Page 38 of A Sea of Vows and Silence (The Naiads of Juile #3)

Selena

I spied Pheolix before he saw me.

He entered the ballroom from the eastern doors, his steps as smooth and liquid as a dark flame, dressed head to toe in midnight black.

His clothes weren’t very different from what he wore every day.

His pants sat snug over his hips, his shirt unbuttoned to the crease of his chest, black thread embroidered throughout the fabric, patterned in leaves and twigs.

He’d rolled his sleeves, veins shooting up his arms and under his shirt, his collar tall against his neck.

His hood was thrown back over his shoulders, and he’d tied his rusty hair in a half-bun, the strands already working themselves loose. Though the attire was simple compared to most in the ballroom, it might have been passable among the palace guests if not for his mask.

Not even a mask—he’d tied a thick strip of black lace straight across his eyes, knotting it at the back of his head.

He coasted the edges of the grand room, slipping behind one noble, sweeping past another.

Gliding along the crowd, the musicians, the dance floor.

I thought he was coming for me when he turned to stalk in my direction, but he bypassed me at the last moment, weaving around the drink-laden table to lean against the wall.

His gaze seared into the back of my head.

Annoyance prickled at my edges. My finger circled the rim of my glass, cool and smooth. Sparkling volare had left a film over my tongue. Either that or it had numbed my mouth, though the taste of sweet spice lingered after every sip.

I’d begun to feel weightless, I think. Or maybe the volare simply took that weighted, sinking feeling from me. I’d stopped falling. I was floating instead, hovering above the gleaming floor, my toes barely brushing the varnished planks with each step.

Across the ballroom, dressed in his signature royal blue, the King stole a small glance at me.

I should have spent the last half hour inventing a way to converse with him.

Should have been strategizing, scheming, devising.

But I hadn’t yet drunk enough to forget the last time I’d been sent to dance with him at a party.

The harsh way he’d tugged me into spinning circles of dancers, the bite of his fingertips into my lower back when he pressed me into an alcove, his breath streaming down the side of my neck.

I swallowed my glass in a single gulp.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

I half-turned, throwing Pheolix a glare too unsteady to be convincing. “Excuse me? This is only my second.”

“It’s your ninth.”

Was it? It couldn’t have been. Admittedly, I’d lost count around my fifth, but I was certain I hadn’t had four more since then.

Besides, Pheolix had only just arrived.

I cocked my head in defiance, thrusting my arm horizontally for the servant to refill my glass.

Pheolix watched, and though his features lacked in depth or expression, something in his eyes darkened through the black lace.

He shoved off the wall with his shoulder, coming to the opposite side of the table, and leaned in over the poured glasses.

“Keep your head in the game.”

“Keep my head in the game?” I scoffed. “Keep your own head in the game. Better yet, butt out of my game.” I turned away, searching for Emilius.

He was chatting with two lords from his council, his back turned to me.

I lifted the glass to my lips and sighed, mind churning for a way to snare his attention.

Suddenly, the glass lifted out of my grasp.

I whipped around again, fuming. Pheolix smirked. “You’re done for now. No more.”

The annoyance prickling my edges became tinder, his words the spark that sent it into flame. “I beg your moon-damned pardon?”

The drone set the glass on the silk runner. “You’re done. Focus on your job, so I can do mine.”

“And what’s your job?” I snarled. “Following me around and bothering me?”

He scanned the roving figures behind me, undaunted by the ice in my voice. “More or less.”

“Well, you’re free to go.” I snatched my glass back, drinking it just to spite him.

The volare fizzled down my throat, toasting the already warm pool in my belly.

Licking my lips, I set the glass back down harder than necessary.

It clinked dully over the silk runner. “Don’t tell me what to do, gnat. Now. Dance with me.”

Through the black lace, his brows tightened, cool-steel eyes darting to mine. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Fine,” I said, reaching for a fresh glass. His hand shot out, stopping mine, and he held it firmly in the air.

“You’re a lady of the court here.”

“So?”

“So, it would raise some brows if we danced.”

I laughed humorlessly. “No one knows you. You wear that stupid hood whenever you enter the castle. Tonight, you’re nothing more than a mysterious outsider.”

“I wear that stupid hood because more than one of the palace Naiads would recognize me otherwise,” he said. “I’ve stolen too many sirens from their homes to worry about watching my back here. ”

“Well, good news, your lace blindfold is just as stupid, and your identity as an evil kidnapper is just as secret.” I flipped my hand over, palm curling into his. “Come on.”

Pheolix exhaled heavily through his nose, the V of his chest deflating. His eyes shifted to the balcony above. Deimos stood above. Watching us.

“Oh.” My mouth carved out a smirk, his thoughts suddenly clear. “Worried he’ll find out you danced with me in front of the rest of the palace?”

He leveled me with a look of waning patience, though he didn’t say anything.

My mouth parted in surprise. I’d expected him to shoot back, to brace against my accusation with something dripping in sarcasm or foul innuendos, but his silence only confirmed my wild guess.

“That’s it? You’re afraid of what Thaan will do if he knows we danced?

I have news, then. Thaan doesn’t care. Especially if I’m using you to catch the King’s eye.

As long as I don’t crawl into your bed, Thaan’s happy to use my body as a means of strategy.

If you won’t dance with me, go brood in some other corner, so I can find someone who will. ”

Pheolix’s jaw tightened. His lashes beat against the lace blindfold, dark smoke across his eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly. The hold he’d taken on my hand loosened, and his thumb drifted across the inside of my wrist. “What happened? Why isn’t your sister here?”

