“I wanted it from the beginning, not at the end. Too much has happened.” I fix a steel look on him. “Too much has been done.”
“That outlook will make for a bitter, unfulfilled life.”
My shoes halt on the rug, suddenly rooted in place, and I turn a scathing look on him. “Are we friends now, Dray?”
Thefuck offis implied.
He reads it all too easily, a smile curling his pink lips, and a warning flashing in his sharp eyes—but his answer is rattling, “Do you wish to be more? There are plenty of broom cupboards down here, and I have all night.”
The tut of my tongue just widens his smile into a lazy grin.
Still, he shadows my side to the hook of the corridor, and down the final passageway to the dorms.
His hand reaches in front of me, flattened against the door as he pushes it open.
He follows at my heels.
I don’t get far in the packed Friday buzz that floods the grand parlour, not before Dray has stolen me by the elbow and steered me into an alcove.
My heart skips in my chest.
So many people in the grand parlour, but that won’t stop Dray. An audience rarely does.
I turn a wary look up at him.
But Dray just reaches around me for the bookshelf against the wall and pushes aside the tome ‘A HISTORY OF VEVILLE, THE FIRST WITCH SETTLEMENT OF EUROPE’.
From behind it, he tugs out a bottle of amber liquor, two crystal tumblers, and a sleek black cigarette case.
I don’t watch as he sets out the glasses and pours two serves of scotch.
I scan the parlour instead, locking onto curious glances aimed our way—but as soon as my gaze catches theirs, they look away.
Cowards.
The lot of them.
I turn my back on the rats in the parlour and point to the cigarette case. “Why do you have those?”
The table is tall and narrow, not the kind with chairs or the kind to lean on. So I perch myself on the windowsill and steal the closest glass into my grip.
Dray traces my gesture to the case.
He reaches down and presses the silver side button.
The case springs open to reveal a row of all-white cigarettes.
French by the looks of them.
“I celebrate a win,” he says, and slides one out, “every week, with one of these.”
I bring the tumbler to my lips. “Why?”
His eyes lift—and cut into me like shards of glass.
Dray holds my gaze, hooked, as he brings the cigarette to his lips and, in just two steps around the table, comes to stand in front of me.
My peripherals go wild. The instinct to search for a way out, if there is one. But it’s new that I don’tneedone.
