Page 18 of Glimmer and Burn (Unity #1)

It was a large manor, with dark vining plants that Miranda recognized from the Night Court sprawling up the gates and over the brick.

They were in the Ring—named because it encircled the Spire which erupted menacingly from its center.

Here homes were larger, grander, meant to hold the various alderman elected for the parliament or other prominent figures.

Her father had a house here, if he wanted it, but he chose to remain in the family estate in the Garrison.

Graves’s home matched no architecture Miranda was aware of, with twisting columns of ebony.

Gargoyles snarling in lofty corners. Stained glass.

And dark, smooth obsidian materials. His wealth and power were on full display as Miranda and her sister were helped from the carriage and escorted to a grand foyer of black and gold marble.

The ballroom was pure opulence, little domes extended the ceiling, making the room feel much larger despite being filled with people. A quartet played a haunting melody that filled the chamber, no doubt aided by the acoustics of the ceiling shape.

While still overwhelmingly human and guardian, there was the usual blend of races in attendance. The heads of fae courts, titled members of other races, or the respective alderman and their families.

Kieran North the Winter Alderman often attended balls and social gatherings, though he rarely did more than glower and observe like he was documenting the unusual habits of the upper class.

He was punctual to a fault and usually left before ten, but easy to spot by the gap between himself and the rest of the partiers.

A lone figure with ten feet of space on all sides.

Willa Shen, the Summer Alderman, was the first to dance and the last to leave.

Miranda spied Miss Shen’s intricately woven auburn hair as she hovered near the drink table, a cup in each hand.

Lady Belladona Asche, a widow who turned immortal after her husband’s passing, was currently married to the immortal Alderman.

She liked to drink, gossip, and do as she pleased.

Which made her either loved or hated, rarely in between.

She was entertaining a growing mass of guests with a lively story. Her husband did not attend parties.

Drake’s blue eyes should have been easy to find in a crowd of mostly humans, their luminous almost iridescent quality a stark contrast to, say Lady Merrin’s human blue eyes.

Miranda prayed he hadn’t decided to stay home.

She would never admit it, but she needed him.

Without him here she feared she would lose her nerve.

His presence made her more confident, since she refused to look weak in front of him.

He made her want to shine. And she could use another person to help her get in and out unnoticed.

She bit her lip. And then there was the fact that he was attractive and full of roguish charm.

The exact sort of charm her parents had always warned her about, but Miranda couldn’t help but sway a bit to his magnetism.

These thoughts were all safe in her mind.

Tucked away and never to see the light of day.

Speak of the devil. Drake was already there, body slanted in a corner as he sipped at a Champaign flute.

He looked pissed, but incredibly handsome.

His clothes were fine and well-tailored to his body, dark velvets with splashes of deep maroon on his vest and cravat.

His signature colors, it seemed, for she never saw him in anything but black and red.

Miranda’s palms grew sweaty as her eyes lingered where they shouldn’t.

But, she reasoned, there was no harm in looking.

She could hardly pretend she didn’t want to look.

He hadn’t shaved the rough stubble along his chin, but he had taken effort with his hair.

Parted to one side, less roguishly-tousled than normal.

It still covered his ears, which made her chest ache, even if she was endeared by the display.

Which was conflicting, since she was determined to hate him and would have denied the idea of Devin and endearing populating the same sentence if questioned.

She approached him slowly, suddenly self-conscious. At parties, her short-comings were always glaringly obvious. Men would ask her to dance and if she spoke they found her too aggressive, but if she said nothing they deemed her boring. She was rarely asked to dance twice.

She wished for the comfort of her guardian’s uniform.

She felt herself in it instead of at war with the person her gown painted her to be.

But a uniform wasn’t appropriate for a ball.

Instead she wore a pale blue gown that billowed around her hips with a bodice that was both too tight and too low cut—her mother was desperate for her to attract the right attention.

Yara had styled her hair in an elegant coiffure, but she had plucked a few tendrils free to frame her face.

She preferred the softer look it gave her features.

