17. Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Lux refused to look at the boy next to her. No, not a boy. With the taste of him still tormenting her, she was certain she would never think the same way again. Just as she’d once told him to, he’d convinced her with that kiss. Only, she hadn’t—could never have—expected his methods.
Silent, they rounded the corner, the doors leading to the ballroom flung wide before them. She wasn’t sure with whom she was more furious: Shaw or herself. Though she also wasn’t sure she had cause to be mad at all. His quick thinking was potentially all that saved them from being tossed into prison. She knew her brilliance could only allow so much indiscretion.
Shaw’s hand gripped her elbow, and she pulled away. His touch burned her insides, quicker now that the scorching paths had already been forged with that absurd kiss. It made her feel alive.
She didn’t want it.
“Should I apologize? Trust me, Lux, it’s not as if I’d planned it.”
Shaw’s irritation sent her into the glittering room two steps ahead of him.
She adjusted her mask as she surveyed the mass of bodies. The music was lively, the crowd pairing off in an intricate dance that sent several stumbling in their drunken haze. Lux smirked as the haughty peacock’s skirts were sloshed with drink, her screech a respectable imitation.
How she yearned to leave. She couldn’t do any further investigating this night, not with the Shield having noticed her, but it would also seem much too suspicious to disappear immediately following what occurred in the office. She reached to her lips. They must be swollen; the only explanation she could think of as to why her mind could focus on no other part of her. She made to wipe away the sensation.
A vulgar creature weaved forward, stilling her hand. “May I have this dance, my delectable raven?” Colden bowed, nearly losing his lofty headdress. His too-dilated pupils studied her figure as he straightened, and she shook her head, prepared to administer a scathing rebuke.
“She’s spoken for.”
The wyvern puffed his chest, ready to fight this new adversary until his gaze landed on his leather-clad wife weaving her way toward him. He ground his teeth, focusing on Lux once again.
“I always knew you would amount to nothing. This only further proves my thinking.” He gestured to Shaw, a sneer on his lips, transforming his face into less of a fearsome beast and more an oily serpent.
Lux scoffed. Because she knew Colden, and a man like him? He deserved none of her attention.
But Shaw did not know him. When his hand encircled the other man’s throat, she could only offer a half-hearted protest. Shaw leaned in close, his mask scraping grooves of red along Colden’s smooth cheek. “Say it again.”
The man flailed, but Death’s grip was unyielding. He stood nearly a head taller than Morana’s husband, his shoulders twice as broad. “I said she would amount—” A choked sound cut off the remainder. Colden’s eyes bulged, his gloved fingers clawing for purchase.
“Say. It. Again . ”
He could not. They all knew it. And it was only the level of drunken obliviousness swirling around them that prevented Shaw from being beaten by a force of guards. Yet, Colden’s face was purpling, and Morana weaved closer. That was a mess she wished to avoid.
“If you murder him, you’ll ruin my night and yours. Mine because I’ll have to boil my eyes after seeing him unclothed again. Yours because you’ll be in prison.”
Shaw tossed him off.
Colden stumbled backward where he hacked and wheezed. “You dare— ”
“Listen to me, you winged weasel.” Lux stepped close until his blown pupils found hers. “ You dare mention anything, and I will purposefully botch your inevitable revival. Decide your course.” When he continued to only stare and seethe, she hissed, “ Now. ”
Morana was upon them, and the decision was made. The wyvern flew away entirely. The mayor’s daughter stared at his vacated place, her eyes giving away little even as her shoulders drooped. When her gaze flicked to Lux, however, they rose, stiff and proud, daring her to say something. Anything.
Lux remained silent.
“We should dance.”
She lifted her attention from Morana’s retreating form to huff at Shaw, but he didn’t look at her. Rather, he frowned at the Shield who had discovered them in the mayor’s office, searching the crowd until he spied them.
Wonderful . This night can officially be stamped a disaster .
Without another thought, Lux rolled her body into his, sending them stumbling sideways. An uproarious laugh left her lips, partly in her pretend drunken stupor, but partly at the look of utter shock on Shaw’s face. He righted them both, his hands gripping her upper arms before grinning himself.
He really was quite good at acting, and her eyes were drawn to the creases at the corners of his, barely visible beneath his skeletal mask. She held out her hand. He took it within his warm one, and with a sweeping bow, led her onto the floor. Just in time for the beginning of a new dance.
