We move on, returning to the kitchen, to our stations, to our place in the world. But before we leave the hall, I glance once more through the tall windows overlooking the frozen lake.
The wind rises suddenly, sweeping snow across the ice in a blinding white curtain, and for a heartbeat, I am certain I see something there.
A dark figure standing alone at the center of the lake.
A shiver snakes up my spine.
I turn away quickly, hurrying after Pax, back into the heat and noise of the kitchen.
26
Back in the basement, the world feels smaller again, but far safer.
In our absence, the music has grown louder, faster, the fiddle crying its way through a tune that has people stamping their feet and laughing too hard.
I sit apart from it all, perched on a low crate, watching, unable to get the image of Luceran and Marlayna out of my head. It is a torture I was not prepared for. One I do not know how to understand. I know that we can only ever be together in secret, but never did I think that meant he could take Fae females in the open. Am I supposed to be accepting of that? Is it the way things are? No. That sort of thing may be normal in their world, but in mine when you lose someone, you only need that someone. The more I think on it, the more I spiral, thoughts frenzying in my head until a headache burns behind my eyes.
Someone presses another cup into my hands. I shake my head at first, but they only grin and insist. Maybe I could use something to dull the screaming in my head. I take it. The liquid burns its way down my throat like fire, sharp enough to make my eyes water. I cough, earning a round of laughter.
I ignore them and finish what’s left in my cup before slamming it down on a table. Then I seek out more. I find another cup, then another. The heat spreads quickly, blurring the hard edges of the night above and the image I can’t scrub from my mind. White hair, auburn curls, hands that did not belong to me.
The room tilts slightly.
I blink and suddenly the noise dulls, the music muffled as I’m pulled back into shadow. Strong hands close around my wrists, and I’m drawn into a narrow recess between stone pillars.
“Luceran,” I breathe, heart slamming into my ribs. “Where did you…”
“This has been my castle for centuries,” he murmurs, lifting my hands and pinning them to the wall. “There isn’t a hidden door or tunnel I don’t know.”
Anger surges through the haze.
“I saw you,” I say, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. “With Marlayna. In the ballroom.”
His jaw tightens. “She means nothing.”
I bark a hollow, mocking laugh. “That’s not what it looked like.”
He presses harder against my wrists, caging me in as he leans over me. “It is you,” he says fiercely. “It has only ever been you.”
The words hit me harder than whatever this homemade concoction is.
Before I can decide whether to believe him, his mouth is on mine, hungry, desperate, achingly familiar. The music swells. Bodies dance only feet away, laughter and heat and humanity pressing in around us as if daring us to be seen. My hands stay pinned to the wall. I kiss him back because I want to, because I need to. His breath is loud in my ears, and just as heat surges through me, shame floods in behind it.
I turn my head sharply away, leaving him gasping.
“Let me go,” I demand, though it comes out quiet.
He does. He releases my wrists and steps back as my arms fall to my sides.
“I don’t want to see you anymore,” I say. “This was a mistake.”
His eyes darken. “I have given you everything I can, Neve. What more do you want from me?”
The question echoes, warped by drink, by ache, by the night itself. I stare at him, the words slipping free before I can weigh them.
“Did you kill your wife?”
His fury is immediate. Explosive. He lunges forward, slamming me back against the stone, his canines dropping, his eyes blazing. For a heartbeat, I think he might hurt me.
