Heads turned in the direction of the commotion, and conversations all around Mary died sudden deaths. Silence ran like a wave through the party, leaving the thumping bass from the DJ below and anticipation in its wake.

Mary’s shoulders popped up automatically. Tension ran like an electric current down her back, and a list of worst-case scenarios began unspooling in her brain, even as she turned to face whoever was causing the disturbance. Entrances like this were almost never a good sign. Was it one of Dominic’s famous exes tracking him down? Astrid Bellecroix crashing the party to cause another scene? Had the NYPD decided they were sick of waiting and requested Dominic be extradited? Was this Interpol arriving to haul him off?

She locked eyes on the cause of the disturbance and felt the muscles in her jaw go slack. The party crashers were two men. One was a little over six feet, the other was a little under—or would have been if he hadn’t been wearing platform biker boots.

Both were horrifyingly familiar.

“Pavo?” Mary said numbly. “Orion?”

Even if she hadn’t known the two men in question, she would have understood why everyone was staring. Even in this crowd of Paris’s glamorous and fashionable, they stood out the way only rockstars could. Wild, sizzling, and lawless.

Pavo looked like he’d stepped straight off some avant-garde Scottish designer’s runway. A blue and green tartan kilt, complete with gratuitous leather straps and beaded floral embroidery, clung to his hips. He’d shrugged a silk evening jacket over a mostly unbuttoned white shirt. A pair of biker boots with black knee socks completed the ensemble.

Orion had been shopping on an entirely different runway. He wore a pair of brown leather pants that must have taken at least twenty minutes and a tub of talcum powder to crawl his way into, and a silver belt buckle that might as well have come with the words NOTICE ME engraved on it and an arrow pointing downwards. A distressed fur trench coat with a mane-like collar that would have done Jon Snow proud rounded out the outfit. His chest was bare underneath it, except for a smattering of silver necklaces. Tanned skin inked with tattoos of floating feathers, constellations, and mystic symbols made a wonderful backdrop for all that fur and metal.

It was a strange echo of the outfit Dominic had worn this morning. But where seeing Dominic half-naked made Mary want to bite her way down his skin, all Orion’s half-naked glory made her want to do was throw a giant sheet over him so he’d stop making such a scene.

Only it was too late. Orion stepped forward with a showman’s instinct for gathering the attention of a room and said, “Where are you, Mary? I know you’re here.”

His voice cut through the thumping music, demanding and undeniable. Orion’s voice could do really amazing things sometimes. People three floors down could probably hear him.

“I’m in hell,” Mary muttered. She knew she should be doing something. Consequences were cascading all around her. Only she couldn’t make her feet move. Because she was good, but nothing short of a Men in Black Neuralyzer was going to make this crowd forget what was happening. “Actual, boiling oil, thumbscrews, and iron rack hell.”

Pavo’s head swiveled in her direction—he shouldn’t have been able to hear her at that distance, but the man had perfect pitch and ears like a damn bat. Their gazes locked, and he broke into a wide Joker-esque smile. He nudged Orion and pointed. “There she is.”

Orion followed his cousin’s pointing finger, and Mary felt their eyes make contact the way a quarterback felt a linebacker’s tackle. Orion’s mouth tipped up into a savage, triumphant smile and he stalked towards her. His long legs ate up the ground, completely confident that no one would stand in his way, and he was right. The sea of people between them rolled back and around him like fish parting for a cruising shark.

Or maybe more like the audience in a piece of interactive theatre. Only this one didn’t come with a recording ban. Mary registered the camera phones rising around them with resignation.

That was fine. Two members of the band Star-Bourne running into their ex-manager wouldn’t be that exciting a clip.

So long as Dominic stayed out of it.

She almost looked for him, but he might mistake her making eye contact as a cry for help.

“Mary,” Orion said, all smugness like a hunter that had finally managed to run down his prey. “There you are.”

Lourdes, Martine, and Daniel melted a couple of steps backward until they blended into the general horde. Leaving Mary and her mostly untouched drink squarely in the line of fire.

Mary lifted the glass of liquid death to her lips, tipped back her head, and drank. Fire licked down her throat like dragon’s breath in reverse. Nerves screamed, tastebuds rioted, and she coughed, pressing the back of her wrist to her mouth and blinking tears away.

But at least it burned away that horrible, heavy-limbed paralysis.

“You two are unbelievable,” she wheezed and cleared her throat. 

“Thank you,” Pavo said and took the glass from her hands with the ease of long familiarity. He sniffed it and wrinkled his nose. “Smells like something Cetus would cook up. What was it?”

