Page 95 of You’re So Vein

“You will not die tonight.” Augustin fixes his gaze on me, and his eyes are twin flames. “I am looking. You are sublime.”

Now I don’t know where to look. I’m not used to the intensity of him, especially after how I yelled at him at the soiree. I should apologise, but I can’t find the words. “I’ll… be back.”

I hurry upstairs, throwing my clothing across the bed until I come up with black trousers and a red dress shirt that are only mildly rumpled. There’s not much I can do about my hair, so I swipe it on top of my head and thread some painted wooden chopsticks through it. If the vampires turn on me, I can use them as stakes. I drop the dagger and a sports bottle filled with holy water in my purse. (Arabella says it’s useless on vampires, but she would say that, wouldn’t she?)

“I’m ready.” I wobble down the ladder, my body crumbling under Augustin’s scrutiny, and slide on a pair of flats. “Take me to Kael.”

Augustin falls in step beside me as we make our way through the throng of cars parked in the driveway. Sunita Auntie’s barking laugh echoes from the main house, over the noise of the TV and the twins screaming at each other. It’s almost comical how much the noise and the chaos have become part of me, that I don’t even notice until I see Augustin listening, his eyes taking on that faraway quality. With his quiet house, he must find this place absolute hell.

“Sorry about my family,” I mutter.

“Never apologise for who you are, or for the people who speak your name with love.”

He sounds so earnest, so oddly passionate, I can’t find the words to argue back. Instead of falling into our usual pattern, we lapse into a brief, awkward silence.

“Before we do this, we should probably talk about the—” I swallow. “The kiss.”

“Which one?”

“Which one? Does it matter? We kissed, and we should talk about it.”

“I’d rather talk about how you had a panic attack in the middle of the masquerade.”

“Don’t change the subject.” I bite down the fear crawling up my oesophagus. “Fine. I’ll pick one. We’re talking about the kiss under the table at the debate.”

“Is that what that was?” The fire in his eyes sparks with mischief. “I thought you tripped and fell onto my face.”

“I am very clumsy, but we definitely kissed.”

“We did.” His voice goes all low and strange. “And what you did with your hand – was that clumsiness, too?”

My cheeks burn as I remember his length growing hard beneath my hand, and how big and solid he felt, and how much I wanted to reach inside his trousers and…

I shrug, trying to claw back some control. “You know me, Durant. Absolute butter-fingers.”

“Councillor Ahuja, in the interest of preserving the integrity of our mayoral campaigns, I apologise for the way I acted at the soiree, and I am happy to pretend the kisses never happened.”

“You do? You are?”

He’s back to calling me Councillor Ahuja.

I guess he took what I said at the ball to heart.

Why do I feel disappointed?

“We can call them momentary lapses of judgement,” Augustin continues pleasantly as he stops to touch one of the Gorilla Gardener’s blooms. “We were both caught up in the competition.”

“And that’s what you want?”

“That’s what you want.”

Oh. Okay, then.

I guess I didn’t need to figure out my feelings after all. Because Augustin Durant may kiss like a flower unfurling in the sunlight, but he’s obviously decided he wants to remain my vastly inferior rival.

“Fine.” I hit the key fob for my dinky little Fiat. “I assume I’m driving. Where are we going? Sanctus Estate? I presume Gideon’s installed a duelling circle next to the hot tub.”

“They opted for Black Crag. They prefer draughty old castles to Gideon Blake’s hospitality.”