Page 31 of Prince of Masks (Hearts of Bluestone #2)

Serena is locked into a tumble of dances, one after another after another. If it isn’t Oliver, it’s Dray, if it isn’t Dray, it’s her brother, Dez, then of course any aristos bachelor who thinks they might be able to worm in between her and Oliver’s engagement.

It leaves little time for us to sneak off into the gardens—and Father is too at ease passing me off into dances with anyone and everyone.

Oliver takes one, Dez another, Landon too, and my feet are burning in these shoes after my second dance with Father.

I manage to slip away to the buffet table down by the Latona’s Pool, which is really more of an absolutely massive fountain.

I pile a few snacks onto a crystal plate, from caramelised popcorn and white chocolate macadamias to Scottish macaroons.

I back step alongside the buffet, passing the snacks, then the seafood, caviar and lobster and prawns, until the savoury foods inch into my line of sight.

I consider the sandwiches, the golden fries, the squares of truffle pizza.

The tiny, cubed hamburgers are cute, but a novelty, and in my experience they don’t taste all that great. So I snub those and move for an all-time favourite.

It’s a special kind of toasted sandwich.

Not just any toastie, this one is called a jaffle, it has sealed edges, and is split into four sections, and—always at these things—the fillings are mouthwatering.

I decide on the one with truffle, brie and smoked Prosciutto.

My mouth is watering when Teddy, reeking of scotch and a suspicious brown stain down his white shirt, barrels into the table.

A stifled laugh twists my mouth as I eye him over.

The collar is torn free, his bowtie gone, and without his jacket, I can see that the sleeves of his shirt are ill-fitted, just a tad, and that his cufflinks are in dire need of polishing. Heirlooms, I suspect.

“Oops.” His eyes are wide as he rights himself. “Slipped.”

“On air?”

He leans in closer, those eyes too wide, and his breath strong with scotch and brews. “On the wings of angels.”

The smile I give is knowing.

Recreational brews have infiltrated the ball.

My money’s on Landon.

It’s his specialty.

Maybe he can build his family’s wealth back up with dealing illicit brews… or pharmaceuticals.

“I heard about your engagement,” I start, plucking a dom-infused doughnut from the platter, then tucking it onto the edge of my packed plate. “Congratulations.”

His mouth purses for a beat, still tilted towards me, hand flat on the edge of the table. His eyes finally thin, and now it’s like he’s trying to squint to clear his vision.

“Oh.” He draws back and his cheeks puff around a weighted exhale. “ That .”

The hit of scotch is enough to tense my insides. If I let myself, I might gag.

Instead, I thin my lips into a faint hidden smile, but really, that is the mask to shield my distaste, stopping anymore of that scotch-breath from invading my mouth.

“She’s up there,” he says and flourishes his hand. “With Eric and Asta, last time I checked—but that was an hour ago, so,” he scoffs, hard enough to jut his shoulders.

And his words clang in my head.

“Eric?” I swerve my gaze to the promenade. “He’s here?”

Teddy sighs. “Yeah, with the ice queen.”

He perches himself on the edge of the table.

I shoot the improper seating a dark look.

If I was my mother, I’d knock him on the ear.

Bums should never be that close to food.

“He’s with Asta, then.”

“She’s available now.” Teddy nods. “Her father is at least entertaining Eric tonight. That’s a good sign.”

My mouth thins, lips sucked inwards.

By the looseness of Teddy’s lips, I suspect Eric has been hush hush about our fuck in the park—and everything leading up to it.

“Hold that thought, I’m gonna throw up,” he heaves out the words that have me cringing back into the table.

I watch, cowered, as he staggers into the bushes.

Before the first retch can hit him, I’ve gripped my untouched plate and rushed off to the steps descending into the Green Carpet, the perfectly neat strip of green grass that stretches hundreds of metres down the gardens, and is lined by delicately, hand-sculpted statues.

Teddy is on his own.

I walk the length of the Green Carpet in search of some solitude.

I pass the trees, the hedges, the stone sculptures, and I walk the long path to the Apollo Fountain where gold statues protrude from the calm water.

I perch on the stone border of the fountain.

The graze of my fingertip along the doughnut is muted and distracted.

I pinch the corner of a triangular toasted sandwich. I bring it to my parting lips, but my eyes are hooked on the curves and grooves of the gilded statues, and my mind is arched all the way back at the South Parterre left behind.

The breath that unribbons from me is glazed with disappointment. That’s all it is, all I feel.

