BACK IN MAILAH’S ROOM, Grayson had discarded his shirt entirely, rummaging through a heavy iron chest that looked like it had been dragged through several centuries of mud.
Mailah tried to focus on the task at hand, but it was difficult when Grayson’s bare back—rippling with muscles that seed to catch every flickering candle fla—was inches from her nose.
"You’re staring," Grayson remarked, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly hum that made her toes curl.
"I’m observing," Mailah corrected, her face heating up.
Grayson turned, a dark, shimring bundle of fabric in his hands. He didn’t look like a man about to lose his properties; he looked like a predator who had just found a new ga to play. "Wear this."
He shook out the fabric. It was a suit of matte-black material that looked like liquid shadow. When Mailah touched it, the fabric felt cool, almost like water, and it seed to pull at the light in the room.
"It will dampen the sound of your footsteps and make you difficult for human eyes to track. More importantly, it will shield your heat from the museum’s thermal sensors," Grayson explained, stepping closer. The air between them suddenly felt very thin.
"How do I... get into it?"
Grayson’s lips quirked into a ghost of a smirk. "Carefully."
He helped her. The suit was ant to be a second skin, which ant Grayson had to be the one to guide her arms and pull the material up her legs. Every brush of his fingers against her skin felt like a brand. When he reached her waist, his hands lingered on her hips, his thumbs tracing the bone through the thin fabric.
"Grayson," she breathed, her hands resting on his bare shoulders to steady herself.
He looked up, his eyes dark with a simring intensity that made her knees feel like jelly. "Mailah..."
He leaned in, his forehead resting against hers for a heartbeat. The possessiveness in his gaze was intoxicating—a heady mix of prince and protector. "If anything goes wrong, I will level that building before I let them touch you."
"That sounds like it would ruin the ’undetectable’ part of the plan," she whispered, her heart hamring against her ribs.
"A minor detail," he murmured, before pressing a swift, searing kiss to the hollow of her throat.
The descent into the wine cellar was less "romantic getaway" and more "testing the limits of Mailah’s claustrophobia."
Lucson led the way. Mason and Ravenson followed like twin shadows, while Carson brought up the rear, still humming a tune that sounded suspiciously like a pop song Mailah had heard last week.
"Quiet, Carson," Lucson hissed, pausing by a massive, dusty vat of what slled like very old vinegar.
"I’m just keeping the morale up!" Carson whispered back. "Besides, Barnaby likes music."
"Who is Barnaby?" Mailah asked, clutching Grayson’s hand.
As if in answer, a pair of glowing, milky-white eyes peered out from behind a stack of crates. A creature that looked like a very dehydrated, very grumpy hairless cat—only the size of a Great Dane—slithered out into the light. It let out a sound like a wet cough.
"The basent ghoul," Grayson muttered, pulling Mailah behind him.
"Oh, don’t mind him," Carson said, tossing a piece of dried at toward the creature. Barnaby caught it mid-air with a snap of jagged teeth. "He’s been the Ashford security system for three hundred years. He’s just bitter because he hasn’t had a proper toe to chew on in decades."
Barnaby hissed at Lucson, who ignored him with practiced boredom, and then sniffed toward Mailah.
Grayson’s grip on her hand tightened, a low growl vibrating in his chest. The ghoul imdiately backed off, whining and retreating into the darkness.
Lucson pressed a hidden brick in the wall, and a section of the stone slid back with a heavy groan, revealing a tunnel that slled of damp earth. "This leads to the city sewers. From there, we surface two blocks from the museum."
Retrieving the Sigil wasn’t just about getting into the building; it was about the glass Mason had ntioned. To beat human tech, they needed a specific kind of insider knowledge.
They found their "expert" in a high-rise apartnt overlooking the city.
Arthur Penhaligon was the lead security consultant for the museum—a man who lived for encrypted codes and laser-grid patterns. He was also currently wearing a silk robe and eating cereal at 11:00 PM when the five Ashford brothers and one very confused human woman appeared in his living room.
Arthur dropped his spoon. "Who... how did you get past the—"
"The biotric lock?" Lucson finished, adjusting his sleeves. "It was quite basic, Arthur. We need to talk about your alarms."
"I’m calling the police," Arthur stamred, reaching for his phone.
Grayson stepped forward. He didn’t use violence. He didn’t even raise his voice.
He simply caught Arthur’s gaze with his own. His eyes a srizing vortex of light that seed to pull the very air out of Arthur’s lungs.
"You are going to be very helpful, Arthur," Grayson said, his voice smooth and hypnotic. "You are going to tell us how to bypass the pressure sensors on Display Case 42. And then, you are going to forget we were ever here."
