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I bet you had your fair share of messes to deal with, too, huh?I mused with some bitterness as we exited the castle.But at least you weren’t left to pick up the pieces after your wife got murdered and your daughter lost her mind.
* * *
Cyndella refusedto come out of her room, even when I banged on the door, a few minutes before the start of the gala. I’d hoped that a day with her maid and Endora would have calmed her down, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect. She sounded madder than ever as I waited for her to emerge.
“Go away!” she barked from behind the door.
“Cyndella—”
“Fuck off, Zen!”
I bristled and considered breaking down the door, but Endora materialized out of nowhere, her customary pouf of smoke emanating around her. She put a hand on my shoulder, shaking her head.
“Leave it to me,” she offered. “You have a party to host and a bunch of horny debutantes to attend to—not that you haven’t attended to half of them already.”
She nudged me like a college kid telling raunchy jokes, and I grimaced, stepping out of her reach.
“You’re going to wrinkle my tux.”
Endora beamed at me, reaching her long arms outward to adjust my bowtie.
“Don’t worry about Cyndella, Zen, but I wouldn’t count on her showing up tonight. I did my best to talk sense to her yesterday, but I think I might have made things worse. No matter what I say to her, she seems to be falling deeper into a hole.”
She eyed me meaningfully, but I ignored her hidden suggestion. This wasn’t the time to bring up an exhausted suggestion that I’d already shot down too many times before.
I forced a smile onto my face. “Whatever you can do to keep her calm,” I told her. “You know where to find me if you need me.”
“Holding down the fort like a great king does,” Endora replied, turning her attention toward Cyndella’s closed door. She didn’t bother with knocking, vanishing in a plume to see herself inside.
I did as Endora suggested, making my way to the main floor where the orchestra began to play light, happy music to usher in the earliest guests.
The next hour was consumed in a blur of champagne and faces, smiles and lipstick air kisses, my head already pounding as the great hall filled larger and larger.
My head turned toward the balcony doors, my head suddenly suffocating in the tux. Landon stayed to my back, Calliver to my front. The rest of the Royal Guards were ordered to station systematically at the entrances, but trouble was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind.
The worst that would happen would be one of the noblefae’s teen daughters sneaking too much wine and dancing in the fountains—as was a rite of passage at basically all Silverhold Tower balls. They were the younger sisters, all eagerly awaiting their own debutante balls and hopeful to make their impressions on the kingdom—at least until their party came and they were endlessly reminded of their social gaffes.
But the last one had seemed so much smaller than this one somehow. This one was large and out of control by my standards, far too many bodies flocking in through the guarded doors as I tried to keep everyone straight. I was probably imagining things. The guest list had been personally approved by my hand, after all. But given that it was the first since the death of my mother, it suddenly seemed insurmountable, and I wished now that I had heeded Cyndella’s warning.
I worried about security, about the food. I worried that I wasn’t going to keep up my own faux smile for the entire night without cracking.
Was Cyndella right? Should we have just canceled this year?
But it would have been a slippery slope to embark upon. It showed weakness, a hole in our stance. No, I’d done the right thing… hadn’t I?
I stepped onto the balcony, and the rush of cool summer air washed over my face, instantly sating my fraying nerves. The Juliet terrace only offered me a second of solitude—because I wasn’t alone out there. I didn’t see my companion until I had fully emerged, and it was too late to make a polite escape, pretending I hadn’t seen anyone at all.
“Oh!” the other occupant gasped, whirling around, her jade dress twirling flamenco style at the calf.
My eyes inched up the sleek, elegant curves of her lithe but small body, tightly packed into a plunging bodice, the cleavage stealing my breath.
“My apologies—” I started to say as my gaze took in her lips, but the words died there when I recognized the brilliant cerulean of her eyes. “Mirielle?”
“Alpha!” she choked, stumbling sideways to right her body as her heel caught on the hem of her dress.
I reached out easily and caught her before she could fall and inhaled the sweet cinnamon and vanilla of her soap.
Moonbeams showed the tinge of her cheeks perfectly, and she righted herself easily, sputtering like she was trying to find words.
