I didn’t get the chance to answer.
Someone rang a bell, and everyone in the foyer filed through into the dining room. After a moment of hesitation, Dante and I followed. I couldn’t help but feel a minuscule amount of relief at the interruption. I hadn’t had an answer, not really. Did I actually believe he didn’t want me? Of course I did. His kind hadneverwanted to even be around mine. The Upper Ringers treated those of us below as if being poor was contagious. The only emotion I’d ever drawn from someone above me in the social hierarchy was disgust. So, of course, it was hard to believe a man from the First Ring would feel anything close to desire forme. Even though Dante was my partner. Even though we’d been through all we already had together. Even though we’d flirted and joked and literally spoke to one another in ourminds. It had never been real. Had it? I couldn’t deny the part of me that had wanted that moment in the hall to linger, had wanted to explore the possibilities dancing in his heady green eyes. But that part of me scared me. Because I was sure I’d never felt anything like it before.
Pushing thoughts of the Viper heir from my mind, I followed the crowd to find the long dining table laid out with more place settings than I’d ever seen. Each one had a small folded sign with the name of its intended occupant. Silently grateful that my own name was the first thing Bria had taught me to read, I didn’t pay any attention to the others as I searched for my own.
Finding it toward the center, I pulled out my chair and sat right as Olympia pulled out hers directly across from me, and Dante beside her. Her eyes met mine, and we both frowned. I restrained the urge to curse as I sat, avoiding Dante’s darkened gaze as well. I really could’ve used a break from both of them but tried not to think as much so my partner wouldn’t sense it.
From the head of the table, Cosmo watched us, lips quirked into a knowing smile as he took a sip of his champagne.
I sighed.
Ever since I’d called him out in front of his family, he seemed to be making a hobby of creating awkward situations for me to see if I would erupt and show my true class.
But I wouldn’t take the bait.
I merely sat down, placing my napkin upon my lap as Bria had instructed, and waited for the first course to begin.
Chapter Fourteen
“I have never known a love like that which I feel for Valin. I love my sister, I love the Geist, but my future lies with Valin. When we succeed, I know he will be by my side. And if we should fail, we will settle among the rings and have children who will try again in our names.”
-Journal of Prima; 315 Genesis Age
Iate the entire first course in silence, trying in vain to ignore the conversation that was taking place directly across from me.
Olympia and Dante had been engaged from the beginning in a lively revisitation of their fondest childhood memories, drawing others near us into their discussion as well. Twins Stella and Emilia from House Lynx giggled along with them and interjected with their own remembrances of spending their youth alongside the similarly aged members of the major houses. Kai and Luca, Olympia’s friends, laughed along too. I just stabbed my fork into my veal a little harder than I intended and glared away.
“You’re still his partner,” someone whispered, and my head snapped to the left. The small, wiry-haired boy beside me had been the one who spoke.
He had freckles all over his pale face and golden glasses that made his eyes look a bit too small. He had soft, light brown curls that framed his face in a way that seemed more haphazard than intentional and dimples at the corners of his lips whenever he smiled. He wore the blue of House Avus; Olympia’s house.
“Excuse me?” I asked, stunned.
“She has his past, but you have his future.”
My cheeks burned, and I turned back to my meal.
“I don’t want his future,” I grumbled. “I mean, I’m not jealous. It isn’t like that between us. I just don’t understand what he sees in her.”
“They were born and bred to be partners. In everything.”
I looked back at the boy, and he raised his brows in emphasis. In a haste to get off the subject, I cleared my throat and extended a hand so quickly, I nearly knocked over my champagne glass. “I’m Adrian.”
“I know.” He offered a smile as he extended his own hand to grasp mine. “I’m Milo.”
“Of House Avus.”
“I am. But don’t think I have any sort of in with Olympia. If anything, she hates me even more than you.”
I snorted.
“Then I think we’ll get along just fine, Milo,” I told him, and he grinned. “So where are you at, in the Trials?”
“We just failed the second one.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, cringing in memory of the Second Trial.
“Don’t be,” he replied easily, waving a hand as though it hardly mattered. “I never expected to make it very far. I was never as athletic as the others. And I didn’t get the partner I expected. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame Isla.”
