Holy shit. I was about to bemated. It should’ve been cause for a celebration, not this tempest of guilt and fear and elation churning in my gut.
How could I make exceptions to the absolutism of Aetherius’s light?
Yet how could I call myself a slayer if I loved two vampires? My hands knew the balance of steel better than mercy, and they always would. I was trying to occupy a gray area that didn’t exist.
No. I won’t let that happen. I’m still in control.
I needed to cross some names off my list and prove I was still righteous. “Action over…” I was saying to myself when there was a knock at the bathroom door.
“Knock, knock,” Zane said on the other side. I suppressed a chuckle at the sheer relief I felt when his voicechased away the darkness floating in my thoughts. “A servant came by. You’ve got two letters to read and a function to attend.”
“I’d rather drown,” I deadpanned.
“Says the girl who liked to read everything on Dr. Hillman’s shelf.”
“They were educational!”
“Forfun,” he added. Undoubtedly, he’d just made a dramatic shiver to go along with the words.
I rolled my eyes. “My ire was for going to a function tonight.”
“And then she’d tell me all about what she’d read and learned, even though I understood maybe a third of what she was saying,” he narrated as if he wasn’t listening, cracking the door open and peeking in. “Not drowning, I see. That’s good! Finn and I were worried you were going to fall asleep in here.”
I couldn’t help a small smile. “I’ll be right out.”
“I’ll tell you about the function once you are.” He lingered by the doorway, the silence between us growing taut, charged with the anticipation of tomorrow. My hands went through the motions of cleaning. Soon, I had a towel tied around my torso and was wringing my hair over the draining tub.
“All right, what horrors await?” I pitched the question as a joke as I went to the powder room mirror and stared at my reflection. The refreshed illusion of Ilyana didn’t hide the dark circles under my eyes nor the slack, fatigued expression. “Oh, I see. I’m the horror.”
Zane leaned down to press a kiss to my temple. The touch was warm, a solid anchor I needed with my lingering uncertainty. “It’s not that bad.”
In the mirror, I watched as he kissed a path down myface. The sight of his mouth on my skin, paired with the heat of each touch, sent a deep pull through my core. When he reached my lips, I turned my head to meet him.
“It’s pretty bad,” I informed him after pulling away. I went rifling through my makeup, looking for some miracle to hide my sleeplessness. It was a shame I hadn’t brought many cosmetics. In the usual austerity of Lord Aetherius, I’d overlooked this particular need.
While I patted powder on my baggy undereyes, Zane said, “The function is in two hours. It’s going to be dinner and a show. The servant made it very clear that it’s for candidates to the throne only.”
I hummed. Undoubtedly, this was some sort of reward for surviving the labyrinth. And after the show…I wouldn’t put it past Mathias to announce the second trial while we were all glutted on blood and self-congratulations. My mouth watered, and I swallowed forcefully. I needed to eat another ration bar before I left so I wasn’t as tempted to sip on any blood.
I kept applying makeup, my thoughts drifting.
“Okay, sunshine. What’s going on in that head of yours?” Zane asked playfully.
“Huh? Oh. That I should try to elevate my hair. I bet all the other vampiresses are going to be back in their finery.” I frowned at my reflection again. The cosmetics were a second mask, further hiding the truth. The weight of my falsehoods was becoming unwieldy. How long would it take until I looked in the mirror and forgot what I really looked like?
His hands settled on my shoulders, thumbs tracing slow circles. “That’s not all. There’s something else you’re not telling me.”
When I turned to look up at him, his gaze was soft on mine.
“The half-moon is tomorrow.” I watched for doubt or jealousy to flash over his expression. The vampiric amber in his eyes glowed instead as he grinned, fangs and all. A hungry, wolfish look, as if he’d devour me rather than make me his mate when the half-moon rose.
Unbidden, Carlyle’s words threaded through the back of my mind.“You can’t trust him. He’s a monster now, like all the rest of them!”
I turned away abruptly, hoping Zane didn’t notice my wince. It was as if Carlyle had supplanted the voice of doubt in my head and made it twice as loud.
There was no sign of Finn as I went to select an outfit for the evening. Zane watched me dress until I finished wrestling into one of Ilyana’s burgundy gowns and presented him with the undone lacings up my back.
“A friend once said I’d be the laughingstock of the court if I was out in public with my dress improperly tied.”
