Page 11 of Enchantra (Wicked Games #2)

10

COLD FEET

March 20

I am writing this in a room with no mirrors just in case I start crying. Which would be an odd thing to mention if I wasn’t trapped in another mansion run by a Devil. This one seems even more vain than the other Devil I know, if you can believe it, given his clear obsession with mirrors.

I…am in such deep shit.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I promised Ophelia I’d be turning over a new leaf on this trip. That I’d curb my sailor’s mouth. A bit hypocritical considering her own tongue has become equally as corrupt since spending so much time with Salem.

I also promised to be a bit more careful with my spontaneous urges…

I worry that I have only become worse since leaving New Orleans.

Part of me blames him for taking away so much of my joy that being reckless is the only thrill I have left. Another part of me knows I cannot possibly blame him for everything forever.

It’s just that this situation is a new level of fucked even for me.

I am about to get married . Yes. Married . Days from my twenty-second birthday. To a man I’ve known mere hours and whom I find infuriating.

But he won’t be the first man I’ve attempted to marry that I’ve loathed. We can only hope this engagement will have a better ending.

Ophelia is going to murder me. If I manage to make it out of this house alive.

I’m pretty sure I’ve said that before.

X, Genevieve

“Alright, the specifications for your dress have been passed along,” Rowin informed her as he strode back into the drawing room. She hurried to tuck her pen between the pages of her diary and shove the journal into the pocket of the dress she’d changed into after throwing away the one she’d ruined in the snow.

When he’d gotten her back inside, she’d refused to answer any of his or Barrington’s questions on what she might like for their ridiculous farce of a wedding. Sevin had eagerly requested a chocolate fountain but was quickly dismissed. The moment Rowin mentioned that she could request any sort of extravagant gown she’d like, however, she perked up. Just a little.

At least one part of this should be enjoyable.

After Barrington and Sevin disappeared to take care of all the last-minute details, Rowin suggested giving her a tour of Enchantra before it was time for them to get ready.

“Why?” she questioned.

He gave her a bored look. “Because you’ll be grateful for it when you get caught between rooms with no idea where to hide.”

“Won’t you be hiding with me? Isn’t that the point of all of this?” she demanded.

“Believe it or not, we’re not going to be sewn together at the hip after we take our vows,” he drawled. “Which means there might be a point that we get separated. And if one of us dies, we both die—and I’m not the one who is most at risk for causing that. So, why don’t you save us another ten minutes of arguing and get up?”

She huffed and stood from the drawing room’s couch, trudging behind him as she tried to think of anything else she’d rather be doing less.

Phantasma didn’t even make that list.

The first ten or so minutes were spent trailing after Rowin while he pointed out every little nook and cranny he thought might be a beneficial place for her to note, lecturing her about how each round of the Hunt would consist of a slightly different version of the game, with its own set of rules. The versions were seemingly endless, but he suggested that each of his siblings had their favorites and would likely stick to those.

“Do you?” she asked as they made their way into the ballroom now. “Have a favorite game I should know about?”

His expression turned thoughtful as he led her across the expansive marble dance floor. “I’ve really enjoyed the one where I ask you to do something, and you simply refuse to fucking do it.”

“What a coincidence, I love that game, too,” she remarked as they reached the foot of the grand staircase. “You know, if you tried being nice to me you might find?—”

Before she could finish her thought, he was suddenly right before her. Her breath hitched as the length of his body pressed into hers, his arm coming up to wrap around her waist as he bent her back against the stair’s banister. His eyes became half-lidded as he leaned his mouth down to her left ear, leaving her hands trapped between their bodies, her palms splayed flat against the taut muscles of his stomach.

“Relax,” he demanded under his breath, “and try to pretend like you enjoy being this close to me. We have an observer.”

Genevieve took a shaky breath as Rowin’s lips leaned in close enough to brush against the pulse in her throat, but before they could make full contact, he straightened and glanced toward the top of the stairs.

“Ah, it’s Grave,” he muttered.

Genevieve glanced over and saw a man standing at the top of the stairs. A very large man. One who was slightly familiar…

The unidentified stranger from the mirror-realm, she realized. It had to be. A moment later and he blinked entirely from sight.

“I thought it might be Knox,” Rowin explained.

“They both have a certain hostile aura about them,” Genevieve allowed, her words still a bit breathless from how close he’d just been to having his lips on her skin.

A spark of shocked amusement flitted through his eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, his mask of stone back in place as he prompted, “Shall we continue?”

She stared at him, dazed.

It confounded her how smoothly he’d changed from hot to cold, how easy it was for him to pretend at such intimacy while her heart did acrobatics in her chest.

“I think I’m done with the tour,” she told him, refusing to meet his eyes. “I need time to do my hair before the ceremony.”

He raised a brow. “You’re skipping strategy to make sure your hair is perfect?”

She shrugged. “If I’m going to be dragged down the aisle, I at least want to look incredible. You only get a first wedding once.”

“You’re mortal. You only die once,” he muttered as he left her to continue up the steps without a backward glance.

Genevieve huffed as she stomped off in the opposite direction, making her way back to the drawing room. She knew he was right, that there were much more important things for her to be worrying about than her hair or if they were going to get the details of her dress right, but she still wasn’t sure the direness of the situation had fully set in.

“The Hunt this, Devils that,” she muttered to herself as she walked through the foyer. “If I have to look awful on my wedding day, I’m going to be the scariest thing in this house?—”

A grunt suddenly echoed through the corridor with the portraits, and Genevieve paused.

She padded in the direction of the sound and noticed that the door to one of the rooms on the left was cracked open, an odd hissing noise now coming from inside. She slowed her stride and tiptoed toward the open crack to peek in, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness until she could make out the silhouette of a man standing with his back to her in the center of a bedroom.

A large black serpent was inked into his skin, slithering up his spine between his defined shoulder muscles. In his hand was a knife, and he was…slicing it across his ribs, moaning every time a new river of blood dripped down his side from the shallow wounds. A gasp fell from her lips, and the man’s gaze snapped over his shoulder.

“Who’s there?” he rasped.

Genevieve reared back, aghast, and spun on her heels. She swept through the foyer, rushing past an unexpecting Sevin.

“Cold feet?” Sevin called after her with a laugh.

Genevieve gave him the crudest gesture in her repertoire as she continued toward the drawing room, earning a boisterous laugh. When she reached the door she was looking for and hauled it open?—

—she ran smack into Ellin.

“ There you are,” Ellin said as she steadied Genevieve. “Your wedding dress is here. It’s time to get ready.”