Celeste:

  I had just whispered something unspeakable against Ethan’s throat — something sweet, something threatening — when the doorknob clicked.

  We froze, lips still touching, breath caught mid-sin.

  Then came the sound of heels.

  Multiple pairs.

  Voices. Familiar ones. Too polished. Too calculating.

  My aunt Geneviève — silver-haired, sharper than arsenic. My cousin Amara — sweet-faced, but only if you didn’t know her body count. And the third voice?

  Uncle Thorne.

  Always late. Always smug. Always plotting.

  Their voices bled through the thick bathroom door like blood under tile.

  “We’ll make it quick,” Geneviève was saying. “The library’s too exposed. Thorne, you brought the maps?”

  “I don’t need a map to gut Vincent’s entire dock operation. I need access,” he grunted.

  They were coming in.

  For a “meeting.” For “planning.”

  And they were about to walk into the wrong kind of war.

  Ethan:

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  I looked at Celeste.

  Her lips were still parted. Lipstick slightly smeared. Her hands were still on my chest, firm and possessive.

  She smiled.

  The slow, dangerous kind.

  The kind that meant she wasn’t going to stop anything.

  The doorknob twisted fully now.

  I caught her wrist gently.

  “We should stop,” I whispered against her ear.

  “Oh, definitely,” she purred, pressing even closer.

  But she didn’t move.

  Neither did I.

  The door creaked open—

  And the trio of family snakes froze mid-step on the threshold.

  Geneviève: “...Well.”

  Amara: “Wow. This is—wow.”

  Thorne: “Oh for f—”

  Celeste:

  I turned toward them slowly, not breaking contact with Ethan’s hand on my waist. I didn’t bother fixing my lipstick.

  “You wanted a private room,” I said, voice smooth as silk soaked in blood. “And here we are.”

  Geneviève looked me up and down with that subtle Lysandre sneer.

  “I thought you were more... discreet.”

  I smiled wider.

  “And I thought you were less predictable.”

  Amara covered her mouth, halfway between horror and curiosity.

  “Are we interrupting... something official?”

  Ethan leaned lazily against the doorframe, utterly unfazed. “Just a bit of post-murder romance. Newlywed things.”

  Thorne made a noise like he’d just swallowed a lemon.

  “I told you this room would be occupied.”

  Ethan:

  I straightened up, brushed a hand down my jacket like I hadn’t just been kissing a woman who kills dreams and drinks secrets for sport.

  Celeste’s relatives tried to pretend they weren’t rattled.

  But their eyes kept flicking between us.

  Her lipstick on my mouth.

  My fingerprints still on her waist.

  The unspoken fact that they had plans — and they walked in on a stronger one.

  “Are we excused?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Geneviève said tightly.

  Amara stepped aside, trying not to look at the bite mark blooming just beneath my collar.

  As we passed, I leaned toward Thorne.

  “Be careful what you plan in Lysandre bathrooms,” I whispered. “You might not walk out.”

  Celeste:

  We didn’t even look back.

  We walked out like royalty.

  Like we didn’t care who saw.

  Because we didn’t.

  Because that was the point.

  Let them scheme.

  Let them plot in the powder room like rats in couture.

  They’d never beat us.

  Not when love looked like this.

  Not when we could weaponize intimacy like a bomb hidden in a kiss.