“I did?”
“Yeah, you fainted the second we crossed the Palace threshold. Dropped like a stone.”
I groan, dropping my face into my hands. That must’ve been what Nikolas was talking about.
“Oh my God. That’s mortifying.”
“Yeah, you kind of said that already—a few dozen times—while I was carrying you upstairs.”
Wait—
“You…carriedme?”
“What else was I supposed to do?” He raises a brow. “Drag you by the ankles?”
I burrow deeper into the sheets, heat creeping up my neck. “Please tell me I didn’t drool.”
“Just a little,” he teases.
The chandelier overhead blinks to life as someone bursts through the door and flips a switch.
“So how’s the little patient doing?”
My sister saunters into the room, and Hayes jolts back like he’s been electrocuted, quickly retreatingfrom the bed and taking a seat on the chaise lounge across from me.
I gape at Amber. Gone are the frilly pink dresses and ruffled miniskirts. Instead, she’s clad in a stunning black gown I’d kill for, all taffeta and lace. A boned corset cinches her waist, the tiered skirt pooling like smoke around her heels. Her hair is twisted into a sleek French knot, the bangs pinned with sparkling diamond skull clips.
“What in the actual hell is going on?” I turn back to Hayes. “And why do you both look like you’re headed to a party at the Haunted Mansion?”
“I know, right? It’s horrid. Black is so not my color.” Amber flops dramatically onto the edge of my bed, careful not to wrinkle her floor-length gown. “So,” she says, gesturing grandly around the room, “what do you think of the digs? I made sure they gave you the best suite in the guest wing.” She winks. “Well—second best.”
I forget to be confused, or even annoyed, as I take in the room properly for the first time in the light.
The bed alone is a fantasy.
Massive and romantic, carved from dark wood with black silk drapes that spill down from a towering canopy. A whole family could sleep in it with room to spare. Beside me, sleek black-lacquered nightstands hold glowing candelabras and stacks of leather-bound books, their titles embossed in gold—but not English words. Greek, maybe?
At the other end of the room is a matching desk and more books, packed into shelves that stretchtoward the vaulted ceiling. A large mirror framed in glinting obsidian crystals hangs on the wall, and next to it, a vanity table crowded with more makeup brushes and tools than even Amber owns back home, which is really saying something.
Damn.
If this is just a guest bedroom, I can’t imagine what the rest of the Palace looks like.
“Minus all the black, yuck, it’s to die for, right?” Amber chirps. “I mean, literally. Underworld, death—get it?”
“This isn’t a joke,” Hayes says, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “You know what’s at stake.”
“You’re right.” Amber’s tone flips from playful to regretful in an instant. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to keep things upbeat.”
She rises from the bed and drapes herself beside him on the chaise. Their legs brush, her arm sliding across his knee, fingers trailing like she owns him.
A wave of something hot and ugly spikes in my chest. I claw my fingers into the sheets, twisting them into angry knots. She’s touching him like he’s hers again. Like he didn’t give me the best, most life-altering kiss of my life just hours ago.
The memory flares—his mouth on mine, the way he held me as if I was the only thing keeping him upright. Like he’d been dying to do that his entire life.
And now he’s just sitting there, letting her press against him like none of it ever happened?
Before I can spin out further, I force myself to breathe. To focus on the situation at hand. Now isn’tthe time to fixate on my sister’s hand placement. Bigger questions first.
