Raven smiled.

It was a small smile. Thin. The smile of a man who has been asked to leave and who finds the request charming. Naive. The smile of a man who knows he will not leave and who knows that the old man knows it too.

"Aren’t you a good grandfather?" he said. The words were warm. Genuine. The words of a man who recognizes sacrifice and is, in his own way, moved by it. "Though I will. But I want something from you."

Old Tomas trembled.

"What— what can I give?" he said. His voice was shaking. His hands were shaking. His knees were shaking. Everything was shaking. He was an old man standing before a devil, and the devil was asking for something, and the old man had nothing to give.

"Teach me," Raven said. "How to massage the queen. Or a woman."

Old Tomas’s eyes narrowed.

The request was unexpected. Not violent. Not cruel. Not the demand of a conqueror but the request of a student. Teach me how to massage. The old man had been a masseur for forty years. He had tended the First Queen’s body for twenty. He knew every muscle, every nerve, every pressure point. He knew how to make a woman’s body sing. And this man—this devil, this eraser of shoulders, this fucker of granddaughters—wanted to learn.

"I cannot," Old Tomas said. His voice was firm. The firmest it had been. "It is my family—"

He stopped.

The bathroom door opened.

Sera walked in.

She was wearing a towel. It was wrapped around her body—covering her chest, her stomach, her thighs. It was tucked at the side. It was loose. It was damp. The fabric clung to her body—to her breasts, to her hips, to the curve of her ass. Her wet hair hung down her back. Her feet were bare on the wooden floor. Her face was flushed. Her eyes were wet.

She walked to Raven.

She stood beside the barber’s chair. She placed her hand on his arm. She looked at her grandfather.

"No," she said. Her voice was steady. Steadier than it had been in the bathroom. Steadier than it had been in the blood-soaked room. Steadier than it had been on the training ground. "He is my husband."

Old Tomas’s face went through every color.

White. Red. Purple. Gray. The colors of a man whose heart has stopped and started and stopped and started in the space of three seconds. His mouth opened. No sound came. His hand went to his chest—to the spot where his heart was hammering against his ribs like a caged bird.

"What," he whispered.

Raven laughed.

Not a chuckle. Not a small, warm sound. A laugh. A full, genuine, amused laugh that filled the barbershop and bounced off the mirrors and the chairs and the tools of the trade. He threw his head back. His dark hair fell away from his face. His violet eyes crinkled at the corners. His mouth opened. His teeth were white. His tongue was pink. He laughed like a man who has heard the funniest joke in the world.

"Now you know," he said. He looked at Old Tomas. His eyes were bright. Amused. Warm. The eyes of a devil who has found something genuinely, unexpectedly delightful. "You can teach. I am your family."

Old Tomas stared.

He looked at Raven. At his granddaughter. At the hand on the devil’s arm. At the towel. At the wet hair. At the flushed face. At the eyes that were steady and certain and full of something that Old Tomas had never seen in them before—not the fire of a fighter, not the steel of a knight, but something softer. Something warmer. Something that looked terrifyingly like love.

He wanted to say bastard.

The word formed in his throat. It climbed to his tongue. It sat behind his teeth. He could feel it—hot, sharp, heavy. Bastard. The word for a man who fucks your granddaughter in your bathtub and then asks you to teach him massage. The word for a devil who erases shoulders and removes legs and calls it a Tuesday. The word for a monster who walks into rooms full of blood and walks out with a woman who calls him Master and husband.

He could not say it.

The word died. It dissolved. It turned to ash on his tongue and he swallowed it, and it sat in his stomach like a stone, and he looked at his granddaughter’s face—at the certainty, at the steadiness, at the thing that looked like love—and he knew that saying the word would not change anything. Would not undo the fucking. Would not erase the seed. Would not remove the towel. Would not turn his granddaughter back into the girl who swung sticks at fence posts.

"Fine," he said.

The word was a surrender. A capitulation. The sound of an old man laying down arms he never had. His shoulders sagged. His spine curved. He looked older than sixty-three. He looked older than the hills. He looked like a man who had fought the world for sixteen years and had just lost.

"I will teach you," he said. "But how are you going to learn? Practically, you need someone to—"

He stopped.

His eyes turned.

To Sera.

She was standing beside the chair. Her hand was on Raven’s arm. Her towel was loose. Her wet hair was dripping. Her face was flushed. And she was trembling.

Not from fear. Not from cold. From the soft, involuntary trembling of a body that is being touched. Raven’s hand was behind her. It was not visible—his coat hid it—but Old Tomas could see the movement. The subtle, rhythmic motion of his arm. The way Sera’s breath was catching. The way her eyes were half-closed. The way her lips were parted.

Soft moans.

"Mmm..." she breathed. The sound was barely audible. A hum. A vibration. The sound of a woman whose body is being touched by hands that know where to touch. "Hahh..."

Old Tomas realized.

Raven was holding her arms from behind. His hands were on her—somewhere beneath the towel, somewhere beneath the fabric, somewhere on her body that was making her gasp and moan and tremble. His granddaughter was standing in front of him, in a towel, moaning, while the devil’s hands moved beneath the cloth.

"You damn—" Old Tomas started.

"I have someone," Raven said. His voice cut through the old man’s words like a blade through silk. "Just teach me."

His hand came from behind Sera’s back. It was wet. His fingers were glistening. He placed them on the armrest. The scent—musky, sharp, female—filled the room.

Old Tomas looked at the wet fingers. He looked at his granddaughter’s flushed face. He looked at the devil’s calm, violet eyes.

He sighed.

The sigh was deep. It came from the bottom of his soul. It carried sixty-three years of life and forty years of work and twenty years of service and sixteen years of grandfathering and three hours of horror and one moment of surrender.

"Fine," he said. "Come with me."

The massage chamber was in the back of the house.

It was a small room. Private. The room where Old Tomas had massaged private clients—the noble women who came to him in secret, the ones who did not want to be seen entering a barbershop but who needed his hands.

The room had a table. A low, padded table, covered with clean sheets. Oil warmers sat on a shelf. Towels were stacked on a rack. Candles burned in iron brackets. The air smelled of lavender and sandalwood and the faint, lingering scent of a hundred women’s bodies.

Old Tomas entered first.

He went to the shelf. He took down a strip of dark cloth—an eye band, the kind he used when a client did not want to see the massage, when they wanted to surrender to sensation and darkness. He tied it around his own eyes.

He blindfolded himself.

"If I am to teach you," he said. His voice was muffled by the cloth. Steady. Professional. The voice of a craftsman entering his workshop. "I will not watch. I will feel. I will instruct. You will follow my hands."

He turned to the door.

"Sera," he said. "Remove your clothes. Lie on the table. Face down."

He heard the towel drop.

The soft sound of damp cotton hitting the wooden floor. The sound of bare feet on the stone. The sound of a body—tall, muscled, female—climbing onto the padded table. The creak of the table accepting her weight. The rustle of sheets as she settled. Her breathing—soft, nervous, expectant.

He heard Raven enter. The sound of boots on stone. The sound of a man sitting on the edge of the table. The creak of leather as he leaned forward.

"Oh my," Raven said. His voice was warm. Amused. Appreciative.

Old Tomas did not need to see to know what he was looking at.