Page 79 of You’re So Vein

“It’s how I cope with the agonies.”

I slam the bathroom door, splash cold water on my face, brush my teeth with plum-scented toothpaste, spend thirteen minutes I don’t have perfecting my eyeliner, and give myself a little pep talk. You know, normal politician stuff.

Okay, Komal, you’ve got this.

Just because you know Augustin’s secret and he gave you the best kiss of your life doesn’t mean that you’re besties. Now that you’ve got kissing him out of your system, you can crush him guilt free, since when you win, you’re going to make damn sure those vampires change their laws. No matter what you feel about Augustin, Hannah deserves this.

I emerge from the bathroom, dressed to impress and ready to kick vampire arse.

“Why are you standing there with your hand on your hip like Bruce bloody Forsyth?” Beth shoves me towards the door. “I’ve arranged everything. Get in, girl. You’ve got an election to win.”

31Komal

Augustin: I understand perfectly. You’ve always excelled at becoming what other people need. Hannah and I can’t compete with your thirst for approval. Very well. Let us resume hostilities.

HE DID NOT JUST SAY that.

He did not.

This is how my villain origin story begins, with a text from the man who kissed me last night accusing me of doing all this because of daddy issues.

He thinks I don’t know my own mind.

He thinks I care more about pleasing Papa than I do about this town, than I do about Hannah.

He thinks I’m like a sad puppy doing tricks for a pat on the head and a treat.

I’ll show him.

People pack the village hall as Beth herds me inside. My friends are already seated in the front row, waving their “VOTE KOMAL” flags. Isis passes around a bucket of popcorn. My extended family and all the aunties and cousins take up the entire four rows behind them. The twins make faces at me. Mamma wrings her hands. Papa beams at me.

I flash him a thumbs-up. I’m doing this for you.

But not because I’m a people pleaser without a mind of my own, like Augustin thinks. Because I’m the best person for the job.

Obviously.

The other side of the room is filled with far too many beautiful people for them to be human. The vampire voters have come out in force. The three Conclave dignitaries sit in the VIP seats in the front row. Kael sharpens his sword against a whetstone, the scraaape, scraaape of it like nails across my already battered heart.

I straighten my shoulders. I can only hope I win some of them over. At least I look magnificent. While Celeste drove us over, Beth slathered something on my skin that makes me look twenty again, and not like I spent all of last night playing shop with the world’s only living Dhampir and this morning making out with my enemy.

I take my seat behind a long table with a floor-length black cloth over it, beaming out at all the people who’ve come to support me, and I start to think that I never should have told Augustin I’d pull out. I’ll be a great mayor. I’ll fix this town the way I haven’t been able to fix my life—

—and then Augustin Durant walks in.

He’s wearing one of his grey suits, only today it doesn’t look so boring. How have I never noticed how those trousers hug his arse, or the pull of the fabric across his broad shoulders? How did I ever look at his amber eyes – today warm and quiet, like sunlight caught beneath the woodland canopy – and find him dull and fake?

My lips tingle with the ghost of that kiss.

Calm your ovaries. You are not developing a thing for Augustin Durant. That’s absolutely not allowed.

Why not? That reckless voice inside my head whispers back. Why not kiss your enemy? Everything else in your life is going so well, you might as well lay it completely to ruin.

Augustin doesn’t acknowledge me as he folds his long legs into the chair next to mine, that annoyingly perfect posture of his making him appear composed, kinglike. Finally, he glances my way, his eyes kindling at the edges. Fireworks explode behind my eyes.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.

Maisie taps the microphone to call for silence.