No rage, no hurt, not even the desperation to throw myself into the crowds up there, and get to work luring Eric back to me, all while battling Father to let me have the gentry witch for a husband.

The whole thing is… over.

It’s over.

I fought a battle—Father was orchestrating a war, and Eric had his own alliances overlapping with mine.

I am defeated.

I am betrothed.

Promised to a stranger, a round man with a moustache and a top hat.

My Mr Monopoly.

I turn my cheek to the statues and look up the long pathways to the palace.

Shadows lurk on the path, a pair slipping away together into the secrecy of the tall trees.

Is Mr Monopoly up there?

Did he watch my entrance, listen to the introduction, knowing I am his? Knowing my father has sold me to him?

My shoulders sag. The shift of posture has my dress ruffling, the layers of wispy skirts, the hard bodice, it’s all feeling too much like a prison wrapped around my body.

There is a distant hum of envy in me, not quite reaching me through the daze settled over me, a numbness, faint. Yet I sense the envy in me all the same.

Those silhouettes moving through the Green Carpet, sneaking behind statues and into the lining trees, some strolling down the paths, meandering.

Most don’t seem to have a care in the world.

Or all their cares have been tended to, nurtured, not like mine.

I lean over the plate and finish the four corners of the toasted sandwich. I’m dusting my fingertips off on a cloth napkin, watching those shadows on the Green Carpet, when I spot a single silhouette.

It walks alone, a tall posture, shoulders framed, and there is no wandering pace as it draws closer to me.

I get the niggle that the silhouette is actually coming for me.

Oliver, Father, Mr Younge—I can’t yet tell, not with the distance and the darkness of the midnight skies.

Sagged on the stoop of the fountain, I nibble on a piece of Belgian chocolate and watch as the silhouette advances.

Minutes pass before I start to make out the sandy blond hue of his hair, combed into place; the gleam of black diamond cufflinks winking at me; the crispness of a tailored suit; the shine of polished shoes; and, as always with him, the crystalline gleam of his eyes.

Moonlight washes over Dray Sinclair as he approaches the fountain. “Your father is looking for you.”

I dust off the crumbs from my hands. “And of course, you found me.”

“You do owe me a second dance.” He looks as enthused about that as I feel.

I consider him from beneath my lashes.

I should feel at least a trickle of ice climbing up my spine, or a writhing gut that tells me to run, run away from this quiet spot of the gardens, escape Dray and his constant tortures.

Instead, I am utterly numb. Dazed, almost.

That dull look of mine is still aimed up at him. “Wouldn’t you rather drown me in the fountain?”

Dray slips his hands out of his pockets. “Maybe another night.”

He offers his hand to me, painted the smoothest beige and ridged with veins.

I slap my hand onto his with a sigh.

He tugs me to my feet.

My unwillingness comes in the weight of my body as he draws me into him.

It’s the defeat that does it, douses the flames of fight I keep in me no matter the torment.

I give into his hold, the dance, the debt.

The distance of the orchestra softens the pleasant, slow melody.

Dray’s hand is firm on my back, his other clasped around my fingers, and I am lured.

I feel impossibly heavy as I sag into the hardness of his chest, chiselled from stone.

Dray lowers his chin to my head. His murmur is as soft as the moonlight cascading over us, “Tired?”

A hum is all I manage in answer.

My cheek turns to press on the suit jacket, as black as spilled ink, and I will surely smear some of my makeup over it.

Still, I rest my cheek there and watch the silhouettes move ahead on the path.

The party is starting to splinter off, wander into the deeper areas of the gardens, and I should feel a bud of relief blossoming in me at that, in the length of the fifteen-minute walk to this fountain, others will be around—and so Dray probably won’t turn on me.

Not with this sort of audience.

Is that why my defences are so low this night? Is it that I bank on the sort of event this is, the sort of witches here—or is it that lethargic fatigue that has been draping over me, heavier and heavier, since Teddy spewed the truth?

My face crumples into a frown.

No, it isn’t any of those things.

It’s Dray.

Since the incident at Bluestone, he hasn’t really done anything to me. The season brings stricter expectations than we face at Bluestone—and so he must be caught up in all of that, and finds little time to torture me.

That’s what it feels like.

But it’s not what it is.

I know Dray, and there is a beast lurking behind his beautiful face, a darkness behind the crushed-glass blue of his eyes.

There is evil in him.

And there will be a reason for him sparing me from that evil.

I am too foolish in allowing this dance.

