Three
Ezra Raine didn’t believe in accidents.
Especially not when they involved ancient curses, glowing sigils, and a woman who walked into his life like she owned the goddamn storm.
And yet here he was half-dressed, half-pissed, and fully cursed watching the one person he shouldn’t trust standing in front of the sealed mirror room.
Barefoot. In his shirt. Hair down. Eyes locked on the one thing that could unravel everything.
“Back away from the door,” Ezra said, voice low.
Lira Black turned slowly. Unfazed. Defiant.
“What is this place?” she asked.
Her hand hovered near the threshold. One step and she’d be inside. One step and she’d see.
Ezra’s pulse kicked up. “I told you to stay out of the east wing.”
“You told me not to touch your scotch,” she said. “You never said anything about the whispering walls.”
Whispers. Shit. The mirror was active again.
Ezra closed the distance in seconds, stepping between her and the room. He didn’t touch her, but his presence alone was enough to make the air shift.
“You have no idea what’s in there,” he said.
“No. But you do.” Her voice dropped. “You were going to let me walk through this house blind. Pretend like this part doesn’t exist.”
“Because if you look into that mirror,” Ezra said, “it won’t just reflect you. It’ll mark you.”
Her lips curled slightly. “Maybe I’m already marked.”
She brushed past him before he could stop her.
Ezra swore and followed.
The room swallowed them in silence. Cold, heavy silence. The kind that lives in tombs and battlefields. Mirrors lined the walls—dark, warped glass stretching up into shadows.
At the center stood the mirror.
Not silver. Not clean. Black glass. Breathing, almost. The surface swirled faintly like smoke trapped beneath ice.
Lira stopped in front of it.
Ezra didn’t move. He stayed a few steps behind, arms crossed, heart ticking louder with every second.
She stared into the glass.
And it stared back.
“What is it showing me?” she whispered.
Ezra’s jaw tightened.
He already knew what she was seeing. He’d seen his own future in that mirror too many times to count and every time, it got worse.
But Lira…
He watched her reflection morph.
The glass rippled.
Gone was the woman in his shirt and sharp eyes.
In her place stood someone ancient.
A queen in armor. A crown hovering just above her brow. Her eyes were gold and bleeding power. The sigil of the curse burned along her collarbone like a brand.
Ezra stepped forward. “Look away.”
But Lira didn’t move.
“She’s me,” she said.
“She’s not,” Ezra growled. “She’s what the curse wants you to be. The version it feeds.”
“And who does it want you to be?”
Ezra hesitated.
She turned, finally tearing her gaze from the mirror.
“What did it show you?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he stepped forward and slammed his palm against the side of the mirror. A pulse of red light spread through the room. The glass screamed actually screamed then stilled.
Silence.
He turned to her. “If you ever enter this room again, I’ll throw you out of this tower myself.”
She arched a brow. “Are you always this charming when women wander into your secrets?”
Ezra didn’t blink. “Only when the secrets can kill them.”
He walked past her, leaving the air cold behind him.
They didn’t speak for two days.
Lira kept to her side of the penthouse. Ezra kept to the shadows of his private floors, the ones carved in stone and warded in blood.
But the curse didn’t sleep.
Every night, it coiled tighter around his spine. Every time she walked by, the tether between them sparked like static. It wasn’t just magic. It was something older. A bond the curse liked too much.
That made it dangerous.
Worse, she’d started training again in his gym.
He watched her through the one-way glass sometimes. The way she moved. The way she didn’t flinch. She wasn’t just a streetfighter. She had bloodlines in her. Power she hadn’t tapped yet.
And the curse wanted her.
Which meant Ezra had to keep her alive.
Even if she hated him for it.
By the third night, Ezra gave up pretending to sleep. He threw on a black combat shirt, tied back his hair, and headed to the sparring floor.
She was already there.
Barefoot. Tank top. Shadowed eyes. Training knives in hand.
He paused in the doorway. She didn’t look up.
“You watching or joining?” she asked.
Ezra stepped in.
“Depends,” he said. “You planning on listening this time?”
“Not unless you’ve started making sense.”
He took the mat across from her.
No warmup. No small talk.
She tossed him a blade. He caught it. “Rules?”
She grinned. “Don’t die.”
Then she lunged.
Fast. Wild. Unpredictable. He blocked, twisted, countered. She spun, ducked low, and nearly cut his side. Ezra moved just in time. Her blade grazed his shirt instead.
“Getting slow, Raine.”
He grabbed her wrist, pinned her arm, and flipped her—just enough to make her grunt when she hit the mat.
He leaned down, knife against her throat.
“You think the curse cares how fast you are?”
Lira stared up at him, breath hot.
“I think it’s afraid of me,” she said.
Ezra hesitated.
Something in his chest twisted.
She rolled out from under him, kicked him square in the ribs, and jumped to her feet.
“You’re holding back,” she said.
“You don’t know what full power looks like.”
“I want to.”
“No,” he said. “You don’t.”
Their blades clashed again.
Then she said it:
“Your brother.”
Ezra stopped cold.
“What did you just say?”
“I saw his name on a file in the vault,” she said. “Kieran Raine. The one the curse took.”
Ezra dropped his knife.
“You read my classified records?”
“I read everything you tried to bury.”
He stepped forward, fury rising. “You don’t get to use him against me.”
“I’m not,” she said, voice low. “But if we’re stuck together, I need to know what this thing took from you. Who you were before it marked you.”
Ezra stared at her. For a moment, all the armor cracked.
Then he said, “I was the weak one. He was the heir. The leader. The one who believed we could outrun it. He died trying.”
Lira stepped closer. “And now?”
“Now I’m what’s left.”
He turned away, chest heaving.
She touched his arm.
The bond between them snapped like a live wire. Heat surged through his veins. His sigils glowed under his shirt.
“Tell me how to kill it,” she said.
Ezra looked at her like a man at war.
“You can’t,” he said. “The curse doesn’t die. It feeds. On power. On pain. On people like you.”
“Then maybe I feed back.”
She leaned in, eyes locked on his.
Ezra closed the gap without meaning to. Their lips inches apart. The energy between them hot and wrong and magnetic.
“This is a bad idea,” he muttered.
“Every good story starts with one.”
He kissed her.
Hard.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet.
It was a collision.
Of power. Of fear. Of hunger.
Her hand slid into his hair. His grip tightened on her waist. They moved together like they were fighting and fucking at the same time.
But just when it threatened to break them
Ezra pulled away.
Breathless. Shaking.
“This doesn’t end well,” he said.
Lira licked blood from her lip and grinned.
“Then let’s make it worth it.”
Later that night, alone in his sanctum, Ezra sat before the sealed mirror.
The queen didn’t appear.
But his brother did.
Kieran’s reflection was clean. Young. Whole.
“Careful, Ez,” the dead man said. “She’s not here to save you. She’s here to choose.”
Ezra clenched his fists.
He looked away.
But the reflection didn’t vanish.
“She’s going to have to kill you,” Kieran said.
And this time, Ezra didn’t deny it.