“That was the pair of you literally driving me to drink.” Mary took the glass back and set it on the bar. “What are you doing here? Where are the others?”

She looked around in case she’d missed their arrival.

“Back home,” Orion said. “Running interference with Lyle.”

Mary frowned. Damn it, she’d left detailed instructions on how to deal with this kind of thing. And she'd confiscated their passports as soon as they got back to the States at the end of their last tour. She was going to have words with young Lyle later. Several words, most of them four lettered. “So how did you get your passports back?”

“Mensa made the argument that keeping them from us was an infringement on our civil liberties.”

“Yes, so?” Mary said. “And that worked?”

“He’s a nice guy,” Pavo said. “He doesn’t have your killer instincts.”

“And so here you are,” she said. “Though I’m still not sure why?”

“To see you, obviously,” Dominic said from right by her shoulder.

His hand found the small of her back, large, warm, and distracting through the thin silky knit of her top. If he’d meant it to be a reassuring gesture, it had missed the mark by miles.

There we go, said the fatalistic little voice inside of her. Match meet kindling.

Orion’s gaze fell to the level of Dominic’s hand, and his eyes narrowed into thin green slits. “I came to talk to you.”

“A phone call couldn’t have done the job?” she asked.

“You weren’t taking my calls.”

“Which should have been a hint.”

Orion took a step closer. He wasn’t quite as tall as Dominic, but he could loom like an avalanche. It was all the stage training. “We need to talk.”

“She doesn’t have to talk to you,” Dominic said in a dangerously calm voice that had all the hairs on the back of Mary’s neck standing at quivering attention.

“We should go,” Mary said. “All of us. Elsewhere. Now.”

“Good idea.” Orion took hold of her arm. “Our hotel isn’t far from here.”

At her back, Dominic stiffened. His hand vanished from the small of her back, and he stepped in front of her, putting himself between her and Orion. Forcing the other man to either take a step back or remain awkwardly close.

Orion’s hand tightened on her arm, and he refused to move. “Get out of my face.”

“Take,” Dominic said the word slowly, “your hands off her.”

“It’s fine, Dominic,” Mary said. Orion’s grip was firm, not painful, and a familiar throwback to her time with the band. All the guys were touchy. And even if it had been, she’d have taken a few bruises over the storm brewing in his voice. “We can all go—”

“No,” Orion said. “This prick is not invited,” and shoved Dominic in the shoulder with the heel of his free hand.

Everything happened very quickly.

Dominic rolled his shoulder, moving back with the shove, then surging forwards. He grabbed Orion’s wrist, just above his grip on her arm, and brought his other hand down on Orion’s forearm.

Mary’s arm was abruptly released, and she stumbled a step back.

Using the other man’s arm as a lever, Dominic spun Orion around and shoved him forward. Orion gasped as Dominic pinned him chest first over the bar and twisted his arm up behind his back. 

Orion struggled against the hold. “Get off me.”

“It’s not nice when someone holds you against your will, is it?” Dominic said softly and twisted his arm a little higher.

“Let him go, Dominic,” Mary said, completely horribly aware of the people all around them whispering and pointing and recording. Damn it, this was exactly what got him into trouble in the first place. “You’re making a scene.”

“Not until he apologizes.” Total conviction filled Dominic’s voice as he put even more weight on the forearm pinning Orion’s shoulders to the wooden counter.

“Screw you,” Orion panted and kicked out at him.

But Dominic was too close for him to get the right angle. He held Orion in place without any visible effort. “Say you’re sorry.” He glanced at Pavo, who’d started forward, and said in the same confident dead-level voice, “Don’t even think about it.”

Pavo, who wasn’t a fighter but was as loyal as Mary’s days were long, raised his fists. “Get your hands off my cousin.”

“Stop this now,” Mary snapped. “All of you.”

They all ignored her.

“I’ve got this, Pavo,” Orion wheezed.

“No, you don’t,” Dominic said.

Pavo drew back a fist. “Let him go.”

Mary reached calmly across the counter, grabbed the vintage-looking glass seltzer bottle, and unleashed a stream of bubbly water impartially over all three men. The water caught Pavo full in the face, soaked Dominic’s entire right side from forehead to biceps, and fell across Orion’s fur coat covered back and hair like a sudden soaking rain.

Pavo spluttered and stumbled back, coughing and hacking. Orion cursed like a sailor and raised his sopping head from the bar counter to stare at Mary in shock. Dominic remained exactly where he was but glanced at her from under his dripping fringe. An odd smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

“Mary,” he said. “You little wretch.”