11. The Offering Pt. I #2
The dress loosens and slides down my body, gathering around my feet in a pool of white fabric.
I step out of it because standing there tangled somehow feels worse, though that leaves me exposed in front of a room full of people who continue undressing like this is the least remarkable part of their evening.
Just a regular Tuesday.
Rafe’s palm settles against my waist, warm and broad and familiar enough that I lean toward it before I can decide whether I meant to.
He notices.
Obviously.
“You good?”
“There has to be another question in your vocabulary.”
“That a no?”
“That’s me asking you to be creative.”
Dominic holds out the bowl, and Cassian takes it. The oil is dark enough to look almost like blood beneath the candlelight.
He dips two fingers into it, then pauses with his hand suspended between us.
For the first time tonight, he looks uncertain.
Not about the ritual.
About me.
That bothers me more than confidence would have.
“Do it,” I say.
His eyes lift to mine.
I don’t know whether I’m giving him permission or challenging him, and judging by the fraction of hesitation that follows, neither does he.
Good.
Cassian spreads the oil between his palms and places them against my shoulders.
Cold first, then warmth. Because the flower has apparently decided sequence is optional, the cold catches up again after his hands have already moved.
The scent rises between us, resinous and earthy, while his palms travel down my arms to my wrists, his thumbs passing across my palms before he takes more oil and continues over my collarbone, sternum, and waist.
Every movement is deliberate enough that I realize I’m not simply being touched.
I’m being prepared.
“This is the claim,” Cassian says.
I can’t tell whether he means the words for me or for everyone watching.
“The vessel bears the mark of the house,” Alistair answers.
“The house bears witness.”
Cassian’s hands move lower, and my breathing changes before I can stop it. I hate that he notices.
I hate more that I want him to.
The oil makes his hands glide too easily over my skin, while the flower turns every pass into a sensation that keeps happening after he has already moved on. My nerves can’t seem to decide which moment they belong to.
Rafe stays close, his hand returning to my waist when I sway.
“You keep catching me,” I say.
“You keep leaning.”
“I am not.”
“You’re currently leaning.”
I straighten immediately, which makes the room shift half an inch to the left.
Rafe catches me again before I can pretend it didn’t.
“Easy.”
I laugh under my breath. “Everybody keeps saying that like anything about this is easy.”
Cassian pauses for less than a second, but I catch it.
Something in the way he looks at me has stopped belonging entirely to the ritual.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
His expression cracks before he manages to put most of it away, and apparently that is enough to make me reckless.
I catch the front of his robe and pull him closer.
His breath changes.
There.
That.
Not the priest or Alistair’s son, but the man from the private box who looked furious with himself afterward because wanting me had apparently violated some internal zoning ordinance.
Around us, the room continues changing one quiet piece at a time. A robe lands near the wall. A woman who had been standing alone now has somebody’s hand at her waist. Alistair keeps reading, and Dominic turns a page, which is somehow worse than if either of them acknowledged what is happening.
Rafe leans closer.
“Lo.”
“What?”
His eyes move over my face before dropping to my hand twisted in Cassian’s robe.
“You still with us?”
“I’m standing right here.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I hate that he sounds worried.
I hate more that some part of me likes it.
So I kiss him, because that answer is easier.
His surprise lasts exactly long enough for me to feel it before his hand comes up behind my neck and the kiss changes.
I know this mouth, which is the difference. I know the scrape of his jaw beneath my fingers and the sound he makes when he wants to pull me closer but is still trying to behave himself. I know how easily he can make me forget I’m supposed to be angry with him.
For a few seconds, the room gets smaller. Not gone, because nothing tonight gets to disappear completely, but small enough that Alistair’s voice becomes something happening farther away.
When Rafe pulls back, my breathing has gone uneven.
Cassian is still beside me, watching with whatever slipped through his control a minute ago still sitting too close to the surface.
Then he reaches for my hand and begins turning me toward him.
Something inside me locks.
“No.”
Cassian stops immediately.
Rafe goes still beside me, but the rest of the room takes longer to catch up. The witnesses finish the response they have already started before the silence reaches them one person at a time.
Cassian looks at me.
“Lorelei.”
“I said no.”
I’m not even sure what part I’m refusing until I look at Rafe.
Then I know.
“You.”
Rafe’s entire body stills.
Nobody told me I could choose.
That doesn’t mean I can’t.
“I want you first.”
The words come out clearer than they have any right to.
Alistair looks at me over the open Book of Ashes while I wait for him to tell me I misunderstood, for Cassian to explain why the ritual doesn’t work like that, or for somebody to remind me what Alistair said five minutes ago.
Tonight, she chooses no one.
Rafe’s hand returns to my waist without pulling me toward him.
“Lo.”
“What?”
“You sure?”
I stare at him. “I just interrupted Satan’s book club to announce it.”
Something that might be a cough comes from Dominic’s direction.
Rafe almost smiles.
Not enough.
I grab the front of his shirt before anybody can reinterpret what I mean.
“I choose you.”
The words land differently this time because they’re mine. Nobody offered me a choice, and Alistair certainly didn’t intend to give me one, so I take it myself.
Alistair lets me enjoy that for barely a second.
“Then let the first claim be witnessed.”
Of fucking course.