Lux took her position across from him, curtsying when the other partners did. She smiled at Shaw’s exaggerated bow again, the line opposite her own bending forward as one. She wasn’t sure she knew the dance, but she doubted it really mattered. The more real stumbling she did, the less she would have to feign her missteps.
When Shaw stepped forward in perfect sync with those who flanked him, she nearly missed the turn, into his arms. Her open mouth snapped closed as he brought her hands to his shoulders before dropping his own to her waist—and lifting.
For once their eyes were at level, and Lux felt…exposed. He could see too much of what made her, and she hated it. At her release, she staggered back into line, weaving around a fairy with wings that threatened to send her crashing to the floor if she hadn’t given them an exceptionally wide berth. Shaw returned before her.
“Careful, Necromancer. Your admiration is showing.”
She released her lip to scowl at him. “You know this dance.”
“As I’ve said: you underestimate me.”
He lifted her again, and in an attempt to avoid his eyes, she found his mouth. Never had she ever been so grateful for a masked face. Her cheeks burned at his release of her waist.
She circled some green-clad creature. Thankfully, wing-less.
“I don’t think we should stay.”
His hands gripped her again, and the heat grew almost overpowering. It had her thinking of what might have happened had they not been interrupted. Of what his lips felt like.
Oh, they should definitely go.
“Bored, love?” Her boots hovered above the ground as he brought her chest against his, his breath skimming her mouth.
He held her too long. The couples were moving again. Nevertheless, Lux couldn’t pull her eyes from the dark, wanting depths of his. He bent his head.
The hush over the crowd fell, sudden and complete.
Lux felt her feet touch the floor, a trickle of ice traveling along her spine as a trailing silver dress parted the crowd. Sparkling bodies stumbled away from the fanged smile, the unmasked face, and the sheer magnetism of the woman before them.
Indigo eyes met Lux’s.
“Riselda?” The mayor tottered forward as if in a trance. Though perhaps he was. He certainly wouldn’t be the only one. His pink waistcoat was splotched with spilled wine, and he rubbed over the spots self-consciously.
“Bartleby.”
“You—” His gaze raked over her costume. “You’re breathtaking. What are you?”
Riselda smiled again, revealing pointed teeth. “A simple bat, my good mayor.”
The mayor’s brow furrowed beneath his mask. “But you wear silver.”
“So it would seem.” Riselda scanned the crowd with a predatory smile as the mayor fought to dispel the fog from his mind. “Would you like your birthday present?”
Nauseated, Lux watched the unabashed greed swarm into the mayor’s eyes. “As if you need to ask, Riselda.”
Her aunt ran tongue over pointed teeth, steering the mayor into a more private location, and Lux’s stomach churned, the glittering dress vanishing from view.
“I need to leave.”
Without waiting for Shaw, she twined her way through the crowd, many of whom were still whispering and pointing. They ignored her. The bodies grew thick, and she felt her chest constrict.
She needed air. Badly.
Weak as she was, those who didn’t move readily, did so at her hiss. At last, she staggered onto the landing, the expansive stairs widening before her. She breathed in a cleansing breath, feeling her head clear with each pulse of her heart.
Warmth radiated from somewhere at her back.
“Are you going to faint?”
Lux rolled her eyes, studying the moon as it smirked down at her. Shaw stepped to her side, following her stare. Together, they watched the cool moonlight play over the courtyard walls, highlighting the spired gates.
She shivered, then stilled when black fabric draped over her shoulders. Shaw’s coat. She stared at it, her mind blank. “Would you have done it?”
She could sense the exact moment his attention fixed on her, felt it lap at her profile like flame.
“No. Not over words.”
Lux sniffed. “He was wrong. To imply that about you.”
She startled at Shaw’s laugh, deep and incredulous. “You think—”
His thought broke abruptly, and it was her turn now to stare. His strong jaw was unfashionably rough as it upturned once more to the moon, his mask aglow beneath the cold light. She noticed his hair mussed from dancing—or perhaps she’d done that, burying her fingers in the thickness of it. She fidgeted against the ache building inside her. Devil’s own tits but am I a mess.
She burrowed further into his coat. “What sort of secret do you think my aunt is sharing with the mayor at the moment?”
“Well… Power does draw people.”
“Not me.” She scoffed in disgust. “Never me.”