“Shut up. I know, so don’t nag me. And stop trying to distract me! We're talking about business. Do not get in my way.”

The shift was palpable. One moment Gabi was all honeyed words and playful banter with her baker friend, and the next she was coiled tension and barely-contained violence. Jaffe found herself utterly intoxicated by it. The way Gabi's mood could flip like a switch, the way her eyes burned with that familiar red undertone when her patience frayed - it sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with the morning chill.

There she is. There's my little monster.

Jaffe popped the last bite of her crookie into her mouth, but she barely tasted it. How could she focus on something as mundane as food when Gabi was standing there looking like that? The leather jacket hugging her frame - thirty-four inches at the chest, twenty-six at the waist, she'd estimated months ago and confirmed with her hands just last night - the way her dark hair fell across her shoulders, the tension in her jaw that made Jaffe want to trace it with her tongue. Then snap it clean off and mount it on her wall.

Those teeth alone would fetch three thousand on the right market. Maybe more. Dimea enamel is so rare these days.

She'd spent months watching this woman from a distance - through binoculars, through windows, through the gaps in crowds at press events. But now? Now she could smell her. Could still taste traces of her on her own lips from the night before. Could vividly imagine what that pretty pale throat would look like split open, black blood pooling in the hollow of her collarbone.

Mine. Every inch of you. Living or dead. You just don't know it yet.

But there was something else here too. Something useful.

Jaffe let her gaze drift to the baker - Jenn, Gabi had called her. Childhood friend. Someone who'd known the darkness claimant before she'd become this: heiress to a legacy of violence, daughter of the most feared man on the continent, a creature of shadow and fury wrapped in deceptively soft packaging.

Now isn't that interesting.

The woman was pretty in a wholesome, flour-dusted sort of way - all warm brown skin and kind eyes and an accent that dripped like honey from her tongue. Southern roots, Jaffe catalogued automatically. Georgia, maybe. Alabama. Somewhere that bred hospitality into the bone. She'd moved with easy confidence behind her counter, clearly comfortable in her domain, and when she'd handed over the crookie, her fingers had lingered just a moment longer than strictly necessary.

Oh, she's noticed me. Good.

Jaffe ignored Gabi's questions and threats to instead approach the counter that Jenn was busying herself at. Restocking, perhaps. This was a perfect time to test and poke at something of Gabi without it being the obvious. Still no less entertaining. "This was absolutely divine," Jaffe said, turning her attention fully to Jenn with a smile that was all warmth and no teeth. A different mask than the one she wore for Gabi - softer, safer, the kind of expression that made people want to trust her. "Seriously. I've had pastries in Paris, croissants in Copenhagen, but this?" She pressed a hand to her chest, eyes widening with theatrical sincerity. "This might be the best thing I've ever put in my mouth."

She let the innuendo hang there, light enough to be deniable, heavy enough to land.

Jenn's smile widened, a hand settling on her hip. "Well, ain't you sweet," she said, that accent curling around the words like smoke. "Y'all come back anytime, hear? I'll save you the good stuff from the mornin' batch."

"I might just take you up on that." Jaffe leaned against the counter. "I'm here on business, you see. Don't know many people yet. It's so nice to meet someone friendly."

And so easy to read. You're lonely, aren't you, sweetheart? Running this place all by yourself, watching your childhood sweetheart spiral into darkness, wondering where you fit in her world anymore. I could use that. I could use you.

"Gabi here has been showing me around," Jaffe continued, gesturing lazily toward the darkness claimant. She could feel Gabi's glare boring into the side of her head, could practically taste her irritation, and it only made her smile wider. "But you know how she is. I'd love to hear more about the area and all about Gabi with braces and acne. Maybe over coffee sometime? I'm sure you have all sorts of stories."

Stories about Gabi. About her family. About the little girl she used to be before the House of Darkness sank its claws into her. Information is currency, sweetheart, and you're sitting on a goldmine without even knowing it.

"I—" Jenn started, but Gabi cut her off with a sound that was half growl, half warning.

"We need to go." The words came out clipped, dangerous. "Now."

"So impatient." Jaffe pushed off the counter with a sigh, letting her fingers trail along the surface as she moved toward Gabi. "But she's right - we do have business to attend to. Very time-sensitive business."

She caught Jenn's eye one more time, let her smile soften into something almost conspiratorial.

"Rain check on that coffee?"

