47. Ayres
“I’m never attending another ball with you and Rorax Greywood in the same room ever again.”
Ayres watched as Elios Delgado spun Rorax around the dance floor with grace and expert ease, and he was surprised his back molars hadn’t been ground into dust. He’d counted over a hundred ways he wanted to kill his old friend for putting his hands on Rorax, for acting like he had some claim on her. This was their third dance together. And he wished to the gods he could look away.
“Ayres, go find a barmaid to fuck. Please. You reek of aggression,” Milla sighed with an exasperated huff.
Ayres ignored Milla, a muscle ticking in his cheek as Elios’s hand slid dangerously close to Rorax’s ass.
Ayres didn’t care. He didn’t give a fuck whose bed she chose to warm as long as it ended the minute she was named to the House of Death and fell under their protection. If Ayres let his House choose Rorax as their Contestar, she couldn’t be in anyone’s bed but one of their own. He wouldn’t risk her accidentally spilling House of Death”s secrets like that. No one could know about Sumavari”s Books. Gods knew, he’d already royally fucked up by telling Rorax about them.
A rustle of movement at his side had him looking away from Rorax momentarily.
“You’re looking tense, Lieutenant.” Jia Frostguard sidled up next to him, looking at Ayres with a knowing smirk. “I’ll trade you a secret for a secret,” she purred.
Ayres grimaced, knowing better than to deal in secrets with a fucking Heilstorm, but . . . “Deal.”
“Before the dance started, I got my hands on a list of the songs they’re planning to play at the ball tonight before the Selection. We’re on song thirty-three, and there’s only one more.” She held her hand out and a tiny scroll of paper lay in her palm. Ayres’s body went stiff, but he plucked the paper out of her palm and unrolled it with his fingers. “Delgado looks like he’s a starving man out there with her, doesn’t he?” she said.
Ayres saw the tiny name of the dance scribbled in the thirty fourth slot and his body turned to ice.
Jia snickered as Ayres crumpled the piece of paper in his fist.
“What do you want to know, Jia?” he snapped, his body tense, coiled.
Jia’s gaze left Ayres and combed over the dancing bodies in the room. “I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know when there’s a secret I’m just dying to have.”’
Jia winked one of her dark purple eyes at Ayres. She turned and was about to walk away but hesitated and slowly turned back to him. “If you need any more assistance retrieving the things that were stolen from you, my talents are also at your disposal.”
Ayres understood her meaning. She was offering to help find the books, too. He nodded once and Jia turned away and disappeared into the crowd.
Milla snorted from her spot once Jia left, still perched on the wall behind him. “She just played you like a fiddle. You didn’t even make her work for it, Ayres.”
Ayres ignored his friend as the song currently playing began to slow, and before Ayres knew what he was doing he strode across the room, shoving through the throng of people roughly to get to Rorax. Just as she and Elios lifted from their final bows, Ayres stopped in front of her. “May I have the next dance?”
“I . . .” Rorax stared up at him, her wide eyes flicking back and forth from Elios to Ayres before she gave Ayres a confused nod. “Yes.”
Elios frowned slightly, but Ayres grabbed her hand to drag her out to the middle of the dance floor before Elios could say anything.
He positioned her in front of him. Her back to his chest, Ayres leaned his head down to her ear, breathing in her scent. Gods, how could someone so evil smell as good as she did? “Do you know which dance is next?”
“No.” Rorax shook her head, a blush covering the apples of her cheekbones at his proximity. Her voice was hard, but there was a tinge of breathlessness there and he liked it. More than he should. “Do you?”
Ayres hummed in satisfaction as the violins began to play the opening chords of the Seksitan.
Rorax gasped as she recognized the melody and looked over her shoulder at him. “A seksitan? You asked me to dance a seksitan with you?”
Her voice was uncharacteristically high, and a little bead of sweat appeared on her forehead. Satisfaction seared through him.
“I couldn’t let you dance this with Delgado,” Ayres said, the corner of his mouth coming up.
“Why? And what if I wanted to dance it with Delgado?” She sounded breathless as he ran his fingers over the skin of her arm, and the masculine side of him hummed.
“Trust me,” Ayres purred, ignoring her first question, and noted with some kind of sick satisfaction her heartbeat strumming in her throat.
The music started to play, and Ayres dipped Rorax over his arm, bending her over so far, her long hair brushed the top of his shiny black shoe.
The seksitan was a dance for lovers. It was said to be the dance of sex, and so of course he wouldn”t let Rorax dance it with someone who wasn’t from Death, Ayres reasoned with himself.
Ayres trailed his fingers from her extended chin down her throat and almost to her cleavage before snapping her backup and all but throwing her into a spin. He guided her through the steps, then draped her over his other arm, trailing his fingers down her throat, then over her collar bones, and again almost down to the swell of her breasts as he straightened her up.
Her cheeks were pink, and she looked unsettled. Her involuntary reactions felt like the ultimate victory to him in that moment, and as they started to move together, he pulled her closer than necessary. She took a sharp breath as her backside brushed against his core.
Rorax was beautiful. Her body was perfect as it moved against his. Her red painted lips were full and looked so soft.
And for one blinding moment, Ayres wished that Rorax wasn’t . . . Rorax. He wished they didn’t have this history, this weight on their shoulders. Then he could woo her properly, take her out to the town, kiss her, invite her into his bed . . .
He flipped her so they were chest to chest, and as they started to move together in the steps of a seksitan, she stared up at him with those beautiful, white eyes.
Marras save him. He dipped her down again, letting his fingers trail over her skin, slower this time. Sensually. Taking in the heat and the soft skin as he brushed over her collar bones.
He brought her up, but this time as they came face to face, he felt her hot breath against his lips and for one blinding moment, he wanted to taste her.
Gods curse him, he needed to sort himself out.
As the last chords of the seksitan faded into the air, the Guardian stood, looking out over the crowd. “Everyone but Emissaries and Contestars gather in the back of the room. It’s time for the Selection.”