—Crow’s Caw
The woman gazing backat Paloma from her floor-to-ceiling mirror was one she didn’t see often. On edge, eyes sparkling with a strange energy.
“You look like you're either going to murder someone or adopt a puppy?”
Lachlan stood behind her, a clipboard and pen in his hands, watching her warily.
“I don’t know, could go either way.” Paloma applied lipstick and gave herself another once-over. A burgundy dress with a flowing skirt and a low-cut bodice.
“Deryn will swallow her tongue.” Lachlan winked at her in the mirror. Paloma glared. He smirked, unabashed. “You might too, though. She’s wearing a tuxedo.”
Paloma stared at him, then took a deep breath. She might do just that, given that she had heard about this tuxedo all week since the Christmas party at the Crowharts. Given that she had avoided Deryn in the week since the Christmas party at the Crowharts.
Something had happened, something dangerous and inconceivable, in the idyllic two-story house where even the air smelled like vanilla. Something that had lodged itself in Paloma’s mind and refused to leave. The look in Deryn’s eyes, a look that Paloma knew and had seen before, a look of sorrow and yearning, of loneliness and ache. Hadn’t she given in to it once, wanting to soothe, to allay… needing to do so much more for Deryn, needing it more than to breathe?
After the Christmas dinner, she had returned to her suite and sat in the dark, turning in her mind all the facets of the woman that refused to leave her attention. Tall and brooding,melancholy and joyful, watchful and romantic. And then there was Paloma’s body, which distinctly remembered being completely ravished in every corner of this very suite by those long fingers and wicked mouth.
She ended the night still awake, on edge, and unable to give herself any answers. She had promised herself that she’d never enter another relationship with someone who could destroy her, at the mercy of the comings and goings of someone who, while making her come, would also go away and leave her behind. Kristina did. Roxanne sure fucking did.
No, no more…
That was the resolution she had come to that night. And now, a week of long nights later, Paloma clung to that resolution.
That’s what she told herself as she and Lachlan took the elevator to the third floor.
It was one of her favorite spaces in the resort. Massive, occupying almost the entire floor except for some private sitting rooms and support closets flanking it, the ballroom also created the feeling of being comfortable and cozy without being opulent. It was rich without being ostentatious about it. The guests had paid thousands of dollars to attend the event, and the space matched their high expectations. Yet it was also intimate, conducive to conversations and confessions rather than posturing.
Though looking around her and seeing the people already assembled, Paloma knew there would be plenty of posturing involved. Particularly since there had been a name on the list that Paloma had not expected. When the bid for the ticket had come, her hands went numb, and her breathing turned shallow.
Dagmar Rathcross.
No manner of forewarning would’ve prepared Paloma for the fact that the Rathcross family matriarch was intent on showing her face on Dragons. On Paloma’s turf. At Paloma’s charity ball.
As she entered the ballroom, Lachlan at her heels, the first person she saw was Magdalene Nox, in the back with her wife, in a gorgeous dark blue suit. Paloma had met Sam Threadneedle once before and understood perfectly why the esteemed Headmistress was as happily married as she was. The two of them looked stunning together, and they had that air of two people who were in perfect sync—words, motion, looks. They were a unit, a well-established, time-tested unit. They hadn’t been married for very long, but their love felt timeless. All you had to do was look at them to see the affection, the respect, the joy the two of them clearly experienced in simply being close to each other.
Paloma raised an eyebrow and Magdalene raised her flute. And then she slowly motioned with her chin to the glass doors to the majestic balcony.
And there Dagmar Rathcross stood, surrounded by a dozen lackeys, mainlanders and islanders alike. Paloma knew the faces, John Moss among them, as were his elderly parents.
Yet, despite being surrounded by people, the woman looked very much alone. Someone was trying to get her attention by touching her forearm, but Paloma could swear the rail-thin body was untouchable. The woman just exuded that air of ethereal villainy.
“There’s evil, and there’s Dagmar Rathcross.”
Paloma did not flinch at the unexpected words as the scent of apples preceded Ceridwen coming to stand by her side. In a green dress, resplendent with her hair up, the elder Crowhart looked like an Earth Goddess.
“I’m trying not to judge her looks,” Paloma whispered into the flute that had magically appeared in her hand courtesy of Lachlan, who stood like a sentry behind her.
“Oh, judge away.” Ceridwen reached for Paloma’s flute and took a sip before handing it back. “There’s no flaw in her, and yet…”
Ceridwen had not been wrong. The Rathcross matriarch was about fifty-five years old, the exact number not easily available despite Paloma’s inquiries. Tall—probably taller than both Paloma and Ceridwen—she had the face of someone who would not blink before giving the order to ruin a life and then smoothly proceeding to eat her dinner.
The pale blue eyes were chips of ice. Paloma shuddered as she thought them more dead than alive.
And yet the features were objectively perfect. Straight nose, razor-sharp jawline, high cheekbones, and absolute snow-white hair that reached her jaw, underscoring its sharpness. Under any other circumstance, she’d think the woman utterly beautiful.
Just as she was about to say so to Ceridwen, Dagmar moved, and Paloma’s heart stopped in her chest. Deryn, resplendent in a tuxedo, turned from looking out of the immense window and was introduced by someone Paloma did not immediately recognize to Dagmar, whose entire face changed in front of her eyes.
The ice chips that were lifeless just seconds ago were suddenly alive and alight with something that made Paloma shudder. Next to her, Ceridwen gasped.
