“I need air,” I thought I said aloud, but the creepy music drowned out my voice. The suitor clutched my waist with one hand as the other helped the drink to my lips, tipping it back. My head shook, and the dance floor seemed to wave under my heels like water.
Then someone else grabbed my arm, attempting to pull me away, but I was held firmly in place and the suitor was not letting me go. The desperate fingers dug deeper into my flesh, attempting to pry me away, to redirect blood flow if need be, when he wedged himself between me and the suitor who was keeping me here.
A palm laid against my suitor’s chest, and it was Julian who leaned over and whispered something into his ear. I’d recognize his shape anywhere, the vein popping in his neck, the staccato chest heave when he was upset. Julian was no longer in his jacket, and his sleeves were pushed up to his elbows.
My fingers clutched to his shirt, wanting him to take me away from here. My sights were dizzy, but when I looked up, all I saw of Julian’s face was a profile of a full-face venetian style mask with black ink around the eyes and dripping like tears below them.
The suitor released me, and Julian pulled me a few feet away, darting his head all around for an escape with his fingers interlaced with mine. Dancing couples bumped our shoulders, lost in their own worlds as if in a trance. Time seemed to pass fast and slow, but the closer we got to the hall, I felt the clean, cold air from the air vent soothe my deprived lungs. Julian squeezed my hand, and just before we made it off the ballroom floor, Augustine Pruitt circled the area.
Julian reeled back, turned, and pulled me into his chest.
“Julian?” I whispered, wondering what was happening.
He grabbed the back of my head, dipped his down to my ear. “Don’t say my name,” he told me, weaving his fingers into mine. He guided my other hand around his neck before his palm slipped down my spine to the small of my back, and he pulled me closer. “Just dance with me.”
The pulse in his neck was hammering against my fingers, and his hips were nailed to my hips, guiding mine in a soft rock. My skin buzzed, hearing his breath in my ear, feeling his fingertips graze my bare skin at the base of my spine. A cover ofEternal Flamewrapped its musical thread around us, binding us with every heart-pounding beat.
“Fallon,” he said, taking my other hand and hanging it around his neck as well. “Why did you come here?”
“I thought …” I focused on the way his chest was moving, so much calmer now. A slow rise, a deep fall. Gone were the shallow breaths and panic.
Julian lifted my head, redirected my gaze. “You thought what?” he asked, and I shook my head, trying to put words together, but my brain was foggy and falling apart. Julian placed both hands on the top of my head, pushed my hair back until my eyes met his. “Focus, Fallon. I need you to snap out of it. It’s stupid magic. It’s not real, all right?”
I nodded, squinted, trying to remember something. Anything. “You wanted me here, though.”
“What?” Confusion was sewn into his words. “Why would I want you at Pruitt’s house? That’s absurd.”
“You said you would come find me after the ball.”
“After the—” Julian paused, looked around before lowering his voice. “Afterthe ball. Not at the ball,” he emphasized, moving his hands back to my waist. They slid up my sides, and he dropped his head to mine.
Julian closed his eyes, dragged in a breath before he opened them again, his gaze falling down my deep neckline. They bounced back up. “You’re beautiful. Have I ever told you that?” I shook my head. Julian blinked. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
I lowered my gaze, shook my head against his, feeling the onslaught of my past pile in my chest. He laid his warm palm over my stomach, where the dip in my dress ended, then dragged up between my breasts, to my heart.
“To me, you are beautiful. And not just tonight. All the time. I should have told you that a long time ago.” My chest caved, but he didn’t remove his hand. His touch and words, it was all unseaming my soul. “Your heart is beating really fast,” he said, and I heard the smile in his voice as we gently danced in place. Julian returned his hands to my waist, rolled his mask-covered forehead over mine. “How are you feeling now, better?”
I nodded. “I must have drank too much,” I admitted.
“Okay, listen to me,” his eyes snapped up behind me then back to mine, “In ten seconds, we’re walking casually through that corridor behind me without looking suspicious. There’s something I have to take care of, and I can’t leave you now that you’re here. Nod if you hear me.” I nodded, and Julian gripped the nape of my neck, pinned his eyes to mine. “Don’t ask me any questions, I don’t want to have to lie to you,” he warned.
My eyes slid back and forth between his serious ones. “I trust you.”
His eyes softened, then darted to the right. “Five seconds, Fallon.”
I didn’t know exactly what would come in five seconds, but the anticipation was—
“Now.”
Chapter 45
Julian
Fallon tuckedherself inside my arm as we walked through the hall toward the bathroom. I’d planned to have left the mansion twenty minutes ago, but Fallon being here threw everything off-kilter.
Maroon and gold vintage rugs lined the halls and quieted our footfalls. Partygoers paired off under Sacred Sea’s heated spell, their moans and whispers and giggles echoed in the corridor. Fallon had no idea what she had walked into. She had no idea Augustine Pruitt always used a room full of carnal passion to awaken their ancestors for guidance into the next year, to harness beauty and keep his members agreeable—open to suggestion and submissive to him and his devious ventures.
Before we made a sharp right, I chanced a look back to see if we were being followed or if anyone had noticed our departure from the main room. My sight caught three familiar servers entering the corridor from the bar area. Phoenix, Beck, and Zephyr. The wall ate my line of sight when we disappeared behind it. The right-wing was empty. We needed to move fast.
