Party #3
Gayle took mine.
We held on.
Hmm.
Okay.
Maybe I didn’t have to let go.
Maybe I just needed to loosen the hold, but still hold.
And on a squeeze for both of them, I determined I’d do that.
Forever.
Sometime later, I was laughing with Estra, who was relating hilarious stories about Uly, Nayden and Tanyn.
“When they get together, they’re just such…” She struggled to find a word, then found it. “Dudes.”
I laughed again.
“Though, allow me to assure you,” she went on. “Tanyn is less dude than the other two.”
His life had been more serious, more severe, so that wasn’t a surprise.
In fact, as insane as it was, I sort of wished he felt free to be more dude-like.
Occasionally.
“You don’t have to entertain me,” she said, regaining my focus. “I can fend for myself, and I know you have to mingle.”
“I’ve been mingling for three hours, not to mention, I’m going to have a lifetime of mingling,” I reminded her. “And the way you and Uly are, with who Uly is to Tanyn, it seems I might have a lifetime of you too.”
Black started seeping into her eyes, and I was glad to see it. It meant she felt the same about Uly as he did about her.
“So right now, my priority is you,” I concluded.
“That was…incredibly kind,” she replied, deep feeling behind her words.
“I’m not just a pretty face in a fantastic dress,” I quipped.
She smiled.
Suddenly, I felt a strange sensation gliding up the back of my neck.
It wasn’t pleasant.
It was so unpleasant, the red started to encroach in my vision.
I turned and scanned the crowd.
Beings were talking, drinking, and in the next room, they were dancing.
Some of the beings there, I knew (obviously). Others I’d met that night. Even others, I’d seen pics of somewhere along the way. And the last of them I simply didn’t know.
But no one was paying me any mind.
I found Tanyn and did another scan to see if this feeling was about someone watching or approaching him.
He was speaking with King Niall’s brother and his wife, and there didn’t seem to be anyone who was paying him undue attention either.
He also didn’t appear to be more alert, like he felt what I felt.
I located Aleksei and Laura, then Gayle and Mac, and Aleece and Bain.
All good.
However, when I found Monique, she was making her way across the room with purpose.
Though, she was heading toward the ladies’ lounge, so perhaps she had some business to attend to.
In other words, everyone seemed normal.
So why was I still experiencing that sensation?
“Are you all right?” Estra asked.
“I just got a strange feeling.”
“Do I need to find Uly or Nayden?” she asked urgently.
I turned to her. “They’re trained demon warriors. So is Tanyn. They’d feel something was amiss before me, don’t you think?”
“I would think, but you’re demon too, Catla. You have demon instincts. So should I find Uly or Nayden?”
I scanned the room and my senses.
The sensation was gone.
But I locked on Dinyn Climbright, just because Tanyn didn’t like him.
He was in the other room, dancing with one of Lex’s cousins.
“I think I’m just being overwrought because of all that’s going on,” I said.
“Maybe,” she replied, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced.
At that point, I felt something else, looked to Tanyn and saw his gaze on me.
I read immediately he wanted me at his side.
“Sorry, but I need to ask you to excuse me. Tanyn wants me,” I said to Estra.
“And I need to find my male, because if I don’t dance while I’m in the Celestial Palace wearing a fabulous gown, which, by the way, thank you for arranging for me, I’ll never forgive myself. Uly hates dancing and he’s been avoiding it. I’m running out of time to pin him down.”
I smiled at her, bid her good luck and headed to Tanyn.
One of the few genuine smiles I saw from him that night was the one he aimed at me when I started to do so.
As such, I wasted no time as I crossed the room to get to his side.
Doing so, not knowing, two beings watched my every step.
Closely.
And malevolently.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I asked as the lift doors closed on the member of the detail who’d been keeping watch over my flat while we were gone and we were wandering back into said flat five hours after we left it.
“What I can say is, it’s done.” He gave me a certain look. “What I can also say is, don’t take that fucking dress off.”
I’d nearly dislocated a shoulder closing the zip, even if it was a side one (maneuvering through those rectangles had been a bitch).
But that wasn’t the only reason he’d be taking it off me.
I tilted my head. “No wine tonight?”
“Get upstairs,” he ordered
I grinned.
But that was all the time I wasted before I went upstairs (however, I was me, so as I did it, I put a lot of sashay into it and was rewarded when I heard his low growl behind me).
In other words, even with that funny feeling I’d had, the engagement party went off without a hitch.
Laura looked gorgeous. Aleksei looked so proud. They were both so very happy.
And Tanyn and I were official.
So we were done celebrating Laura and Aleksei.
It was time to celebrate something else.
And I was all in.