Page 35 of Arrow

The audience stilled. Even the unicorn couples, wild-eyed and red-knuckled at their private cages, froze in the glare of her performance. The suffering was real enough that even I, a connoisseur, felt the old, slow tickle in the back of my skull, a pleasure so sharp it calcified into wonder.

Zephyr pressed forward and, in a flourish, twisted her head to the side, exposing her throat, and the belt pressed deep at her pulse. He set the heel of his palm above the collar and bore down by fractions, millimeters, until her face purpled, her cheeks ballooning in a way that was almost comical until you noted the splay of her legs and the way her eyes fixed on a spot far above the balconies, where the light had ruptured into a tiny, perfect halo.

The audience held its breath now. Zephyr released. Harlowe sagged, drooling at the mouth, perfectly slack for a half-second before she exploded, where her elbows jerked hard against the binding. Her shoulders strained until the crowd collectively gasped, thinking she’d snap both at the socket.

She never broke herself, not entirely. She knew how to balance the damage and keep the attention. Zephyr guided her to the wood, hand flattening over her skull to hold her bowed, as if praying at gunpoint.

In the front row, a hedge-fund Dracula in a Hermès tie missed his date’s mouth while feeding her a cherry. Slick daubs of juice ran down her chin as she watched, enthralled.

Further back, a woman’s stifled sob wove through the dark as her dom squeezed her shoulder in approval.

Harlowe was the cathedral’s main event and its sacrificial lamb, every eye locked on her, but now it was different, because now she knew I was here.

She shouldn’t have looked at me. There are rules in this business, written in the marrow, and the first is, you never glance at the hunter while the act is still going on. It gives too much away.

Zephyr’s eyes tracked her gaze, then shot to me, and I nodded, giving him permission, an animal tic of respect and resignation. He throttled her tighter in the belt, a single cruel beat past comfort, the way you check if a tooth is rotten by tapping it until the nerve screams. Her jaw spasmed. Her throat bobbed.

There are a million micro-compromises for surrender, but Harlowe made them all look magnificent.

He released her neck, let her collapse onto her shoulder, hair spilling like a mourning dress over her face. Pausing, Zephyr studied the twitch of her hands behind her back, then lifted her again so the audience could see the aftermath: ruined, gasping, but with a glint of triumph in the whites of her eyes. He spun her, her elbows banded by leather, her hair pasted in stripes over her mouth, and set her upright again.

That’s when I broke the rules and walked onstage.

I didn’t do it for spectacle. I did it because if anyone was going to own her humiliation, it would be me.

The bouncers recognized me and looked away as I approached the stage. The crowd watched me with wide eyes and their half-smothered greed was palpable as they anticipated something better than rehearsed violence. Zephyr clocked me first, and for a moment, the scorn in his eyes was nearly noble, while his hand rested on Harlowe’s shoulder.

I didn’t slow down. I walked right through the low footlights and stepped to Harlowe’s side. Her chest heaved, sweat between her breasts glistening in the lights. Her mouth was open, but her eyes were fixed on the crowd, refusing to look my way. I closed my hand over the back of her neck, thumb under her wet jaw, and lifted her gently to her knees. She shuddered, maybe from the effort, maybe from the shame, maybe from hope that I’d finish it with a single snap.

The leather belt dug deep into the flesh above her collarbones. I let my fingers trace the bruised map there, demonstrating for the crowd the new territory: mine, now, not Zephyr’s, not anyone else’s.

Zephyr’s hands hovered, uncertain. He regarded me, and for a second, the distilled hatred between us felt clean, like the moment before a prizefight. It was quiet and sacred.

With flat, measured care, I undid the buckle at Harlowe’s elbows first. She didn’t tremble, but the way she flexed against the binding made it seem as though she relished the pain of returning blood, the shock of sensation spiraling up her arms.

I waited for her to either thank me or spit in my face.

Harlowe did neither.

Instead, she stared out across the auditorium, daring anyone in the dark to look away.

So, I offered her my hand. Not because I was a gentleman, but because I wanted every asshole in the room to see that if you could ruin a thing this perfectly, you should also have the right to display it.

She took it. She knew optics.

The crowd saw a transfer of power, and maybe it was—her to me, me to her, but never, ever to them.

Zephyr bowed low in a pantomime of defeat. Good man. He’d known how to lose since before he knew how to win. I caught his gaze and nodded once, signaling that whatever debts clustered around Harlowe tonight, they were paid. He dipped his head and disappeared to the wings, where the rest of the pain-freaks and exhibitionists hovered hungrily.

Under the spotlight, Harlowe held her ground. Her breaths stuttered, raw and wet, but she made no play for dignity. She let the crowd see the ruin—arms striped in purple, ribs laddered with red, jaw hanging at an insolent tilt. I leaned in, lips at her ear, and said, “Are you satisfied now, moya malen’kaya gadyuka?”⁠*

“Not even close,” she whispered back, her voice ruined from the show, but the defiance in it was undiminished. “Will you finish it, killer?”

I pressed my mouth to her ear, my teeth grazing the delicate cartilage. “Do you want mercy or spectacle?”

“Neither.” She let the word hitch, then angled her face to me in a perfect, insolent dare.

She pulled her hand from mine and walked to the altar beneath the stone cross, watching me as I approached. The crowd, sensing a once-in-a-century violence about to snap, fell silent, voices stilled mid-gasp, drinks forgotten in midair. Every man, woman, and animal packed into the velvet pews of La Lune Noire measured their next breath against what I would do with my enemy bride.