Chapter 23
Brey halted atop the stairs to his tower.
I stayed on his bed but set down the book I’d been reading while I waited. I fluffed my hair and said, “I wore it a few years ago, so I’m hoping no one will remember.”
Those feline eyes flitted over me as if unsure where to land. He rubbed his mouth, hiding a slight smile. “I’d wager your considerable dowry that they most certainly will.”
I bristled.
He failed to notice as he sauntered across the room into his dressing chamber.
Uncertainty plagued me. I fussed with my lace skirts. The gown was black, velvet cinching the chest like a snug embrace, and sleeveless. There was no underskirt, but two layers of black floral lace ensured that only a hint of skin was visible.
A silver pair of heeled slippers with black bows on the toes adorned my feet.
Perhaps Brey’s comment and the way he’d gawked should have had me second-guessing my choices. But I knew I looked good, and I felt good. Though I dressed up every evening, I’d missed preparing for events—the extra effort put into my hair and lashes and lips.
I’d missed feeling like me.
“What ails you, wife?” Brey called from his dressing chamber. “Worried your brutish made vampire might not attend?”
“Oh, he’ll attend,” I said, loathing that I’d even dared.
But it was true. Wherever my father went, Maxus usually went too.
Though that wasn’t what I was worried about.
A muttered, “Of course he will,” only just reached my ears before his next question. “For what reason are you staining my bedsheets with your noxious scent, then?”
I stared down at said bedsheets and, remembering the feeders Brey fucked on them, scrunched my nose. I’d sent them scurrying from his bathing room when I’d arrived. Wine had sloshed from their glasses in their haste to snatch their clothing and flee.
I found a wet patch on the carpet. “I was hoping to talk to you before the ballroom fills with friendly foes.”
“Friendly foes,” he repeated. Emerging from the dark, he held up two dress coats. One was a rich emerald, the other black with glittering specks.
“Emerald,” I said. “No point in trying to match if we don’t.”
“True.” He turned back into the dressing chamber. “Are you going to talk?” he asked. “Or are you waiting to see if I’ve developed the ability to spy on your devious mind?”
The barb failed to sting, courtesy of my sudden nerves.
I gnawed on my bottom lip before remembering I’d painted it, and grumbled a curse as I rubbed my teeth. But my annoyance pushed the words free. “I don’t want people to know yet.” I swallowed, then added, “About us.”
Silence.
I wasn’t sure what shamed me more—that I cared what people thought or that I was here, asking my own husband to play nice with me for one evening.
Of course there were some, like my father, who already knew that Brey and I had become enemies who seldom got along long enough to finish a conversation.
But my father wasn’t one to bother with gossip unless bribing someone. Lately, our staff rarely left the palace. For moons, there’d been no mentions of us in the Nightly Newsprint’s gossip column. Only news about the wards on the front page.
Which meant most people still believed that Brey and I were happily wed.
Should they discover just how much he now loathed me, especially after the way he’d publicly pursued and adored me…
It would please them immensely.
Brey exited the dressing chamber in black pants and matching suede boots. He buttoned the emerald coat halfway so that some of his frothy black shirt appeared beneath a glimpse of his chest. “Are you asking me to play pretend?”
There was no denying that I was. “I suppose I am.”
Meeting mine, his eyes thinned. His head tilted. “Why?”
I couldn’t explain it. Not how I wished. So I lifted a shoulder and lied. “I haven’t seen my friends in moons.” Since the wedding, and he knew that. “I don’t want to spend the evening evading their hunt for intel about us.”
“Ah.” The mischief lilting his tone sparked in his eyes. “More accurately, you don’t want anyone to discover what ruined us.” My silence caused him to steal more air from my lungs. Ice dripped from each emphasized word. “The secret that was too scarred and giant and neglected to stay hidden.”
Fool, I thought.
How I hadn’t seen it, I didn’t know. But I’d essentially just offered him another way to wound me. To drive a knife in so deep, I would bleed at the worst possible time. “Forget it.” I grabbed my book and walked to the stairs. “I’ll see you tomorrow for the final ward.”
The soft taunt nipped at my heels. “Does it shame you?”
“That I fell prey to your desperation to have me?” I squeezed my skirts and descended the stairs. “I’ll never be more ashamed of anything in my entire immortal life.”
My displeasure about this evening, as well as Hanna’s and Groth’s refusal to speak more than a few words to me, was evident as I inspected the filling ballroom.
