42 #3
“Why are you dragging Vanessa around like she’s cattle at an auction?”
“Because, congratulations , you’re the lucky bidder who won.” Sin shoves me into Calix’s arms quickly. “Dance with her, Cousin.”
Calix’s spine grows rigid as I land against his chest. He glances between Sin and me as if he’s waiting for the punch line to a horribly unfunny joke, but his arms don’t leave my shoulders.
Sin sighs. “I do not have time for this.” He opens Calix’s palm and sets my hand atop it. I swallow hard. Calix doesn’t flex his own hand, doesn’t so much as twitch. “Remember when I let you borrow my favorite sword and you broke it?” Sin asks.
Calix nods brusquely.
“You owe me,” Sin says, and then he pivots on his heel and abandons us.
We haven’t been alone since the car. I haven’t spoken to Calix since the bar. He never sought me out after Evie showed up in our lessons alive and well and undisturbed. Like everyone else, I doubt he wants to speak to me now. My gaze drops to our feet. We stand inches apart. Like strangers.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say quietly, hoping none of the other werewolves will hear. “The queens… They were suspicious. Sin thinks he’s saving me.”
Calix tenses further. Abruptly, his hand fists around mine, and he tugs me against him. I gasp, nearly tripping over my feet as I clutch his shoulder. As his golden eyes search my face. “I don’t mind,” he says gruffly.
But those words blaze through my heart. He’s lying.
And it shouldn’t, but it hurts . Calix and I have been through so much together.
My father shot him. He almost drowned me.
He snuck me out of the castle. He cleaned my wounds.
Maybe we were never friends, but we were more than this.
Strangers. I shut my eyes and shake my head.
“I can go stuff my face with desserts. It’s not a big deal. ”
He leads me onto the dance floor in answer, surprisingly smooth, and begins a slow waltz.
One of his palms lingers on my lower back—high enough to be respectable, but still intimate—while the other lifts my arm around his neck.
It doesn’t matter that he once carried me through the castle as lovers. This is… different. This is…
“It’s just a dance,” he says darkly. “Stop acting like we’re marching to your funeral.”
I frown, staring at the thin black button-up stretching across his shoulders. It does a very poor job at concealing his hard muscles. “You’re the one who didn’t want to dance with me.”
“Perhaps because we spend most of our time at each other’s throats.” He sighs, and his chest rises and falls against mine. I count each tick of his rapidly beating heart. He’s nervous. Or maybe uncomfortable. Either way, I have become just another responsibility. And Sin…
He’s dancing with Evie now. Her scarlet gown dazzles in the middle of the floor, and he smiles at her as if she’s the sun. He smiles at her the way he usually smiles at me. Though I can feel in my bones it’s a lie—a performance—I don’t care. I hate it all the same.
“Yes, well,” I snap, tightening my hold on Calix, “you are infuriating.”
“Hart,” he growls, “unless you are a fan of erotic-asphyxiation, stop choking me.”
Oh. Oh. I loosen my arms, and he exhales roughly. “It’s a dance,” he repeats, before he twirls me away. “Loosen up.”
“That’s hilarious coming from you.”
The forest spins around me in a gorgeous blur of lights and stars and sky, and Calix reels me into his chest, his arms now wrapped around my belly as I lean back against him.
His lips brush my ear, and I can’t help shuddering at the sound of his deep voice.
“See?” he whispers. “If I can do it, so can you.”
“I’m sh-shocked you can dance,” I say, paying far too much attention to my feet as they fumble through the movements.
“My cousin is a prince, and my aunt is a queen. I am not just the brooding bastard bodyguard of Castle Severi.”
“I don’t consider you brooding,” I offer.
“Oh?”
“Gloomy. Menacing. Sometimes even moping.” I grin in spite of myself, even as I watch Sin and Evie sway together across the dance floor. “But never brooding.”
Calix whirls me around so that I face him once more. “Those are all synonyms for brooding , Hart.”
“If the shoe fits, I suppose.…”
He dips me then, as if to punish me—or perhaps distract me—but the movement is so fast, it feels like flying.
I giggle, and Calix smiles. The sight of it feels like a punch to my stomach.
His eyes flash brighter at the sound—gold to red, then back to gold so quickly, I might’ve imagined it.
“You don’t laugh enough, Vanessa,” he says softly.
But I don’t hear him, and I—I didn’t imagine it. His eyes flashed red. Blinking rapidly, I touch his cheek, and he stops breathing altogether. “Your… your eyes , Calix. They just—”
He snaps upright, his hands splaying across my hips, and resumes swaying us gently. For a moment I think he might ignore me. Then—“I’m certain I don’t know what you mean.”
“Liar.”
His eyes narrow, though he doesn’t frown. “Yes,” he agrees, capturing my gaze as seconds stretch between us. His heart pounds. Mine stutters. He lied again. “I am.” And—the depth of those words entangles my organs. The implication. I stare at him in shock.
Confusion.
“Calix—”
He won’t let me finish the question. Shaking his head, he says, “Enough about me. How are you doing? After the beach, you weren’t quite yourself.”
“You don’t believe me either,” I guess, trying not to let it wound me. And failing miserably. As before, Calix’s doubt hurts much more than it should. “But I know what I saw, and she attacked Evie—”
He spins me again—violently this time—hissing, “Would you keep your voice down? This is hardly polite conversation for a party.”
“You’re the one who asked —”
“And I regret it instantly. Trust me.”
Truth.
I scowl at him, but this is too important to let my anger get the best of me now.
Too treacherous. Something more is going on here—something sinister—and I am sick of no one listening to me except Sin.
I cast a look at him over my shoulder, and my heart breaks a little at that smile on his face for Evie.
“You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed— things happening around this place. Bad things.”
“We’re werewolves,” he deadpans. “Bad things are an occupational hazard.”
“Well, the people in the dungeons aren’t .
” Keeping my voice low, I slide my hands from his shoulders to his chest. And I want so badly to push him away, but I can’t.
Not without drawing attention to ourselves.
He seems to share the thought, stiffening slightly before dipping me again.
“They’re human , Calix, and they’re being tortured down there. Even if no one else cares—”
Calix freezes. When I straighten, trying to force him into the next box step, his hand hardens in mine. Though I tug and tug, glancing around us, he doesn’t budge. He also doesn’t speak. His brow falls. His gaze narrows.
I try not to move my lips. “Calix, if you think any louder, it may as well be a scream.”
Nothing. Still nothing.
“Calix—”
“Stop talking, Vanessa. For one second.” His gaze snaps to mine after a full minute passes. “Did you say you found people in the dungeon?”
I check our surroundings again. Eavesdroppers could be anywhere— are everywhere.
We’re surrounded by werewolves with preternatural hearing.
But Calix doesn’t seem to care about that anymore, even when I say, “Yes, Calix. Not that it’s any of your business.
” I drop his hands when he still doesn’t move.
If he’s done pretending, so am I. “You don’t believe me, remember? ”
“Impossible,” he says. A truth, and my blood chills to an icy frost. “Vanessa, we don’t use the dungeon. There hasn’t been anyone down there for centuries.”