Mailah watched in awe as Arthur’s face went slack. It wasn’t the scary, mind-wiping magic she’d seen in movies; it was more like Grayson was gently rearranging the man’s priorities.
"The sensors are linked to a localized weight-plate," Arthur droned, his eyes glazed as Grayson’s influence held him steady. "You must use a counter-weight within a 0.5-gram margin of error. There is a multi-spectrum laser grid and thermal imaging. If the air temperature fluctuates by more than two degrees, the police are alerted automatically."
Lucson frowned, calculating the risk. "Even in exile, our core temperature is higher than a human’s. If we try to use a shadow-step or telekinesis near that case, the sensors will pick up the energy spike as a fire hazard."
"So, basically, we are too ’hot’ for the room," Carson interjected, leaning over Arthur’s shoulder to steal a handful of dry cereal from his bowl. He crunched loudly, grinning at Mailah. "And not just in the way that makes the ladies swoon. We’re literal walking heat-lamps to those machines."
Arthur nodded slowly, his voice a flat monotone. "The system is designed to detect intruders, but it is calibrated for standard biological signatures. A human of small stature would be the most difficult for the thermal sensors to differentiate from the ambient room temperature."
The room went silent. All eyes turned to Mailah.
"No," Grayson said instantly. His eyes flared with a protective, possessive fire that made the air in the apartnt grow heavy. "She stays back. I will find a way to mask my signature."
"Grayson, don’t be stubborn," Lucson said, his voice calm but firm. "Even if you mask your heat, your displacent of the air is too great. She is the only one who can move through that grid without triggering a spike. We provide the distraction, we neutralize the guards, but Mailah has to be the one to make the swap."
"She isn’t a thief," Grayson snapped, stepping between his brothers and Mailah, his hand already reaching for her as if to shield her from the very idea. "She isn’t trained to navigate a high-tech human fortress."
"I can do it," Mailah said. Her voice was surprisingly steady, cutting through Grayson’s protective fog.
She stepped around him, taking his hand and squeezing it. "I’ve spent my whole life being ’just a human’ in a world that felt too big for . These are human machines, Grayson. I know how they think. If I can help you get your power back, I’m doing it."
Grayson looked down at her, his expression a tortured mix of pride and sheer terror. "It’s dangerous. If they catch you, I won’t be able to hold back."
"Then just make sure they don’t catch ," she challenged, a playful, daring spark in her eyes that mirrored the fire he’d seen in her the night before. "That’s what you’re good at, right? Being the big, scary distraction?"
Grayson let out a frustrated, low breath that sounded almost like a growl of surrender.
He leaned down, his eyes searching hers with an intensity that made her heart skip. "I hate it when you’re right."
The National Museum was a fortress of marble and moonlight.
"Roles," Lucson whispered as they crouched on the roof of the adjacent building.
"Mason and Ravenson, you’re on ’Ghost Duty,’" Lucson continued. "Use the shadows to neutralize the guards. No blood. If they wake up with a headache and a vague mory of a tall man in a cape, that’s fine."
Mason nodded, disappearing into the darkness before Lucson even finished the sentence.
"Carson, you’re the ’Noise,’" Lucson said.
"My favorite role!" Carson chirped. He held up a small, shimring orb. "One illusion of a rogue trash-fire in the east wing, coming right up."
"And Grayson," Lucson looked at his brother. "You and Mailah are the ’Extractors.’ I will be in the security room, keeping Arthur’s ntal link active so the caras show a loop of an empty hall."
Grayson turned to Mailah.
He looked different now—darker, more focused. The "exile" status ant their powers were limited, like a battery that couldn’t be recharged.
"To hold a sustained shadow-veil and keep us off those thermal caras, I need to push past my current limits," Grayson said softly, his eyes searching hers in the dim moonlight. "But in this exile, my core energy is running on fus."
"What do you need?" Mailah asked, her voice a small breath of air.
"A feed," he whispered.
Mailah blinked, her mind racing that she forgot how Grayson usually feeds. "Like... blood? Do you need to bite ?"
"No," Grayson shockingly chuckled, the sound rich, dark, and undeniably sexy.
He stepped into her space, his hands sliding up to cup her face, his palms warm against her skin. "Demon energy in this world is fueled by intensity. By raw emotion. By... passion."
His thumbs grazed her cheekbones, his gaze dropping to her lips. "I need you to give sothing to work with, Mailah."
He didn’t wait for an answer. He pulled her in, his mouth crashing against hers with a desperate, hungry intensity. It wasn’t the gentle kiss from before; it was a claim.
Mailah gasped into his mouth, her fingers tangling in his hair as the world around them seed to dissolve.
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