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.”
