Elena:
They called the place Inferno, and it lived up to its name.
The tavern reeked of salt, sweat, and slow rot. Blood had dried between the floorboards decades ago, and no one bothered to scrub it out. Oil lamps swung from rusted hooks in the ceiling, casting shadows that writhed like ghosts. Heat clung to the skin like a fever.
Elena Rosaria blended in easily enough — a tavern maid in a low-cut dress, arms bruised from carrying trays of stale ale and unspoken threats. The sailors didn't ask her name. Didn't care.
Good.
The Church had eyes everywhere. Her mother was worse.
After the Inquisition spat her out — half-starved, memory blank where the worst questions had been — she ran. All she remembered was her mother's voice echoing in that cold room: This one is mine. But you may borrow her.
She had offered Elena up. A sacrifice with no altar. A daughter unclaimed.
Elena never went back.
Now she scrubbed sticky tables and smiled through her teeth. The work wasn't noble, but it bought her bread. Silence. Anonymity.
Until he walked in.
He didn't belong in a place like Inferno.
Too clean. Too bored. Too rich.
Elena spotted him immediately — tall, broad-shouldered, wrapped in a high-collared coat of black linen woven through with deep navy threads. His buttons were polished. His boots unsullied. He held his glass like it might shatter — like he wouldn't.
Dark auburn hair, tousled but styled. A rakish curl fell across his brow. He ignored the stares from the women. Drank like the tavern was beneath him.
Elena tried to avoid him.
And then the bastard at table seven put his hand under her skirt.
It happened fast.
A grab. A gasp. A flash of red.
She didn't scream. She swung. The mug in her hand caught the man's jaw with a thundercrack. He howled, bloodied and snarling, and lunged for her.
Chairs scraped. Bottles shattered. Someone kicked over a table.
The brawl was glorious.
Elena moved like a fire set loose — all teeth and instinct. Two years in hiding had sharpened her edges. She ducked under a punch, drove her elbow into a sailor's ribs. Another man grabbed her hair — she drove her boot into his nose and felt the crunch.
And then a hand — not rough, not greedy — caught her wrist.
"Careful," said a voice near her ear. "You'll spill my wine."
The noble.
His grin was lazy. Dangerous. Like someone already imagining the next bad idea.
"Let me," he said.
And he joined the fight.
But he didn't fight like the others. He moved with purpose. Precision. A man used to getting his hands dirty when it suited him — and annoyed when it ended too quickly. The groper hit the floor. Another man followed. The knife-wielder lost a tooth.
By the time the tavern emptied out, Elena stood panting in the wreckage, flushed and bruised.
He looked untouched.
"Miss," he said with a mock bow, "you fight like a woman who's survived something."
"I have," she replied flatly. "What's your excuse?"
"I was bored."
Seamus:
She was lightning in a tavern girl's rags. Cheeks flushed, hair wild, eyes the color of garnets and shot through with something darker, electric.
Seamus hadn't meant to stop at Inferno. He only wanted to escape the club — the cloying perfume, the watered wine, the parade of vacant conversation.
Then he saw her — and all of it vanished like fog in morning sun.
She didn't ask his name.
He didn't ask hers.
When the tavern keeper hurled them both out into the alley behind the docks, still dizzy from the mess inside, she leaned against a crumbling wall and gave him a long look.
"You going to follow me all the way home, Viscount?"
He blinked. "How do you—?"
"Puerto Cuidad's not that big. You think no one recognizes your face just because you leave your crest at home?"
She was clever. Filthy. Sharp-tongued and unimpressed.
Perfect.
"Where do you live?" he asked.
"Nowhere you belong," she said.
But she didn't stop him when he fell into step beside her. Didn't pull away when their shoulders brushed walking through the fog. Didn't let go when he reached for her hand.
Didn't stop him at all.
That Night
Her room was barely more than a shack, pressed against the edge of the dockside slums. One bed. One wash basin. Mana lamps flickered on the wall, sputtering and dim. Dried herbs hung in bundles from the rafters. An old icon of a saint with her eyes scratched out watched from above the headboard.
Elena shut the door behind them. The lock clicked.
"This is a mistake," she whispered.
Seamus stepped forward. "Then let it be one."
She didn't wait for permission. She tore at her own corset with a low growl, kicked off her boots, and yanked his coat open with both hands. She kissed like a woman who'd bitten through her own tongue and survived the taste. Desperate. Defiant.
Seamus caught her against the wall. She dragged him to the bed.
The room smelled of sweat and old myrrh. Shadows danced above them, cast by flickering light.
When she gasped his name, it didn't sound like a prayer.
It sounded like a curse.
He stayed until morning.
And for the first time in years,
Seamus Matteo slept without dreams.