’d like to,” Evie says.

Masha nods, then runs a hand up Evie’s neck into her hair, pulling her close for a chaste kiss on her forehead. “Until tomorrow, then, little one.”

Evie is woken up a little after 6am by her phone, trilling its way off the bedside table.

It’s Gemma, back in New York. “Evie,” she says, her normally self-assured voice rough and panicky, “have you seen the article?”

“What article?” Evie asks, even though terror clenches at her gut, because there can only be one article, and it could only have come from one place.

“It’s about us. About the agency,” Gemma says. “On Medium. It’s called—”

“—The Break-Up Artist,” Evie finishes.

“Oh thank God, you have seen it. Has Misha? He needs to call the Kieselsteins, they’re furious,” Gemma says. “And I’m getting calls from other journalists, I don’t know how they got the number, and there’s a woman who wants Misha to kill her husband.”

“Fuck,” Evie says. Her heart is pounding; she wants to vomit even though there’s nothing in her stomach. “Is there anything about our current case, here in San Francisco?”

“First paragraph,” Gemma says. “It straight-up accuses Misha of killing Eric Overstreet.”

“Fuck,” Evie groans. The sob that comes out of her throat surprises her, but then she’s crying, hot tears coming down her cheeks. “Oh fuck, Gemma, we’re so screwed.” She almost confesses to Gemma that it’s all her fault, but at the last moment she chokes it back, holding her guilt inside herself like a poison. “Don’t answer any call where you don’t recognize the number. Just let them ring out. No voicemail, no nothing. And lock the door. Any answer will be taken as encouragement for more investigation.”

“Good. That’s what I’ve been doing. I answered the first couple only because I didn’t know—”

“Gemma, you did fine. You’re the most competent person I know. Nobody’s mad at you,” Evie says. “I’ll speak to the Kieselsteins. If any of the freelancers call, tell them not to talk to anyone, and that Misha’s handling it.”

“Is he?” Gemma asks.

“I’m going to see him right now,” Evie says. “He’ll have to.”

But she doesn’t go see Misha immediately. He knows; the Kieselsteins would have already called him directly. First, she needs to understand how much damage has been done.

She makes some of the watery coffee from the hotel machine and looks up the article. The byline positively smirks at her, by Nicole Hamilton, a serious, black and white photo of Nicole next to it. The article is nothing but Evie’s notes, reordered and strung together with some innuendo-laden connecting prose. Nicole always was a lazy editor.

However, Evie is a very good investigator, and every shred of evidence, every stolen photo of Misha and Stewart Pickford, even the audio recording of Misha and Greg and Erin, it’s all there. The names of the other six suspicious deaths among the Meyer, Luchins & Black divorce clients. There’s no question where these things could have come from. Only Evie was present that afternoon with Greg and Erin; only Evie saw those photos of Misha and Stewart. Misha will know it was her.

Nicole has managed to contribute a low-resolution, overly enlarged cellphone picture of Misha and Selene from the Overstreets’ party that she must have snapped herself. There’s a few more blurry cellphone images of the aftermath: police outside the house; the fallen, broken statue of Osiris; panicking crowds.

The article doesn’t come to any meaningful conclusions. Evie had stopped writing before she learned that her facts didn’t fit any rational hypothesis because the truth was utterly irrational. But Nicole’s not writing out of journalistic integrity. It’s a hit piece, pure and simple. She even takes a swipe at Octavia Mortimer, shaming her as a wife who kept having to hire Misha to chase off the nubile young subjects of her husband’s serial philandering. There’s no final “gotcha”, only spite, and rampant speculation disguised as fact. But as far as Misha is concerned, the damage is irreparable. His name, his photo in the press, tied to unusual deaths. The scar where his heart no longer is, white and clear in the lurid photos of him and Stewart Pickford.

Near the end, Nicole mentions the book.

Evie curls up and presses the heels of her hands against her eyes until they hurt, like she can press the vision of the article out of her head, go back to a time before it existed.

In an act of almost unfathomable courage, Misha had placed his secrets, guarded so long and so fiercely, into her hands. And within a day, they’d run through her fingers like so much water, spilling all over the internet for everyone to see.

Pandora has opened the box, and her sins have flown out into the world.

And they can never, ever be put back.