She knew she could be intense and it had become habit to seek out ways of deceptively covering her harsher nature.

She was not normally reduced to a blushing, self-conscious maiden.

But then Devin noticed her and her knees wobbled most annoyingly.

Because his disquiet sneer transformed into a darker, more seductive grin once he spotted her.

His eyes traced an unabashed trail up her body and his tongue licked absently at the corner of his lip, drawing her eyes and electrifying what had already been a potent moment.

Miranda was not worldly. All she knew of desire and intimacy she learned through Lydia’s fascination with research, the two of them passing books and even some illustrations in secret.

But his eyes had her longing for things she couldn’t define and a very base, impulsive part of her wanted him to teach her.

“Miss Wilde,” he said with a slight bow.

“It’s a pleasure to see you this evening.

” His grin was slanted with mischief. He was attempting to play it off like she hadn’t asked him here so they could spy on their host. He feigned casual poorly, and there was no mistaking his focus on her for anything less than lust.

He reached out for her hand, snagging it before she could protest and gently pressed his lips to her skin. The sensation flared up her arm like a wave, vibrating through her.

“If I’m going to play the part,” he offered as he straightened. Her fingers slipped from his, lifeless and buzzing.

Miranda was rendered speechless. Behind them, the ball continued. Graves was here. They should focus on the task at hand. She should not be spending much too long staring at Drake like the only thing keeping them apart was sheer, barely restrained willpower.

Drake stood straighter, his eyes narrowed playfully. “Please don’t tell me this is your first ball, Miss Wilde. I was hoping to follow your lead.”

She shook her head, rattling the stupor from her brain.

If she didn’t get ahold of herself, this whole plan would fall apart.

Miranda took in a deep breath and then released it slowly.

She could do this. She just needed to remind herself that he was annoying and not at all interested in someone like her, not really.

He liked riling her up, but he wasn’t serious.

Not with someone like her. Someone non-adventurous.

With no experience. From her sort of family.

“No, of course not. It’s…” she cleared her throat. “I’ve done this plenty of times.”

“And surely I’m not the first gentleman to kiss your hand,” He said, eyebrows moving suggestively. “Or am I just the first to make you blush?”

And that snapped her out of it. Leave it to Devin Drake to turn a romantic moment into one of exasperation. And he knew what he was doing when he kissed her hand, the cad. “Don’t flatter yourself, it’s just hot in here,” she said.

Drake pulled at his cravat. “I can’t argue there, it’s bloody stifling in these clothes.”

“In a few minutes the dancing will start and a lot of the focus will be here,” Miranda started, “Graves will be expected on the floor, mingling with guests. We should be able to slip away at that point and find his office.”

She made a few sweeps of the ballroom with her eyes, noting the layout and various exits. They were on the ground floor, but there was no telling how large this place truly was from the front. Not to mention if he had installed secret passages or rooms.

“He’ll have guards throughout the estate.” Drake sipped his drink to hide his words.

He did his own sweep of the room, keeping his body slightly turned so they didn’t look to be in conversation.

Though, Miranda found it hard to pretend that he wasn’t still making her body tingle and antsy with tension.

It was harder to imagine the whole room wouldn’t notice all the tiny ways her body responded to simply being close to him.

Damn it. She was supposed to be above this.

He certainly hadn’t been this distracting before…

but then, she also hadn’t had contact with him in several days.

She’d sent the invitation and a note, but dared not risk more and he hadn’t attempted to contact her either.

The days of waiting, with nothing productive to occupy her, she had unintentionally crafted silly fantasies involving Drake.

Where she could take out her frustration and aggression on his person with fists or a weapon, but always eventually devolving into smoldering glances, hands brushing over her clothes, or even heated kisses that she could only imagine from pictures, rather than practice.

Excitement buzzed in her muscles and it was difficult to hide the restless fidgeting in her limbs as they conspired in secret. Devin kept his voice low, so that only she would hear him, the smooth cadence of his voice erupting in shivers up her spine.