His eyes shine with mischief. “She’s looking for you.”
It’s true. Nana’s eyes are scraping over the crowd. I catch Chelsea’s gaze and jerk my head toward Nana. My sister spots her, and her face immediately goes pale. She slips through the witches and wizards and finds Ovie. The two of them quickly corral Nana and whisk her out the back door before anyone else can see her.
Whew.
Crisis averted.
“That’s bad luck, you know.”
“I know it’s bad luck,” I snap.
A slow, delicious smile curls his lips. “She’s come back because you’re not marrying off fast enough.”
“No comment.”
He tips his head back and laughs. It’s a rich, velvety sound, a skein of silk unraveling down a walkway. “So I’m right. Not that it bothers me.” He takes my hand and points it at his chest. “I, unlike most of the other magicals here, do not care for old wives’ tales. I don’t believe in bad luck.”
That might be the best thing I’ve heard all night. It tells you how terrible my night has been when the best thing comes out of the worst person’s mouth. At this point my standards are well below sea level.
He lowers his lashes as he peers down at my dress. That fringe of dark velvet makes his eyes look smudgy, with the corners just begging to be traced by my finger.
“You look…um, nice tonight.”
Wow. Devlin sure isn’t so great at the compliments. “Thank you.”I guess.
“You actually look nicer than that.”
“I’m not sure what that means.”
“It means saying you look nice is a small comparison to how beautiful you actually are.”
Now I’m tongue-tied. Before I can reply, the couple next to us gets so close that they bump into Devlin, and he brushes against me.
I should pull away, but the heat from his skin is so welcoming, it’s so wonderfully delicious in the chilly ballroom air that I stay exactly where I am.
He’s looking up into the room, and his jawline, no, his entire face looks like it was sculpted by a Greek artist. No, Michelangelo, for sure. That’s how gorgeous he is.
And he smells like heaven—like cedar and musk. It’s so intoxicating that I want to roll around on top of him and wipe his scent on my flesh.
His gaze snaps back down, and I glance away, annoyed that he caught me staring.
But his beauty doesn’t matter, because I still hate him.
“May I cut in?”
I jump back, surprised by the intrusion. It’s the first time I’m hearing his voice, and it sends a shudder pulsing down my spine.
To my right stands Storm Grayson, and he wants to dance with me.
6
This close, Storm’s eyes are lighter than I first thought. They’re gray, actually, and gorgeous (just like him), with flecks of brown.
His hair is silvery, but it doesn’t make him look old. It makes him look unique, hard-edged, as if he’s really lived life. Like maybe he was once lost in the mountains during a snowstorm, separated from the rest of his family, and the only way that he could reunite with them was to weather the cold, harsh, deserted mountain, climbing the icy sheets with his bare hands. The wind being so fierce that it burned his sk?—
“Storm, good to see you,” Devlin says like he’s biting off pieces of steel from an airplane.
“Same to you, Devlin.” Storm places a hand over his heart like he’s sincere. Well, at least one of them is. “Will you be dropping any new inventions soon?”
