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Trying to find a way to Rafe.
But it wasn’t going to happen. It was time to accept that this Romeo-and-Juliet romance wasn’t going to end any more happily than the first.
I lifted my chin. “You’re a princess,” I told myself. “Act like one.”
In the hall, Jean-Michel waited to escort me downstairs. At my appearance, he gave a small smile. “Très belle.”
I shot him a startled look and murmured a thank you. It had been a long time since he’d said anything personal to me. Two years, to be exact.
Our friendship had been another casualty of my “little rebellion,” as Victorine called it. Jean-Michel had barely escaped being staked. Instead, my mother had ordered me to snap silver manacles around his wrists and chain him to the basement wall outside my rooms in the Old Town Mansion. She’d kept him there for a month, slowly starving, where I saw him whenever I entered or left my rooms.
Near the end of the thirty days, Jean-Michel had appeared more animal than human. Body hollowed out by hunger. Face a flesh-covered skull topped by matted brown hair. Irises rimmed a brilliant, mad blue. Lips drawn back to show sharp fangs.
He didn’t speak the entire time. No recriminations. But no forgiveness, either.
He simply watched me pass by.
Victorine couldn’t have punished me more if she’d chained me to the wall instead of him.
“You are ready?” At my nod, Jean-Michel donned a mask and headed down the spiral staircase before me.
The ballroom was nearly full. Candles were everywhere, hundreds of them, a Crimson Ball tradition. They flickered in the chandeliers, in votives on the black-clothed tables, in the opulent flower arrangements. The dim light softened the vampires’ cold eyes, gave their smiles a deceptive warmth.
The thralls certainly seemed taken in by it. They clung to the vampires, starry-eyed through their masks. Rubies and emeralds and diamonds glittered—on the women’s throats and wrists, and in the males’ earlobes. The blood-bonded thralls wore a gold chain around their wrists.
Nearby, Lainey flirted with Olivier, a high-ranking soldier. She’d negotiated attendance at the ball as part of her contract before heading home tomorrow. I suspected her next post would be#hotsexwithavampire.
The band swung into a tango. The males pulled their partners close, steering them through the sensual moves, dipping them backward over one arm and nuzzling their necks in an intimate, wolfish dance that was as close to intercourse as you could get with your clothes on.
I’d never met a vampire who didn’t love to tango, me included.
Étan appeared, blond and beautiful in a tux and a black half-mask. The vulture tattoo of a Tremblay enforcer peaked out of the collar of his starched white tuxedo shirt.
He jerked his chin at Jean-Michel, and the guard fell back a few steps.
“Zoe.” Étan took in my skimpy dress with a possessiveness that made my stomach hollow out. “May I be the first to wish you a very happy birthday?”
Play the game.
I was so close to being appointed Victorine’s lieutenant. The youngest syndicate lieutenant in the world. I’d have real power, not just power in name only.
If mating with Étan was part of the deal, would it be so bad?
I plastered on a smile and prepared to make my mother happy.
6
RAFE
The Tremblay Chateau loomed above me, ribbons of mist slithering around its thick greystone walls. Candles flickered in its narrow medieval windows. Music and laughter spilled into the night. In the garden, thralls in bronze cages danced half-naked for the vampire guests’ pleasure.
I smoothed down my tux, adjusted my bowtie. A black velvet half-mask covered my features.
A whole week I’d been close to Zoe Tremblay without being able to touch her. Tonight, that would change. My mouth curved in a sharp-toothed smile.
As I moved forward, my glamour wavered. I pumped more magic into it.
I should’ve been afraid. I was nearly out of energy now. If the glamour slipped, the mask wouldn’t hide me—too many people here knew my face. The Tremblay enforcers would be on me like dogs on raw meat.
