Alistair was between us before I even had time to process his movement. He held the werewolf’s gaze, a dangerous look in his own, and just like that, I could tell they’d both forgotten about Amari and her minions.
My heart pounded. Was this it? Was this what I’d been dreading after all? The idea of either of them being hurt, especially by each other, was too much to take. Panic had my thoughts in a blur, and all I could do was watch.
“Are you good?” Alistair asked Dean, his voice stiff and his posture tense, like he was ready to take him down at the slightest provocation. He spoke slowly and deliberately, like he was talking to a beast.
Dean stared at him for what felt like an eternity, still seething, but as the moments wore on, his heaving shoulders began to sag and the enraged look on his face slowly eased into one of shame.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Dean muttered, his voice hoarse. “I, uh…need to step outside for a break.”
He didn’t stick around to wait for a response from Alistair or me. He walked away without looking back, pushing through Amari’s crowd like they didn’t even exist. They scattered immediately like the cowards they really were.
I started to go after him, but Alistair’s hand on my shoulder stopped me. “He needs some space,” he said in a somber tone. He was right, and he probably knew Dean better than I did in a sense. Understood him, at least. I didn’t know what it was like to have to keep the monstrous side of my nature in check, and as worried as I was about Dean, I knew going after him would only make things worse.
I nodded and let Alistair lead me away from what had nearly been the scene of another disaster. “Do you want to leave?” he asked gently.
“No,” I answered, smiling up at him. “No, we should enjoy the rest of the evening.”
“In that case… would you like to dance?” he asked, offering his hand to me. His tone was uncertain, like he wasn’t sure what I was going to answer.
I gladly took his hand and fell into step with him, forgetting all about Amari and her goons. He looked like some otherworldly creature, too perfect to be real, and the mask and whatever was behind it changed nothing.
It was no surprise that he was an excellent dancer, even though I couldn’t imagine him practicing either. It just seemed something that came naturally to someone that elegant and refined. As he swept me along the dance floor, my clumsiness ceased to matter at his lead. Once again, it was just the two of us.
“I’m sorry this night isn’t going how you planned,” Alistair finally said.
I looked up at him, taking in the troubled look on his face. “Aside from the near massacre, I’d say it’s going pretty well,” I said, earning a snort that came awfully close to a laugh. “I’m glad you and Dean are getting along now.”
“We have a common interest.”
My face grew warm, and I looked away. I was content to just stay in his arms, swaying gently to the slow music, until someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, fully expecting it to be Amari back with another death wish, but when I saw the man standing in front of me in a suit of a sickeningly familiar shade of crimson, my heart sank.
“Mind if I cut in?” he asked in the same husky voice from the dream. His light brown hair was a bit longer than it had been in the memory, but his eyes were the same bold silver, driving mercilessly into my soul.
I opened my mouth to speak, but my voice was frozen in my throat. No matter how I tried, it was like someone had a grip on me, making it impossible to scream the way I wanted to.
Magic. The thought came to me in an instant, foreign and almost as if it wasn’t mine at all. I didn’t know how I knew, but I did. As those intense eyes peered into me, drawing what was left of my breath, I felt it. Magic dark and terrible, and a thousand times more intense than the magic emanating from any of the fledgling sorcerers I’d been around in class.
So this was what it was like to be in the presence of a witch.
Chapter 21
Bells
Instinctively,I stepped toward the witch, unable to stop my movements. When I looked back to Alistair for help, his glazed, unblinking stare suggested he’d fallen into a trance as well.
I gasped when the witch took my hand and slipped an arm around my waist, pulling me close against him. “Long time, no see, pet,” he purred in a voice like velvet that raked across my spine, making every hair stand on end. “How long has it been? Or do you not remember me?”
I stared at him in confusion, struggling to break away or at least to understand why my body no longer bent to my commands. He led me across the dance floor as expertly as Alistair had, my steps perfectly in line with his, only his control was overt rather than natural.
“You,” I gritted out, finally able to speak. The fact that I knew it was only because he was allowing it made it all the more enraging. “You’re one of them.”
“Shhhh, you may only whisper,” he said, his gaze darkening as he put his finger to my lips, bringing my voice to a grinding stop in my throat. “So you do remember. Interesting. I thought they held onto those memories for awhile.”
“You were the worst one,” I spat, my voice a furious whisper. My body trembled as I tried to break free from his trance, but it was no use.
“Do you really think that?” he asked in that soft, velvet voice, nearly whispering himself.
His question took me off-guard. I studied his face, trying to recall more of the horrible memories surrounding it, but the wings of the butterflies in my stomach beat a different rhythm. It made no sense. I loathed this man. He’d tried to kill me, even if I didn’t know what miracle had kept him from finishing the job, so why did he feel so…