"Sure, hon." Jenn's accent wrapped around the word like a warm blanket. "Y'all be safe out there, whatever you're gettin' into."

Oh, if only you knew.

Jaffe followed Gabi toward the door, but not before snagging a business card from the little holder on the counter. *Butter Doll's Bakery.* She tucked it into her pocket with the ease of long practice, already composing the approach she'd use when she came back alone.

Everyone has secrets. Everyone has pressure points. And people who've known someone since childhood? They have the best secrets of all.

---

The morning air hit her face like a slap as they stepped outside, crisp and clean and carrying the faint scent of hay from the surrounding farmland. Jaffe breathed it in, let it wash away the cloying sweetness of the bakery, and turned to face Gabi with a grin that showed all her teeth.

"Don't look at me like that, little bird. I was just being friendly."

"You were being a predator." Gabi's voice was flat, her eyes burning red at the edges. "She's not part of this."

"Everyone's part of something." Jaffe moved closer, crowding into Gabi's space the way she always did - unable to help herself, drawn like a moth to a flame she knew would burn her. "Besides, I wasn't lying. That crookie really was exceptional. Your friend has talent."

And information. And a soft heart that would crack like an egg if I applied the right pressure. But you don't need to know that. Not yet.

"Stay away from her."

"Or what?" Jaffe tilted her head, studying the tension in Gabi's jaw, the way her hands had curled into fists at her sides. Beautiful. You're so beautiful when you're angry. "You'll kill me? We both know you need me too much for that. At least..." She reached out, bold as anything, and traced a finger along the edge of Gabi's leather jacket. "...for now."

The touch was electric. Even through the leather, Jaffe could feel the heat of Gabi's body, could sense the coiled violence lurking just beneath the surface. She wanted to push harder, wanted to see how far she could go before those claws came out - but there was business to attend to. Real business.

Focus. You can play with your food later.

"But you're right," Jaffe said, letting her hand drop. "We should talk. Not here - I clocked at least three lines of sight from the road, and I'd rather not have this conversation where anyone with a decent scope could listen in."

She nodded toward the fields stretching out behind the bakery, toward a distant structure that looked like it had seen better decades.

"There's an abandoned barn about a mile that way. Used to be a slaughterhouse, back when this was all working farmland." Her lips curled into something dark. "Fitting, don't you think? For what we're planning."

---

The walk took fifteen minutes, and Jaffe spent every second of it watching Gabi.

The way she moved - liquid and lethal, like a predator who'd learned to hide in plain sight. The way her shoulders stayed tense, never quite relaxing, always ready for an attack from any direction. The way her wings stayed hidden but present, a shadow along her spine that whispered of power barely contained.

Twelve feet at full span. I measured once, from a distance, when you didn't know I was watching. Fifty thousand on the black market, easy. But I'd never sell them. I'd mount them above my bed and fall asleep every night with you watching over me.

"You're staring."

"I'm always staring." Jaffe didn't bother to deny it. What was the point? Gabi knew what she was - knew about the months of surveillance, the obsessive cataloguing, the way Jaffe's attention fixed on her like a hawk on a rabbit. There was no use pretending to be anything other than exactly what she was.

A stalker. A collector. A woman so thoroughly consumed by want that she'd burned her entire life down just to stand in Gabi's orbit.

"You're not as subtle as you think you are," Gabi said, but there was something almost fond in her voice. Or maybe Jaffe was just projecting. It was hard to tell with the Dimea woman - hard to know what was genuine and what was another layer of mask.

"I'm not trying to be subtle." They'd reached the barn now, its doors hanging half off their hinges, the interior dark and musty with disuse. Jaffe pushed through first, scanning the space out of habit. Clear. No recent activity. Good. "Subtlety is for people who are afraid of being seen. I want you to see me, little bird. I want you to see exactly what you're dealing with."

She turned, found Gabi silhouetted in the doorway with morning light haloing her dark hair.

God, you're stunning. I want to worship you. I want to destroy you. I want to own every piece of you until there's nothing left for anyone else.

"So." Jaffe leaned against a support beam, crossing her arms over her chest. The movement pulled her jacket tight, showing the lines of muscle beneath - she wasn't as strong as Gabi, not even close, but she hadn't survived this long without learning how to hold her own. "Let's talk about Ballafex."

