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“I’ll try the lace.” I reluctantly drag the flouncy bundle into the bathroom. It zips with complaints in the boob area, but I’m more worried about the neck.
Delicate lace climbs to my chin, and even though the fabric is sheer, it masks my scars. The pattern gets denser below the knee, where there’s a hint of lining, and the hem falls low enough to keep my janky ankles under wraps.
I cup my throat.
I want to throw on a fur shawl or a gaiter or a freaking fleece vest, because just having the outline of my neck on display makes me feel worse than naked.
My skin crawls until I’m back in yoga gear with the hotel robe closed tight to my chin.
Resigned, I re-hang the dress. “It’ll have to work.”
But I’m crossing nibbled fingers that the SAS nails Nikolaj before I have to show my face at the clown cotillion.
“These should match.” Elyse hands me a pair of pearl-studded heels that are absolutely going to blister. “Take her phone, too. It’s unlocked, but add your face so you can get in again.”
I tap through Serafina’s settings and after a few front and side scans, I’m officially my sister.
With zero time to spare.
A guard knocks. “You about done?”
“Shit.” Elyse jams cords and gear into hidden pockets at the small of her back. “Commander will give you the signal tonight. Don’t do anything without her orders. And if you try to run—”
“I’ll wait.” I bunch my fists.
I bet the SAS has thirty contingency plans to handle me going rogue and zero in place for if I get caught.
Is it too late to steal my sister’s jet?
Elyse’s smile flips its switch, and she pours pineapple sugar into my waiting guards’ ears. “Thank you so much, Miss Redfang. I’ll be back to escort you tonight. Enjoy your spa day.”
I start to scowl.
I plan to scowl—but then Elyse goes glaze-eyed for the men she’s passing, and my face can’t make a single twitch.
I freeze like I just did an ice bucket challenge with liquid nitrogen. Like my strings are cut and my heart stopped beating and I cease to exist, because all the light and air in the universe just got stolen by them.
Bishop Barrington.
Su-Jin Moon.
A thousand years stretch between their footsteps, and I absorb every detail as they move through stilted time.
Bishop wears a vamp-red suit with a purple tie, pulling off the cut and color like no one ever could. He’s taller than he is in my fantasies, but his neatly styled brown hair hasn’t changed. There’s something newly dangerous in the easy grace of his stride, but his smirk hasn’t budged and neither has the sarcastic twinkle sparkling in his hazel, thick-lashed eyes.
Then Su-Jin.
Jin.
My Jinnie.
Ink black hair hangs to his forehead, artfully messy.
Black tux.
Black eyes.
Black soul.