Save for the leafy vines and black roses choking the railing of the second-floor balcony, there was no decor. No musicians had been hired. So, at the side of the room, Ergon played the piano Groth had grumbled about cleaning.
I loathed to admit it, but the feeder was quite good.
Old candles dripped globs of dusty wax onto the lace-covered tables lining the ballroom. Mismatched decanters of wine and bottles of liquor had been placed with no care at all between smudged trays of food.
I did my best to quickly fix them, but soon got distracted by the meats and the array of cheeses. I sipped my wine, deciding on some cheddar and a square of seared beef, when a familiar voice stiffened my spine.
“I knew you wouldn’t be going without in this palace,” Clovia said.
My fingers fluttered away from the food, miserably empty. “That’s actually why I’m lingering here.” I set my wine on the table. “It’s hard to decide what to eat first.”
Clovia raised a golden brow. “You usually head straight for the lemon cakes.”
“None of those,” I sighed more than said.
Her lips twitched. She’d painted them a lovely nude pink to match her tulle skirts. Her bodice was black but shrouded in a light layer of crimson lace. “I’ve missed you.”
Lightly, so as not to ruin our hair and rouge, I hugged her. “It’s been awful.”
“I’m sure,” she drawled. “Stuck in here for moons with that dream of a husband.”
I was tempted to say that dreams could rapidly descend into nightmares. As we separated, I merely whispered, “The wards.”
“Oh yes.” Her emerald eyes bulged. “Do tell.”
“You know I’m not allowed.” Collecting my wine from the table, I sipped it and smirked. “But I’ll tell you that a century between feeding them isn’t nearly long enough.”
Adythe slid her arm through mine. “Feeding whom?”
I smiled and clasped her hand. It was gloved in a luminous shade of pearl, her gown a gray so dark it was almost black. “Where’s Deedra?”
Clovia rolled her eyes. “Looking for the ghost. She’s been fixated on him since your wedding. Groth this, and steward that.” Shaking her head, she snatched my wine and drained it before saying, “Please order him to humor her so that she ceases torturing me about him.”
Interesting.
Now was an opportune time to tell them all about what I’d witnessed last evening—the dungeon activities the ghost had taken part in.
I went to do just that, yet found myself saying instead, “I’m certain Groth will blush profusely when I tell him.”
Adythe laughed. “Truly?”
I nodded and realized this was just what I’d needed. A night with friends to forget about Brey and the final ward, and where on this dark isle I would go should we manage to survive feeding it.
Clovia eyed me for a moment, then stepped close to murmur, “Someone is watching from upstairs.”
All three of us gazed up at the second-floor balcony that overlooked the ballroom.
As if he’d just left his tower, Brey leaned against the railing.
He wore the clothing he’d chosen during my visit to his bedchamber.
Since then, half of his hair had been secured with a ribbon that matched his emerald coat and trailed over his shoulders.
A rose twirled between his fingers, plucked from the vines beneath him, while he surveyed our candlelit guests.
As Clovia and Adythe whispered about an arriving lord, Brey’s eyes found mine.
He brought the rose to his mouth, appearing to brush the petals across his lips. It hid some of his expression, then his eyes suddenly moved toward the doors.
Chatter quietened, and I knew without looking that my father had arrived.
“Did you hear?” Adythe pressed close. “Your mother isn’t coming.”
I frowned. “But she would never miss such an event.”
Clovia grimaced. “Mother told me that your mother told her that she was quite upset with your father.” She looked over at the parting crowd. “I wonder what he did.”
Ice sluiced through my veins.
Not in my lifetime had my mother fought with my father. She was always well-behaved, and really, too content to dare incite his temper. Only when I’d earned a visit to the cellar had she ever appeared so much as tempted to argue with him.
“If he’s anything like my father,” Adythe whispered, “probably too many young women.”
Clovia gasped and lightly smacked her arm.
Though I tried to look for him among the finery and tall bodies, I couldn’t see my father. I wanted to go find him and ask what was wrong with Mother. But I knew it would be futile. Even if he would tell me, he wouldn’t do so here.
As if wishing to eclipse my father’s impressive entrance, Brey entered the ballroom a mere minute later.
Chatter didn’t just quieten.
It ceased entirely and at once. Ergon even stopped playing the piano.
With that black rose still in hand, Brey greeted the gawking guests who stepped aside to bow and curtsy.
I needn’t have seen his irritatingly pretty face to know he wore that practiced smile. The perfect one that caused a riot of nervous laughter, gasping, and murmuring to drift throughout the room.