“You might be. Next, that is.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “I think you’re prettier than your sister.”
“I don’t know about that.” She was blushing furiously, edging closer to the door. Her whole body quailed visibly when he walked towards her. “Thanks for the, uh, this. I—oh. Okay.”
The words left her lips in a feverish rush as he took her arm and looped it through his. She was trembling again and he was not entirely sure what he had done to cause it—he was on his best behavior, after all—but the part of him that responded tofear was more interested in why she didn’t run. And what she might look like if she did.
Does it thrill you, darling?he wondered darkly.The way I make your heart beat faster?
When she noticed him looking at her again, that sweep of color returned to her cheeks.
She wouldn’t come to him now but with a little patience and coaxing, she would. If she looked at him likethatwhen she did, all shy and guileless wanting couched in restless dread, he thought it might just be his undoing.
They had gotten as far as the statue in the courtyard when they ran into his father. He stepped out from the cold shadows of Ravensgate like a prowling wolf popping out of the trees. From his gait, he was well into his cups. That explained his mother’s absence. Alcohol rubbed the plating off Nathaniel Cullraven’s carefully buffed exterior, exposing the lethal alloy beneath.
Before either of them could speak, Nadine broke from him with a jolt, racing to her sister’s side as Noelle came over to greet them. “I’ve been looking all over for you!” she said, pulling Nadine into a tight embrace he found himself envying. “Isn’t itwonderful?”
“Yeah.” She darted a look at him over her shoulder as they walked away, arm in arm. “It’s like a fairytale.”
His father watched the two women, swirling his scotch. “Jumpy little thing,” he remarked.
“Her sister’s getting married.”
“That doesn’t mean you need to plunder the nest.” His father shot him a cold look over the crystal rim as he took a generous swallow. “Finish your schooling. There will be plenty of years to come before you need to take a wife.”
“She thinks we’re odd. I was merely laying her fears to rest.”
“As long as that’s the only thing you’re laying.” He drained the contents of his glass. “Noelle seems to think the girl is going to be living here. I told Ben it’s out of the question. This house is not a dovecote for wild sparrows.”
The implications of his father’s words stopped him cold. “She’s family.”
“That remains to be seen.” A strange note entered his father’s voice as he turned away, causing the shadows of the eaves to fall across his face. “Cullraven blood rots the veins of the wilting, Caledon. Never forget; it’s made of far sterner stuff than both you and I.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Not yet.” His father smashed his glass on the courtyard steps like a captain christening a ship’s maiden voyage. “But you will soon. And so will Ben.”
C H A P T E R
O N E
keep your counsel
“Where’s your family, Caledon?” The woman next to him—Lisa—straightened her graduation cap self-consciously. They were surrounded by a teeming sea of graduates and well-wishers, many of whom were taking photos. At an institution like this, it was hard for people to resist making tourists of themselves. “I don’t think I saw them with you earlier.”
“Just look for the ones that look like they’re part of the Addams family.”
“Lucas,” Lisa said chidingly, in the overly self-conscious tone of someone trying not to laugh themselves.
Cal folded his arms over his black robes, side-stepping an older woman with a camera. He moved too quickly and she did a double-take that nearly had her tripping over her own heels in her haste to get out of his way.
“Sorry.” The woman was still staring at him. Cal shot her a tense smile before turning back to his fellow graduates. “My sister’s over there. My brother’s on his honeymoon with his wife.”
Lucas goggled at Odessa, who was wearing a corset dress with a tiered skirt and knee-high black boots. Lisa did too, plucking at her antique strand of pearls as she took in his sister’s indecently low neckline with a frown. “And your parents?”
“They’re busy.”
“Wow. They couldn’t even be bothered to make time for your graduation? Harsh.” Her eyes filled with sympathy . . . andsomething else. Something that had his hackles rising. It was desire: to both save and be saved. “Do you and your sister want to come to dinner with us?”
It would be so easy, that dark voice inside of him whispered.
