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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The faces of hundreds of terrified people reflected in the glass shards as they rained from the ceiling. They flashed with red as they plunged down, catching the light of the glistening holly berries and foreshadowing the blood that would soon stain them. The revelers screamed, their masks muffling their panic into a single garbled roar of terror.

Lilac flung her arms upward and twirled, the green shield she had conjured spreading wide to encompass the entire ballroom. The glass hit, stabbing partially through her shield. She grunted, unused to the strain, then forced a smile onto her face.

The terrified crowd was watching.

With slow, languid movements, Lilac began to dance. Her magic shield mimicked the sweep of her arms movements, drawing inward and compressing the glass shards. There was a tinkling of crystal, then the fragmented ornaments compressed into shimmering sand. Her magic shield became a cloud of sparkling green light.

The villagers’ screams became hesitant gasps. Lilac maintained her serene smile, as if this had been their plan all along—the young Hawthornes’ twist on an old tradition. The cloud became a sensuous curve of glittering green, like the long silk of a ribbon dancer. The crowd clapped once, twice, in delight, their fear dissipating.

“Boar,” she whisper-hissed, startling her stunned brother. “The door, if you please.”

“Oh, right!” He gave a grand gesture to the front doors, waiting for the crowd to part before he released a lance of green magic. It slammed into the keyholes, shocking the doors to swing open with a thunderous bang.

The cold swept in with a little flurry of snowflakes, but they never reached the floor.

Lilac spun, shoving out straight from her chest with both hands. The shimmering ribbon corkscrewed through the air, much to the cheers of the onlookers, and barreled out into the night. The moment the last of the glittering cloud vanished, the doors snapped shut.

As the Hall erupted in laughter and applause, Lilac and Boar shared a look and let out a long, relieved breath. The adrenaline left her system then, and she wobbled. Her brother caught her, steadying her but also linking her hand with his and thrusting it upright. It was only then she realized everyone was still watching them.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” Boar boomed, guiding her into a bow.

“I’d call you an attention whore,” she whispered out of the side of her mouth, “except this was a good plan.”

“Only picking up where you left off,” he whispered back with a smile.

When they straightened, Boar led her from the dance floor and over to the nearest table where she could take a breath and he could leave to turn on the chandelier. The music resumed as Lilac clutched the table and fought to keep her legs under her.

By the Green Mother, she’d never expended that much magic before in one burst. She’d always been so surgical in her application, and hearth magic with her cauldron was in small additions over time which allowed her magic to recover. But she’d had no other choice. To save the villagers, she’d had to tap herself nearly dry. She was exhausted and absolutely starving.

Shaking, she lifted her head and discovered Boar had brought her over to the table where the appetizers were—a simple an assortment of cheeses and crackers and a few grape clusters for color. Her hand shot out for a wedge of Swiss—

“Mistress Lilac!”

She lurched upright out of her hunch, yanking her hand back—cheeseless—the smile already in place to greet the wretch of a woman who’d just prevented her from going feral on the appetizers.

“Hi!” Talia greeted cheerfully. Her wide grin combined with the forest spirit mask gave her an unnerving appearance. Beside her was Boar, her brother clearly having been caught in the chatty practitioner’s wake. “Here’s that punch we talked about earlier. You must be absolutely parched after that performance!”

Lilac accepted the cup thrust at her, thinking only one thing: calories.

“It was a little break from tradition,” Boar said, “but we hope you all enjoyed it.”

“Absolutely! What’s a masquerade without a little risk and excitement?” She took a long swallow. “My, this punch is better than the one at the Craft Faire. Did you put rainbow sherbet in it this time?”

“How else would you make yuletide punch?” Boar laughed, taking a sip.

Talia tittered, swatting his arm, then clinked her cup against Lilac’s. “Cheers, friends!”

“Cheers,” Lilac echoed, lifting her cup.

The opal ring twinkled madly as Allen seized the doorknobs and yanked open the double doors. He expected to find the Hall littered with the bloodied bodies of the villagers, but lo and behold, they were dancing . Laughing, even. Nobody noticed his abrupt appearance because everyone was enjoying themselves.

A lively reel rose from the string quartet, an ever-changing sea of masked faces spun before him, and there were no screams of terror. Above, the chandelier was lit and the glass ornaments that the Hawthornes had hung were nowhere to be found. There was no glass on the floor, not even a stray mote to crunch under his shoe.

It didn’t take a genius to determine that another ill-wish had activated, shattered the ornaments, and that a Hawthorne had swept the glass outside in a cloud of green glitter. By the celebration going on within the Hall, those same Hawthornes must’ve put on a good show to convince the villagers that it’d all been on purpose.

Except Allen knew better.

Where is she? his wolf snarled, and the beast wasn’t talking about Lilac.

Allen shut the doors behind him, locked them, and took only one step into the Hall before the opal ring began to tug on his senses. He glanced to the left—on the library lintel and doorknob was a suit and a mask. A white wolf mask. The door opened of its own accord, the Hall beckoning him inside. Without hesitating, he diverted to the library, closing himself inside and changing into the offered costume. The disguise.

Emerging from the library, Allen glided into the crush of people, effortlessly shifting between the bodies as he scented for his woman. What he got was a flood of body odor, sweetness from the sherbet punch, the scent of evergreen that he was truly sick and tired of by now, roasting pork, and a whole host of other smells. He kicked himself for not claiming Lilac before with a mating bite. Had he marked her, her scent would’ve risen above the rest like the sweetest nectar.

So he listened in the hopes that his ears, eyes, and nose could triangulate her position, filtering through the endless noise of chatter and dancing feet and music.

There.

Lilac’s brown hair was a mane of gentle curls flowing down to the middle of her back, a vixen’s mask complementing her voluminous dress of gold satin and scarlet velvet. Cream lace fluttered at her cuffs and swept across her neckline, lying delicately against the tops of her breasts.

Allen found himself salivating, but only for a moment. Boar was there, taking a sip of punch, and between them stood Talia in a forest spirit mask. The young practitioner had just clinked her cup against Lilac’s, encouraging her to drink, when Allen forced himself free of the crowd.

Focused on each other, the Hawthorne siblings hadn’t seen him, but the smile slipped from Talia’s face. She only had time to drop her punch and open her mouth to scream as Allen thundered across the dance floor.

“Allen,” Boar blurted.

Allen slapped the cup from Lilac’s hand and snatched Talia by her throat, squeezing the breath out of her scream before it could escape past her lips. She staggered as Allen shoved her hard against the appetizer table, clawing at the hand that choked her. He smelled fear and anger and something saccharine from Lilac’s spilled punch cup.

“I don’t normally hurt women,” he snarled down at her. “But for you, I think I’ll make an exception.”

“Allen!” Lilac exclaimed, yanking on his arm. “Stop—”

He shrugged her off, snatching Talia’s wrist as she fought to free something from her dress pocket. The heretic’s fork clattered to the floor.

“Oh my Green Mother,” Lilac whispered. Then she proved how wonderful and brilliant she was when her tone turned icy with realization and she glowered at the practitioner Allen restrained. “It was you ?”