“Lady Samara, I must beg a dance—”
None touched me, but they were so close. I didn’t need to breathe, but all the same, I felt like I was suffocating.
Enemy. Surrounded by the enemy.
My fangs ached. Not in hunger, but anger.
The onslaught of sycophantic chatter continued mercilessly.
“Radiant—”
“You’re a credit to the kingdom—”
“Your debut was so delayed, we worried—”
“Look this way—”
“We just knew he would turn you—”
It was the last one that hit hardest, and I twisted to snarl like a beast at whoever had said that when a voice cut through. It was no louder than any of the others, but it didn’t need to be. The voice was night itself, swallowing the world around it.
“I suggest everyone give Lady Samara some space unless you wish to learn what it means to suffer her displeasure.”
My body jerked, my eyes immediately finding Raphael. The crowd parted, dispersing as courtiers muttered quiet apologies.
The vampire king cut an intimidating figure this evening. His crown was simple and unyielding—just like the man. His red eyes and white hair weren’t what marked him as vampire among vampires. It was his presence. The power he radiated. The way he needed only to arch a brow and everyone fell over themselves to please him.
His presence helped me steady myself. The anger I’d felt—that must’ve been the grimoire. It had been days since I’d touched it, and it was getting easier to notice. I was uncomfortable—that was my own feeling. But the anger that wasn’t mine, I worked to let it go.
Raphael held a hand out to me in invitation.
I stared at it like it were liable to bite me. He hadn’t come to greet me—he’d all but thrown me to a pack of hungry dire wolves.
And yet I wanted to take his hand.
“Dance with me, Lady Samara.”
I slid my palm in his.
“Only because I don’t want to be accosted the second you step away,” I muttered under my breath. It was low enough, I hoped, the vampires wouldn’t catch it over the din of the ballroom. “They ignored me before. I wish they’d go back to it.”
Raphael led me to the dance floor, where other partnered vampires had resumed moving. “They never ignored you.” He pulled me closer, his other hand shifting to graze my low back. I set my hand on his shoulder, moving haltingly through the steps. “But now that you’ve been introduced to them, they’ll be relentless. I delayed this as much as I could.”
Delayed? Was he actually protecting me, even now? I twisted my head to the side. The other dancers moved with easy grace, their steps light, effortless. I’d never learned to dance like that. In fact, I was an awful dancer.
But the unfortunate truth was, with Raphael it felt easy.
“They will try to curry favor with you, even if only because they believe you have influence over me.”
I stiffly turned my neck back to face him. “And do I?”
“More than you know.”
I looked away again. It was disconcerting, our bodies pressed so close. We’d sparred a few times, but this . . . this was another feeling. The way he guided me across the floor, the way the world contracted to just the space where we danced. The way it was hard to remember all my anger.
I had to try all the same. “You weren’t there.”
“Where?” he asked, curious.
