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He dipped his head. "Good. I'm glad someone's warning the valers. It might deprive the culprit from easy victims."

"It would. Except now they'll ask me a million questions about you instead," I told him.

I was half chastising him, but my notable amusement failed to get that point across.

"You valers make a huge fuss over nothing," he said, just as the second melody died, melding into the start of a third.

And he still wasn't letting me go.

This would make our third dance—or two and a half, considering he only claimed the second half of the first waltz.

One might have been innocuous.

Three was a statement.

He rotated me slowly, and off we went again.

"Are you saying that if I danced with you in the underside, three times in a row, none of your folk would raise an eyebrow?"

"Oh, Kleos. You truly are adorable." His mouth dipped to my earlobe. "I could fuck you in the middle of the dance floor at an unders party and no one would care."

That wasn'tfair. He couldn't say things like that. He couldn't speak so low and close enough for me to feel his breath on my skin. He couldn't touch me while speaking of fucking me.

"Kleos," he repeated, his tone quite different now.

I made myself lift my gaze to his, my heart still racing in my chest. "What?"

Only he wasn't looking at my face at all. And unlike Castor, he truly was staring at my necklace rather than my tits.

I understood why in one single glance.

Every stone was pitch black.

34

KLEOS

Lucian swore under his breath, silver eyes as intense as ever, analyzing every part of me.

I felt just fine. Maybe a little tipsy, but I hadn't eaten tonight, and I was three glasses of wine in. I generally needed my liquid courage to deal with these parties.

"What could that mean?" Had the ritual started early? It couldn't be much later than ten.

"Let's not find out here," he retorted, jaw tight.

The melody was slowing down, reaching the end of the song. Taking my hand, Lucian pressed his lips to it, like the prince charming he looked like in his embroidered custom tux

"Two minutes, then you follow me out of here." His voice was barely over a whisper. "Take any longer, and I don't care who's watching, I'm coming to drag you out."

My core tightened at the threat. In any other circumstances, I would have stayed past these two minutes just to see if he meant it. But he was right: whatever was going on with me, I didn't want to stay in this place. Anyone with nefarious intents knew I was supposed to be here. I needed to be safe at h?—

No, not home. Home was the attic in my parent's house. At his manor. That's where I needed to be.

First, I beelined towards a lively corner close to a table covered in empty glasses. "Aunt Nemea!"

My aunt couldn't look more different from my mother: where Zenya was slender, Nemea was round, even when she wasn't pregnant. She'd let herself age a little. She didn't look anywhere close to her sixties, but no one would have carded her if she'd tried to buy beer outside of Highvale.

"Hey, pup," her husband called, affable as ever.