When had it grown so hot?
I continued forward, weaving through corridors where secretive trysts were unfolding behind half-drawn curtains. A man in a plague mask tried to corner me with a compliment about my eyes. Another asked whether I might join him for a walk on the balcony “to taste the night air.” A woman brushed my arm and whispered that she could introduce me to a baron looking for companionship.
The air vibrated with hunger—romantic, sexual, and financial. Everyone here wanted something. Including me.
I passed beneath a vaulted archway and found myself in a quieter gallery lined with marble statues. Here, the music softened to a distant hum. Lanterns threw long shadows across the floor.
Another gentleman approached. He was a tall man in a gilded wolf mask whose voice curled like velvet around me.
“Forgive my intrusion,” he murmured smoothly, “but I could not help noticing you have danced with nearly every gentleman in the room except me.”
I blinked. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure…”
“I’ve been watching you,” he purred, stepping nearer. “The way you move. The way you look at a room.” His gaze dipped to my lips. “You hunt beautifully.”
Before I could answer, movement flickered in the corner of my eye. Up on the balcony overlooking the gallery, leaning on the rail as though carved from the stone itself, stood the man in the dark mask.
Watching.
Silent.
Unmoving.
The wolf masked gentleman followed my gaze and scowled before turning his attention back to me.
He stepped closer, his hand slipping around my waist and tightening as if he sensed weakness, as if he mistook my need for survival as an invitation.
“Come now,” he murmured, breath warm and wine-heavy against my ear. “That pretty mask doesn’t fool me. You came for excitement, didn’t you?”
I opened my mouth to protest—softly, politely, in that way women are taught to refuse men without upsetting them, but his hand slid boldly to the small of my back, lower than any stranger should ever touch.
I froze.
Then a hand closed around the man’s wrist. Not harshly. Not violently. Just firmly enough that the masked man sucked in a startled breath.
“Unhand her,” a deep and infinitely calm voice said from behind me.
The wolf glared, blustering. “Who the devil are y—”
His words died on his tongue as he realized that the man who held his wrist was tall, with a presence that seemedto bend the candlelight around him. His mask was simple. Black, almost featureless except for the faintest curve of a smirk carved into its lower edge.
I turned my head and met the strangers eyes.
I recognized them. I had been recognizing them all night.
The man who had been watching me.
Without releasing the man’s wrist, he shifted slightly, placing himself between the stranger and me.
“That is not how one touches a lady,” he offered quietly. His voice stirred something low in me. Whether it was fear or memory, I couldn’t be sure.
The wolf sputtered, “I didn’t— I was only—”
“You were mistaken,” the stranger said. “Leave. Now.”
Authority rolled off him with such quiet intensity that even the orchestra seemed to falter. The man’s bravado shriveled. He jerked free, muttered something foul, and slunk into the crowd.
The stranger turned toward me then.
