Page 98 of Maksym

“Everything here is political.”

“Including the sex?”

“Especially the sex, though not in the way you mean.” I rested one forearm on the chair. “Supernaturals are often freer with expressions of pleasure than humans allow themselves to be. Long lives breed either restraint or indulgence. Sometimes both in the same hour. But consent is the first rule here. Mutual pleasure is the goal, whether the exchange involves bodies, feeding, magic, dominance, submission, or merely being watched.”

Her throat moved.

She looked down over the rail toward the main floor, where a vampire woman in a red dress laughed as a human man offered his wrist across a table. He wore a discreet obsidian pendant. His pulse fluttered visibly at his throat, but his expression held anticipation, not fear.

“Every pendant marks consent boundaries,” I said. “Color, shape, and inner sigil. Staff know them. Monitors know them. The wards know them.”

“The wards know consent.”

“Yes.”

Grace’s eyes remained below. “That is more than the human justice system managed half the time.”

I did not insult her with comfort.

Instead, I said, “If anything in this club makes you uncomfortable, even slightly, you say the word and we leave.”

She turned her head toward me.

“I mean that,” I said. “No explanation required. No apology. No performance of tolerance for my benefit, my father’s, or anyone else’s. You say leave, and we leave.”

Her eyes searched mine.

The music moved beneath us. The purple light touched the sharp line of her cheekbone, the dark red of her hair, the faint silver marks at her throat no healing had fully erased. I wanted to kill again for those marks. I would. Later.

For now, she needed not rage but choice.

“Okay,” she said.

Only that. It was enough.

A bartender approached from the VIP bar carrying a silver tray.

Kyra moved with quiet competence, short spiky brown hair catching the light, olive skin warm beneath the purple glow. She gave me a slight bow, then Grace, her manner friendly without presuming intimacy.

“Your Grace,” she said. “My lady.”

Grace accepted the title with less visible calculation this time.

Kyra placed two glasses on the table between us. The blood wine was dark garnet, thick enough to hold light.

“For you both,” Kyra said. “A warm O-negative base, fortified with royal reserve from the western collection, blended with a 1923 Rhone infusion and a trace of black cherry tincture. Low iron bite, smooth finish. Good for travel recovery.”

Grace blinked.

I picked up one glass. “Thank you, Kyra.”

Her smile warmed. “Of course, Your Grace.”

Not dismissal. Acknowledgment. She had earned more than politeness from the Kozlov family, though that was not my story to tell Grace unless Kyra chose it. My father had freed her. She served him not as property, but as proof that loyalty could grow where coercion had been cut away.

Grace lifted her glass and inhaled cautiously. Then she took a sip. Her lashes lowered.

The reaction was brief, quickly contained, and nevertheless struck me low in the body. Hunger answered in her with elegance now, not desperation. The blood wine did what Kyra promised. Warmth returned to Grace’s face. Her shoulders eased by a fraction.