Parisa pulled back with great reluctance, her hands stuttering along his jaw, her breath shaky in her throat. “Fuck.” She muttered, then explained as his expression shuttered, “I… was kind of hoping it would be shit.”

“What the fuck, Kyros?” his head snapped to the side in disbelief, and then he did something both unthinkable and inadvisable and gave the prince a mighty shove.

Gabriel had his hands still splayed out, like he expected Kyros to come barreling back, looking a bit bewildered himself. Then he hardened. “Just— I don’t want to do this. Leave me alone.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Gabe exhaled. “C’mon. You got what you wanted. Go home and celebrate, fuck if I care.”

Gabriel shot him a belligerent look and, voice low, uttered, "That's between me and her."

"Why can't it be both?" her hand trailed down the front of his shirt as she readjusted herself in his lap, legs on either side of his. "Besides, what was I supposed to do? The first time I kissed you, you ran for the hills."

Kyros let out a single-note laugh, disbelieving. “What?”

And after he'd gone, the haze in Pari's head cleared up enough for thoughts to push through. Memories. His discomfort the first time she'd confessed to him -- confessed, like a fucking fool -- back when she'd kissed him for the first time and explained that it had always been him. That she'd taken a while to contextualize the odd feelings making her heart buoyant despite all the pain around them, keeping her chest from caving in, but then she'd finally figured it out, and... she'd felt afraid.
It hadn't been something she could cast aside easily, like anger or disgust or shame or guilt. Affection, adulation, whatever you wanted to call it; it infected every corner of her brain like some sort of plague. After she'd noticed it, everything started coming back to Feofil. When she was down, when she was angry, when she was numb... the thought of time spent with him was what kept her going through her most difficult days. She'd lost Sparrow, then Kyros, then Vic and nearly Mirza. But Feo had dug his claws in, and she'd thought that had meant something beyond the fact that at his core, he was a good person and a great friend.
But then she'd lost him too. And it had been because she'd tried to do the very thing she'd learned not to do, which was to pull the mask off. To be honest. Vulnerable.

The very idea of doing it all again made her chest sink into her stomach. She wouldn't. She knew better now, and she knew not to look to Feo with hope in her eyes and remind him that he was everything, that he had seen through her and she adored him for it. That he had watched out for her when the person she'd considered her brother and best friend and the guiding light of her life and tossed her aside at the first sign of dissent. People like Pari weren't meant for solace. First she'd been a tool, and now she was some kind of weapon that no one quite knew how to use, so all she did was scare them. And she'd done that anyways, before. Now it was worse.

Who knew if Feo had even wanted this? He'd said that he did. She'd told him to be truthful. But what if he'd just been going along with it because she'd asked him to? And if he had wanted this, who was to say it went beyond what they'd done tonight? Despite everything, Feo was still just a man, and Pari had been putting up with them her whole life. All they ever wanted was one thing. Maybe the blessing here was that Feo considered her a person at all; that was more than many men would admit. He knew her and he liked her, but he didn't love her. She tried to swallow the unease that came alongside that reminder - after all, they lived in a modern world where people did things like this all the time, with strangers, even. But the discomfort stayed lodged in her throat.

It's just sex. Pari told herself, pulling the blankets tighter around her shoulders as the bathroom door creaked open. It's just sex. That's all. Nothing more.
She was smart. She was beautiful. She was charitable, to a point, and she always knew what she wanted. But she was grouchy and bossy and rude and people didn't like Pari, not really, though they liked what she could provide them. For Kyros, it had been loyalty. Then her loyalty had wavered and he'd tossed her out, like a dog. For Sparrow, it had been camaraderie. But then Sparrow had found better friends and left Parisa behind. Medeiros had wanted someone pretty and powerful on his arm. But then Pari became too powerful, and now he wanted to put her down. And Feofil? Well, if it wasn't sex, then she'd figure it out soon enough. And if it was sex, then that meant things were about to go downhill again.

The heat and weight of his hand on hers was like the smallest security blanket in the world, but it spread warmth over what ice remained of her heart. It reminded Pari of the old days, when she and the others would lounge around the palace or Kenneth Wellington or any of their other haunts without a care in the world. She would have sprawled on Kyros, much to her cousin's distaste, and Feo would be curled up with Sparrow. It was nice to have someone touch her because they wanted to. Not that Mirza or Vic would have ever minded, but it wasn't like they sought her out for hugs or for naps. The only person who ever treated her that freely was Sparrow, and then Sparrow had disappeared.
But she recognized the spiral of anguish she was heading into, one that always left her drained and angry at the world. For the first time, she turned her back to it. With an imperceptible exhale, she lay her head against Feofil's shoulder and continued to watch the snow. He could push her off, or, more likely, politely set her aside, but she didn't think he would.

Parisa wasn't having the best time in her room either. It had taken her a while to muster up the desire to go bathe despite their stint outside, which had left her cold and jagged. The promising warmth of the tub inside, which had been carved into a slab of marble and built into the wall so that it resembled a flower lotus, was nothing compared to the setting dark. Altirians still relied heavily on oil lamps. "They're more trustworthy," Roo had said when they first toured, and she was right, as demonstrated by exhibit A, the smatter of lanterns downstairs which had given in to a demon's influence without even a wisp of a struggle.
Oil lamps made the world feel smaller.

She was perched in a corner of her bed, knees tucked under the blankets, her silk slip dress too thin against the cold for her to be entirely comfortable. There were warmer dresses but when she'd opened her closet, she'd spotted the imprint of small hands in the down of her velvet gowns, and it had unnerved her enough to pull the doors shut once more.
The kids wouldn't suddenly pop their heads out of some crevice... would they? Roo had seemed certain that they wouldn't appear again. She'd said that Melat had entered the house and marked some spots in the basement and the upstairs hallway, which was why she'd been able to reappear hours later, and then seemingly teleport between floors. but ghost children weren't like that. The very concept had seemed amusing to the little Lumanlisc demon whisperer, who had held back a smile while assuring Pari that her room was entirely her own. Pari was not sure that she trusted her, even though Roo had drawn several of those bloody wards in the walls outside and on the door. It had taken the blood a long time to dry, and you could still see the outline in rust-red. That was probably some kind of health and safety violation, wasn't it? Then again, so was the act of living in Altair.

She closed the book in her lap with a thump that seemed too heavy for the silence, tired and frustrated and more than a little unsettled. There were lamps all around the room, keeping the corners well-lit, but that would hardly help in the case of another demon manifestation. She could go retrieve some of the candles from downstairs, light them up too. It wouldn't help, but it would give her something to do, though that also meant wandering the wide halls of Feo's haunted house alone, at night, in the dark.
But her alternative was sitting in the room, alone, at night, and in the dark. With an exhale that sounded more like a growl, she pushed herself off the bed and set out for the door.