Page 170 of Bone Year

His honey eyes find mine.

I forget the count for one beat.

Malric pulls me back into rhythm.

“Told you,” he murmurs, low enough that only I can hear. “Watching.”

The music ends.

He tips his head down toward mine, his face close, close enough that for a half second the dance floor around us could be the alley behind the dorms, could be the corridor outside the morgue, could be the exam table I’ve spent weeks pretending I never climbed onto.

“For what it’s worth,” he says quietly, “I hope you find what you’re looking for tonight, Red.”

I don’t know what to say.

He releases my hand and bows slightly. He steps away from me, and the floor opens around the place where he was standing, and I’m alone for one breath in the middle of a hundred dancers, the orchestra already striking up the next piece, my dress settling around my legs, my hands cold where his were.

I turn.

Draven hasn’t moved. Of course he hasn’t moved. He isn’t going to come to me in front of all these people. Not when he’s spent weeks avoiding me since midterms. He’s going to make me come to him. He’s going to make me choose it, in front of every faculty member and every student and every vampire in his orbiting little court, and he’s going to watch me do it.

I stop in front of him with maybe a foot of air between us. He looks down at me, and I look up at him, and the orchestra moves through eight bars of the new piece.

“Hi,” I say, because someone has to start.

The corner of his mouth lifts reluctantly, the way it did in Holloweir.

“Rose.”

“You’re staring.”

“I am.”

“You should stop.”

“I should.”

We’ve done this before.

He sets the glass down on the windowsill behind him without breaking eye contact, his eyes drift down the length of my dress and back up to my face slowly. By the time his gaze meets mine again, I’ve stopped breathing. I don’t know when I stopped. I only know I need to start again before he notices.

“You look beautiful, Maelis.”

He doesn’t call me Rose or Freckles. He doesn’t call me anything but my name, and the sound of it in his mouth, in this dress, after all this time, almost finishes me before the night has properly started.

“Don’t say things like that to me right now,” I murmur.

“Why?”

“Because I have something to do tonight.”

“I know.”

“Then you know I cannot afford to be standing here looking at you.”

“And yet.” He tilts his head, and the corner of his mouth moves again. “Here we are.”

I sigh, because he is going to be like this all night, and I am going to be ruined for it.