“Wrong about me?” I repeated, trying to make sense of his words.
That earned a smile. It stretched too wide beneath his hyena-like leer, and something primal in me recoiled.
Be the hunter, not the prey, my mother had whispered across the years.
I took another step closer, clenching my fists, ready to swing first, when a branch cracked somewhere nearby. I spun around, expecting to see his back up, as my pulse stuttered in my throat.
“Does the lady need to hit you in the face to make you disappear?”
Relief surged through me like a sudden gust of wind at the voice. It wasn’t his ally who stepped from the shadows. It was mine.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ELODIE
Preston stepped from the shadows of a tall tree wearing the same gleaming black fox mask I saw in the great hall earlier. His blonde hair, for once, behaved, swept back in a way that made him look infuriatingly perfect. But his eyes—those deep green eyes—held a wildness in them, something untamed and alight with mischief…or warning. I couldn’t tell which.
“Do I know you?” Abraxas asked, his arms folding across his chest, as if he couldn’t be bothered by the shift in atmosphere.
Now he decided to care about only talking to people he knew? What a twit.
Preston’s chuckle slid beside me like a blade in silk. “Fortunately, you don’t.”
Abraxas’s eyes narrowed, then widened, just slightly in the hollows of his mask, but enough to notice. As if something both scared him and fascinated him at the same time. For a moment, he looked like he might say something else. His posture shifted like a wind-swept curtain. His eyes fixed on Preston a moment too long, and then he stepped back.
A moment later, his dark red boots whispered across the gravel, his form melting into the shadows as he strode back toward the manor without another word.
“Dreadful guest you’ve got there,” Preston said with mock revulsion. “And the party…was the theme, Dante’s purgatory?”
I snorted, resting my back against the tree’s thick trunk, hooking my fingers into its cracks, and letting out a long breath. A month ago, his arrival would have tightened every muscle in my body. But now? Now I was almost glad he found me. Even more so, given he didn’t seem drunk anymore.
I traced the edge of the mirror beside me. “I thought you would be in the middle of the dancefloor.” I wiped my damp palms onto the silk of my gown. “Why the garden?”
“Unfortunately, I have a strong distaste for sharing the spotlight.” He flashed a grin sharp enough to match his mask.
Why wasn’t I surprised at all?
His smile softened. “So,” he said. “I thought I’d bring the spotlight here, to you instead. Birthday and all.” He extended his hand, and my heart, the traitorous thing, jumped into its own dance.
“That’s still sharing,” I pointed out, slipping my cold hands into his. Goosebumps spread over my body from the warmth of his touch, while he placed his free hand on my waist, pulling me in and leaving only a small gap between the fabric of our clothes.
He nodded, golden strands of hair catching in the fairy lights.
“Some things are worth sharing,” he murmured, his breath clouding into the cold air. “Don’t you think?”
The lights above flickered in his eyes, emerald mirroring stars and secrets. The world around us faded as we moved together, tenderly, through the frosty grass, gliding like ghosts under the night sky. Like spiders sewing enchanted webs, or forgotten leaves drifting silently on a midnight breeze.
For one brief moment, the endless bickering between us dissolved. It was just us. Two fractured pieces breathing in sync.
“Do you still hate me?” Preston asked, pulling me closer, our noses nearly brushing.
My lips parted, then shut, my teeth clicking together too hard.
“I do,” I said, barely.
It wasn’t a lie, yet it felt like one. He was the one who hated me the moment I stepped foot in the manor. He was the one who slowly forced me to hate him myself. But at that moment I hated him a little less. And I didn’t know how to feel about that.
“Good,” he whispered.