I stare harder at the silhouettes on the path, willing their slow, gradual paces to hurry the fuck up and get over here, quick.

They are not even halfway down the path when the melody ends, then shifts into another tune altogether.

I try to peel away from him, but Dray’s hold only firms around me.

I turn a blank look up at him. “The dance is over.”

The pad of his thumb brushes over my spine.

I’m held so tightly to him that, to look up at him is to angle our faces so close together that I feel the warmth of his breath on my mouth, the brush of his nose against mine.

I read him. I predict him.

And before his mouth can meet mine, I turn my face—and his kiss brushes over my cheek.

“Stop that,” I say, firm. “I am not yours to kiss whenever you feel like it. I am not yours to torture.”

Unfazed, his full mouth grazes the length of my cheekbone.

“Would you rather I torture you?” The soft murmur of his voice sends a ripple down my spine.

“Is it easier to go head-to-head with me, knowing you fail every time, just to avoid feeling… this .” The warmth of his breath finds the nook of my neck.

A shudder unravels down to my belly.

The nip of his bite is soft on my flesh. “Do you think about this…” His tongue flicks out, soft, sharp, over the curve of my neck, “the way it feels…” That nipping kiss of his glides up to my ear, and I shudder with a wispy breath, “when you touch yourself?”

A hiss cuts through my clenched teeth.

I tug against his hold, violent. “Let me go, Dray.”

His grin sweeps over my jawline. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

I angle my face to align with his. My mouth curls around the words, “When it comes to you, the only fantasy I have is your grisly death. I dream up witch hunts, you burning at the stake, and I laugh as you scream.”

His lashes lower over eyes made from crushed glass, a warning.

I am not done.

A slick snarl darkens my face. “You overestimate your meaning to me, Dray. It will be a happy day for me when you die.”

Still, that arm is firmly looped around me, and I’m pinned to him as much as I was when I first started to pull out of his hold.

Dray brings his hand to my chin—then chucks a finger under it, arching my neck in a way that brings bites of pain along my throat.

“You underestimate what I know,” he tells me, and there is nothing soft about the sudden darkness in his tone, “ what I sense .”

The breath steadies through me.

Our stares are locked in a steel moment, and I understand exactly what he means by that.

The sense, a print from his mother, but not the one he inherited. His makut is many things.

‘It is to hex without hexbags, curse without chants, conjure without ritual.’

And apparently the ability to sense without the print.

It is weaker than Amelia’s, as all his talents are weaker than those with the print.

But he senses enough—to know that I respond to him, to his touch, his kiss, these mocking moments of a love I should have gotten from him.

Then I went and turned out deadblood.

But will he sense this ?

I decide on it so quickly, so suddenly, that—as my hand comes arching for him, reeling for his face—he shouldn’t know it’s coming.

Yet he does.

His hand is quick to grab my wrist, his stare unflinching from mine. His eyes flash dangerously.

“I will strike you back, Olivia,” he warns me, and the tone of his voice, the truth of his words, sends frost climbing down my spine.

I steel against him, frozen, almost waiting for him to strike.

His grip is too tight on my wrist, his thumb pressing into the bone too hard. His mouth twitches, something of a lazy grin tugging at him, but his eyes are pits of the coldest, deepest waters.

The mocking polish of his voice bites at me, “I will forgive it—for a kiss.”

There it is.

Dray has found a new way to torture me. He’s bored of the methods he’s been using for the whole nine years at Bluestone, and around six months on top of that.

He’s found another way—a way that has my body responding but my mind screaming, a way that brings shame to me.

I won’t be his willing victim.

I seethe back at him, teeth clenched, “Go fuck yourself, Dray. I would rather drown in—”

“Better get started,” he says, a soft murmur that he brushes over my snarling lips.

Then the ground is stolen from me.

Dray shoves me, hard, and the stoop of the fountain knocks into my heels.

I fall.

A cry lifts through me.

Then the thud of hitting a shallow fountain sends shooting bolts of pain up my back.

The splash lifts—then too much water rains back down on me.

I flinch against it.

But I feel every fucking drop, like ice rolling down my face, wetting strands of my hair. It’s my dress that gets it the worst.

I force myself upright to sit in the fountain water, and look down at the soaked fabric drenching me, heavier than moments ago, pulling on me.

I throw a wild look up at him, at Dray, but he’s turned his back on me, and started up the Green Carpet again, back to the main crowd of guests.

And here I am… drenched in a fucking fountain.

Father is so going to kill me.