Page 100 of Thirst
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Nyx
Funny, how I hadn’t really known Cain until he’d kidnapped me. Not the man behind the reputation, the man who’d grown up wild and unwanted.
I’d only known the Cain who could make me burn with a single, hooded glance.
But last night had changed something.
I sat at the kitchenette counter, doodling on a blank page. My gaze drifted to the canvases he’d brought me, the ones I hadn’t touched yet because starting a painting felt somehow permanent. Oils took time—to paint, to dry.
I was still his prisoner. I should’ve been plotting my next move.
Instead, I kept circling back to his face when he’d opened up. I’d seen no calculation, just painful vulnerability.
He’d shared a part of himself with me. A truth.
And I felt honored.
That was the part that unsettled me the most. Not the confinement, not the maneuvering to get to my father. But the way he’d handed me a piece of his story, exposed himself without asking anything in return.
Now I was doubting everything. Did I want to keep fighting him? Did I really want to leave?
That bright new life I’d pictured for myself—freedom, safety—had lost its shine. Instead, it looked like one of my charcoal sketches, a world without color or heat. Without Cain.
That’s when I realized I’d forgiven him. That I respected him for his loyalty to his friends and syndicate.
Of course, he hadn’t chosen me over Brien and Talon. They were his family. I hadn’t truly understood how deep that bond ran until now.
I sketched a wall of moonflowers opening as the sun went down behind a black turret. A threshold scene—something shifting, something beginning.
Because I’d felt something, last night. Something that had sparked my hope again, small but stubborn.
Maybe—just maybe—there was a place for me in Cain’s family.
A place for me with him.
A knock on the door made my heart leap. “Nyx?” called Cain.
“Come in,” I called back, closing the pad.
I swung around, smiling, as he entered, until three more people crowded in after him—Brien, Talon, and a slim woman in cropped black pants and a metallic pink shirt—the new prima, Twilight.
The entire upper hierarchy of the Maritime Syndicate.
My pulse picked up, and not in a good way. I slid off the stool, searching Cain’s face. “What happened?”
“We got a text from Nazaire—a photo.”
I didn’t like how the corners of his mouth had pulled downward, like he was sorry in advance. A chill snaked down my spine. “And?”
He held out my phone. “Do you know this woman?”
I snatched the device from him. My throat closed.
“It’s Perla,” I managed.
The housekeeper sat huddled against a stone wall, face bruised, eyes empty. Barefoot, her hair tangled around her face, her navy dress torn. More bruises were visible on the arms she’d wrapped around her legs, like she was trying to fold herself into a smaller target.