“Nothing.” I pulled out of his grasp, wading through the sparse crowd toward the group of young lords who flocked the perimeter of the dance floor.

The musicians were almost finished with a slow number, their soft tune winding into silence, a long note from the fiddle vibrating into my skin.

I hadn’t made it far when someone latched onto my elbow, towing me toward the center of the room.

Pheolix halted along the nearest edge of the dance floor as the song ended.

A breath of silence wafted over the ballroom, patrons waiting for the next number to begin as the musicians reset their scores.

The couples around us shifted quietly, though most of them still held the intimate pose they’d ended in, chests pressed together, arms looped around each other’s necks.

Rain beat hard against the windows, streaming down the glass. The servants had flung open the doors to the cool air outside, puddles rippling as the drops pelted the walkways, blades of wet grass reflecting the shine of torches outside.

Pheolix wrapped his hands over my hip bones, turning me just slightly. He stroked his fingertips up my side and under my arm, lifting it as he dragged them across my skin, and laid my wrist behind his shoulder. My gaze met his, and the iron in his eyes shimmered under the black lace.

The ballroom waited.

The music started.

And that first note was sharp. Hot. Wild.

The song was Rivean, rich in drums and tambourines. The percussion of it beat inside my ribs. Expecting another slow number, Pheolix’s eyes widened for only a fraction of a moment.

Then he spun me so fast the room whirled.

I’d never heard this song before, but I’d spent enough time in the center of these parties that intuition guided my feet. My fingers latched onto his forearm, and I unfurled from his side. Then recoiled just as quickly to trade my weight between my feet, hips and heels popping more than swaying.

He flung me away, our movements fast. Then drew me in, slowing as our bodies touched.

Twist. Turn. Pivot. Then a decadent slide, draping my weight across him.

The couples that had surrounded us began to empty from the floor, unwilling to attempt the unfamiliar beat.

Pheolix twirled me into his body, my legs straddling one of his, and then threw me into a low dip. My thighs ground against his, heat pounding into my core where our bodies joined. Every spin fast, every drag slow, smooth, firm .

Fire ripped through my blood. Feral heat roared in my veins. He rolled me against his angled leg, sending a wave through my hips, my waist, my spine, hand secured against my back.

Then snapped me upright, swinging me away again.

I let him spin me in place, landing with my back to his chest. He arched us backwards together, unwilling to lose an inch of space between his body and mine.

His calloused hand traveled up my abdomen, grazing my ribcage, but I was still turning, rotating in his grip. He clung tight, a planet caught in my orbit, hands and arms and legs curving around my every horizon.

We didn’t speak a word. It was too loud on the dance floor, too close to the music for conversation.

And yet.

Yet we tossed challenges back and forth in silence, each twist a dare, each turn an unspoken provocation.

Beads of sweat glistened along his collarbones, so close I could have followed their trail with a fingertip.

A thrill flashed through my chest as I wondered at the taste of it, the texture of his skin under my tongue.

I watched his mouth as he reeled me in and spun me away. He watched mine as well. In. Out. Close. Far. He threw me against his chest, and his lower lip grazed mine. I dragged my mouth just faintly, a taunt in my eyes.

Do it, a voice in my head whispered to him. Do it.

Kiss me.

He smiled darkly and tossed me against his side, hooking a hand under my knee and bending it into a sharp corner. Then drove his opposite hand up my neck, splaying around my throat, cupping my jaw.

My skin smoldered as he guided my face into his, eyes locking into mine for a torturously slow moment.

Our mouths hovered a brushstroke apart. I panted, uncertain if I was breathless from the dance or the way he easily threw me against himself, every aching muscle of his body a hard landing, a burn I suddenly longed to chase .

I whipped against his side, my hair lashing my cheek and neck, sticking to my skin. Pheolix reeled me in so fast my feet left the floor. He caught me there against his hips, there, against the hard apex of his pants, and a shudder lighted along my bones, undulating through each nerve.

His hand snaked up the flare of my dress. Hard. Greedy. Possessive.

Past my knee and into the sensitive dip of my inner thigh. I felt my jaw unhinge, my exhale sharp and jolting.

Then he continued, abandoning my bare skin for the contour of my waist, the edge of my corset, but my flesh burned where he’d explored. Burned and writhed and thirsted for the return of his rough touch.

Arm over our heads, he sent me in another wild spin, our hands losing contact for only a moment. Then the feeling of him returned.

But it was wrong.

His skin wasn’t as hot, nor as coarse, but it was just as hungry.

I came out of my turn, facing him again, and ash-brown eyes waited in his place.

Hair no longer russet, mask no longer lace.

I fell against a royal cobalt suit, hands catching over a chest more robust, and as my mind whirred to catch up, Pheolix stood in the corner of my eye.

He looked like he’d inhaled a deep breath and couldn’t release it.

Tendons in his neck stretched beyond their normal size, teeth hard-set through his parted lips.

I only caught his gaze for an instant, but a feral darkness flickered in his gaze as he watched me twist and turn with the King just as I’d done with him the moment before.

Emilius’s turns were tighter than Pheolix’s.

More precise and honed to the music. But that fire I’d been chasing evaporated in an instant.

The dance floor was empty but for us, though I wasn’t sure if dancers had abandoned it because the King stepped foot inside its boundaries or if they’d left before.

The entire ballroom watched. Nobles gathered in a giant circle, glee and amusement stitched in their eyes through the small windows of their masks. The Queen sat in her place of honor on the narrow dais, expressionless, one leg crossed over the other, her spine straight and tall.

Pheolix turned, weaving his way through the observers until he fell so deep within the crowd that I lost sight of him.