Gabi's expression shifted at the name, something dark and hungry flickering behind her eyes. There it is. That's what I'm working with. Not just vengeance - obsession. We're the same, you and I. We just wear it differently.

"You said you had information."

"I said I had a proposition." Jaffe smiled, all teeth. "The information is part of it. But first, I need to know you're serious about this. That you're not going to waste my time with half-measures and cold feet."

"I've been hunting him for years."

"Hunting, yes. But have you ever actually gotten *close*?" Jaffe pushed off the beam, started circling the space with slow, deliberate steps. Predator's movement. It was easier to think when she was moving, easier to keep her thoughts from spiraling into *Gabi Gabi Gabi* on an endless loop. "Because I have. Or rather, my contacts have. And what they've found is... interesting."

She paused, letting the silence stretch. Letting Gabi's impatience build.

"He's asleep."

"What?"

"Ballafex." Jaffe turned to face her, watching the confusion flicker across those sharp features. "He's been dormant for... honestly, I don't know how long. Decades, probably. Maybe centuries. Buried under a hill somewhere, curled up like a dragon on its hoard, waiting for god knows what to wake him up."

She started moving again, circling closer to Gabi with each pass.

"But here's the thing - he *moved*. Recently. For the first time in living memory, something disturbed his sleep, and he shifted position. Changed locations." Her voice dropped, intimate as a lover's whisper. "My contact tracked the disturbance. Followed the trail. And now, for the first time in maybe forever, we know exactly where the bastard is resting his head."

Gabi's eyes were blazing now, red bleeding through the dark irises until they looked like burning coals.

"Where?"

"Ah ah ah." Jaffe held up a finger, grinning. "That's not how this works, little bird. Information is my currency, remember? I don't give it away for free."

"Then what do you want?"

You. All of you. Every piece, every secret, every dark and terrible thing hiding behind those beautiful eyes.

"A partnership," Jaffe said instead. "A real one. I provide the intelligence - the location, the layout, the timing of his sleep cycles, everything you need to walk in there and put him down for good. And you..." She gestured at Gabi's body, at the power barely contained beneath that soft-looking exterior. "You provide the muscle. The raw firepower that I, unfortunately, lack."

It stung to admit, even obliquely. Jaffe was a claimant in her own right - House of Water, with all the abilities that entailed. She could hold her own in most fights, had killed more people than she could count over the years, had built a reputation that made most smart people cross the street when they saw her coming.

But Gabi was something else entirely. Daughter of the House of Darkness, heir to a legacy of violence that stretched back millennia. In a straight fight, no tricks, no preparation... Jaffe would lose. She knew it. Hated it. *Wanted* it, in some twisted way, wanted to feel that power turned against her, wanted to know what it felt like to be broken by someone stronger.

Later. Focus on the job.

"You want me to be your attack dog."

"I want you to be my partner." Jaffe stopped circling, faced Gabi head-on. "There's a difference. An attack dog follows orders. A partner makes decisions. And believe me, when we're standing over Ballafex's corpse, you'll want the freedom to make your own choices about how he dies."

She let that image linger - Ballafex, broken and bleeding, finally within reach after all these years.

"But here's the catch," Jaffe continued, and now her voice took on a teasing edge. "This information is time-sensitive. He moved once - he could move again. My contact is good, but she's not miracle worker. If we wait too long, we lose the trail entirely."

She stepped closer, close enough to see the individual threads of red in Gabi's eyes, close enough to smell the shampoo in her hair and the leather of her jacket and the faint, intoxicating undercurrent of darkness that clung to her like perfume.

"So tell me, gorgeous." Jaffe's voice dropped to something barely above a whisper, intimate and mocking all at once. "How long do you need to get ready? Days? Weeks?" She tilted her head, let her smile turn sharp. "I know you darkness claimants love your rituals and your preparations. All that brooding and monologuing before a big fight. But I need to know we're on the same page here."

She reached out, traced a finger along the collar of Gabi's jacket, feeling the heat of her skin through the leather.

"Can you move fast when it matters? Or am I going to have to find someone else to help me carve up the most powerful creature on this continent?"

Say yes. Say you're ready. Say you want this as badly as I do - the hunt, the kill, the pleasure of watching something ancient and terrible finally die.

And then, when it's over... we can discuss what happens next.

Her finger trailed up, along the line of Gabi's jaw, stopping just short of her lips.

"Tick tock, little bird. The clock is running."