I follow his gaze. Two young teenage girls stand together near the massive hearth, identical blonde hair and matching emerald dresses, laughing at something on one of their phones. They look carefree. Safe. My heart squeezes hard.
“They have eyes on them all the time,” Timothy says quietly, reading my thoughts. “It’s unlikely anyone can get close to them.”
I nod, throat tight. “Good.”
He guides me deeper into the room. Introductions happen in waves, names I half-remember from the wedding and people that knew my uncle. Everyone smiles, but there’s judgment behind their overplump lips and perfect teeth. The King’s hand stays protectively on my lower back, thumb stroking small, reassuring circles through the velvet when he senses me tense.
“The way they look at you?” he whispers as we pass a cluster of older men in tuxedos, their eyes lingering too long on my bare shoulders, the curve of my waist. “They’re jealous. Not just of your youth and beauty, but of me, knowing I get to have you.”
A shiver races down my spine, hot and electric. My thighs press together under the heavy skirt. He steers us gently down a quieter hallway lined with portraits and gilded mirrors. At the end, a small alcove, half-hidden by a velvet drape, offers a pocket of shadow. He tucks me inside, back to the wall, his body shielding me from the corridor.
Gloved fingers trace the edge of my face, down my cheek, along my jaw, tipping my chin up.
“In my more impulsive days,” he murmurs, “I would have found aplace in this massive house and fucked you senseless while the party carried on.”
Heat blooms between my legs, instant and aching. “Are you no longer that man?”
He lifts the bottom edge of the mask, just enough to reveal his nose, and leans in. The kiss is unhurried at first, lips brushing mine, then deeper. Hungrier. His tongue licks the seam of my mouth open, slides inside, stroking mine in long, claiming drags. He tastes like mint mingled against the champagne on my tongue. One hand cups the back of my neck, holding me exactly where he wants me; the other slips to my waist, fingers splaying wide, pressing me back against the cool wall. I arch into him, moaning softly against his mouth, hands clutching the lapels of his tuxedo.
He pulls back just enough to speak against my lips, voice rough. “I’ll be inside you before midnight strikes, wicked sister,” he whispers. “Don’t you fret.”
He lowers the mask back into place, takes my hand, and leads me out of the alcove.
We step back into the ballroom like nothing happened.
But my pulse hammers. My skin feels too tight. And every time his thumb brushes the inside of my wrist, I remember exactly what he promised.
Midnight can’t come fast enough.
40
Hunter
“This is nothow I expected to spend my Christmas vacation.”
Unlike me, DK isn’t content to spend hours in the King’s library, combing through old books and looking for a needle in a haystack. Honestly, this is one of those places where everything feels right.
My focus is on the open volume in front of me, one of the lighter ones from the restricted shelves. They seem to be divided into two types of tomes. The ones that are antiques, too old and brittle to be placed on the shelves, and the ones that delve into the darker aspects of pagan rituals.
This one has thick, uneven pages that smell faintly of mildew. It’s bound in cracked brown leather, the title embossed in faded gold:Ritus Elementorum et Temporum. Four chapters, one for each element: earth, air, fire, and water, then four more for the seasons. Simple offerings: salt and rosemary buried at the new moon, candles lit at solstice, ash scattered at equinox. Rituals meant to keep balance, toremind the land who it belongs to. Harmless, almost pastoral. The kind of thing people romanticize when they talk about “the old religion.”
The one I pulled from the locked cabinet earlier,Umbrae et Sacrificia, is heavier, the leather black and greasy-feeling, the pages brittle and stained in places that look suspiciously like old blood. No pretty illustrations here. Just dense Latin, hand-drawn sigils that twist the eye, and diagrams of bodies arranged in precise, unnatural angles. Instructions for calling things that were never meant to answer. Bargains sealed with more than blood, flesh, bone and will. Crossings of lines most people don’t even know exist. The natural order of things, the text calls it. As though there is anything natural about carving runes into living skin or leaving a child’s heart under an oak at midnight to ensure next year’s harvest.
DK glances over from the armchair where he’s sprawled, one leg kicked over the armrest, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.
“Maybe I should have gone back to the Stacks for the holiday,” he adds, absently flipping through one of the antique books that came from the back cabinet. “Hustled a few drunk assholes with my mom over the pool table.”
The King and Arianette left for the Mercer party an hour ago. The blood-red dress clung to every curve like it was poured over her skin, making the nipple piercings press faintly against the fabric with her every move. The tiara sat perfectly in her dark hair, catching the chandelier light like tiny stars. Timothy’s hand rested low on her back the whole time he ushered her out the door. Things looked positive, but as everyone knows, looks can be deceiving.
I flip a page and make a note in the journal I’m keeping. “You’re just anxious about the party.”
“Fuck yeah, I’m anxious!” He tugs on the ring in his lip with his teeth. “I stuck my neck out for Ari, and if she loses her shit the King will have my ass.”
I understand his concern. Not because she can’t handle a room full of rich assholes in tuxedos. She’s tougher than any of them give her credit for, but because the ascension is still fresh. One wrongword, one sideways glance, and that fragile calm she’s been wearing could crack.
“She seemed excited to go,” I tell him, glancing around the maps and blueprints that are still spread across the big oak table, red ink bleeding into yellowed paper. “It’s a snobby Christmas party. The worst case is someone gets trashed and embarrasses themselves. I have a feeling the King isn’t going to let her out of his sight.”
I rub my eyes. I’ve been at it for hours, honestly, I didn’t even go to bed last night, just napped on the leather couch near the fireplace. I’m like this when I get focused on something. I want to match all the pieces of the puzzle, get everything in place: numbers, formulas, lines on a page. My mind and body aren’t going to rest until everything makes sense, until I can see the entire picture.
