“I hate to see a good gown go to waste,” she said, flippant, as if his presence had not completely unhinged her. Elantine’s heir wasn’t supposed to find her so quickly. He wasn’t really supposed to find her at all. And he wasn’t supposed to be the reckless boy from the carriage—that didn’t fit with the image she’d had.
The heir—Jacks—had sounded ruthless and far from lazy. Yet this young man with his bloodshot eyes and untamed hair appeared to be the epitome of careless. The bone-white breeches clinging to his lean legs were clean, but his scuffed sable boots looked as if they were meant for a stable rather than a party. He didn’t even bother with a tailcoat. His bronze cravat was tied all wrong, crooked against the throat of a pale shirt that could have done with quite a bit of ironing.
Tella wondered if the wicked rumors about him were wrong, or if Jacks chose to cultivate an idle image on purpose. His golden hair fell over one eye, yet he looked down on Tella with all the confidence of an emperor as he said, “Shall we dance?”
Dante cleared his throat and tugged Tella closer.
Jacks’s mouth twisted, his smile far more feral than friendly. “Surely you’re not trying to keep me from my fiancée at my own party.”
Dante’s grip tightened. “Actually—”
“Don’t mind him, he’s just jealous,” Tella cut in, before Dante could do something unfortunately noble, like confess the charade was all his doing. Not that Tella understood why she was protecting the person partly responsible for this predicament. Or that Dante even needed protecting. Perhaps she just wanted to prove that she didn’t need him taking care of her.
Tella removed herself from his grip.
Dante clenched his jaw so tight she heard his teeth grate together. But Tella didn’t spare him another look. She could manage this on her own.
She held out her hand.
Jacks ran one slender finger over his savage smile, leaving her hand untaken.
Then he took her by the hips. Cool, sinuous, and solid, his arm snaked around her, reeling her scandalously close to his side.
She swore Dante actually growled this time, as Jacks drew her away and into the sweaty crowd of revelers.
The heads of several guests had turned to look at Dante after he and Tella first entered the party. But now Tella swore every set of eyes followed the reckless young heir now clutching her waist. He kept her extremely close as he guided her past fountains dripping sinful liquors, and partygoers flirting with performers costumed like cotton-tailed foxes and half-human leopards.
“I’m surprised you haven’t tried to run,” he said.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because,” he spoke into her hair, each word as slow and languorous as the lazy strokes of his fingers against the bottom of her rib cage, “I don’t think I made a very good impression during our first encounter, and by now I’m guessing you’ve heard the rumors that I’m a soulless madman who will do anything to get the crown.”
“You’re saying they’re not true?”
“If they were true, you’d already be dead.” His lips remained pressed against her hair. To anyone they passed it probably looked as if he was truly enamored, on the verge of inappropriate, almost as if he were trying to start more rumors. Tella didn’t know what she’d expected would happen if the heir found her, but it was definitely not this.
“If I’m a murderer,” he murmured, “do you really think I would have let you live after hearing you’d claimed to be my fiancée to get into the palace?”
“If all of this is your way of saying you don’t plan any retribution for a little fib, then we should part ways. I’m actually here to meet someone else.”
Tella felt Jacks’s cold mouth move downward, frowning, against her hair.
“I’m disappointed, Donatella. I thought I was your friend. But not only were you late, now you’re trying to escape me.” His idle tone turned sharp and something terrible twisted inside of Tella’s gut. “Is this because you don’t have my payment?” Jacks looked down on her with a smile so disturbing it could have made an angel weep.
Unholy saints from hell.
Tella fought to breathe as all her plans and hopes began to crumble.
Jacks couldn’t be her friend. She couldn’t have been writing letters to the heir to the Meridian throne for more than a year.
She stumbled but Jacks’s arm tightened, keeping her from falling and holding her much too close as they continued through the revelers. This had to be a mistake. Tella’s friend was supposed to be a lowly criminal who dealt in secrets, not the unpredictable and murderous heir to the throne, who, from the pitch of his voice, did not sound inclined to forgive her for her failure.
Tella tried to pull away.
Jacks held tight, his nimble fingers stronger than they looked. “Why do you keep disappointing me?” His hands clung to her as if she really were his fiancée while he guided her closer to the colossal cage in the center of the ballroom. The irony was not lost on Tella. She’d contacted him to help her escape the prison her father had turned her life into, and now Jacks was ushering her toward a new set of bars.
Frightened blue petals rained down from her skirts. Tella’s pounding heart told her she needed to run away as soon as possible. But if she fled, she had no idea who else to turn to to help her find and save her mother. Tella was starting to feel desperate. The pounding of her heart drowned out all the soaring party music. All she could hear was blood rushing through her ears.