Page 44 of Soul of Shadow #1
As she stood with her back to the wall, taking small breaths in and out of her nose, she felt another wave of fury wash over her.
It was the same rage she had felt in the library, only more focused, more acute.
How dare he stand down there, chatting amicably with her mother as if he weren’t plotting her doom.
How dare he spread his charm around to every human he met, each one unaware of the horror he would bring down upon them.
Pretending not to hate him was going to be more difficult than she expected.
While she gathered the courage to go downstairs, she heard a squeak by her bedroom door.
She looked over to find the v?tte waddling out, clearly offended at having been left behind.
He made a beeline across the carpet, then came to a stop beside her legs.
He planted himself firmly on the floor. If his arms were long enough to cross stubbornly, she was fairly certain he would have done so.
“Do not make me regret letting you come,” she whispered to him. Then, with one final breath out, she peeled herself off the wall and began descending the stairs. The v?tte squeaked and bounced along behind her.
Her friends continued to mingle and joke, completely oblivious to the nerves radiating off Charlie.
But Elias, midconversation with her mother, now talking about his childhood spent moving from place to place, seemed to sense her immediately.
His eyes darted from her mother to her. It was clearly meant to be only a glance, but he did a double take, stopping midsentence to properly take her in.
As Charlie stepped carefully down the staircase, Elias’s face, which had been smiling not a moment before, shifted.
His eyes widened, his lips dropping to a subtle part.
He looked as if he wanted to say something, that the words were right on the tip of his tongue, but the nonexistent wind snatched them away at the very last second.
It was disconcerting, how tightly he focused on her.
His eyes followed her all the way down the staircase, sweeping her body, coming to rest alternately on her face, her hair, her bust, the exposed skin of her shins.
It was too much. It made Charlie’s skin sear—even knowing what Elias wanted to do, even with all of that hate burning deep in her heart…
she couldn’t deny the fire that lit within her whenever he looked at her.
Couldn’t deny the attraction between them—no matter how badly she wanted to.
When she reached the bottom of the staircase, Elias seemed to snap out of a trance. He blinked twice, shaking himself lightly before pasting his usual relaxed smile onto his lips. He lifted an arm, offering it to Charlie. Down at her feet, the v?tte ran into her ankles and squawked.
Charlie pretended not to notice Elias’s arm, instead turning to face her mom.
“Mom,” she said.
“Oh, honey.” Her mom clutched the boutonniere that Charlie had purchased from the local grocery store to her breast. “You look stunning .”
“Let’s not downplay things, Mrs. Hudson,” said Elias. “Charlotte looks magnificent.”
“No need for the formalities, dear,” said her mom. “You can call me Trish.”
Elias beamed. “Trish it is.”
“Glad to see you two are bonding,” said Charlie, since she had no idea what else to say. She grabbed the boutonniere from her mom and shook its plastic case in front of Elias. “Ready for me to pin you, date?”
“I would love to be pinned by you, Charlotte,” Elias said in a way that nearly crossed the line between innocent and entirely indecent.
She did her best to avoid his gaze as she pressed the boutonniere’s stem to his jacket. The warmth of Elias’s skin, buried beneath a shirt and jacket, still seeped into her fingers as she slipped the pin through the black fabric, securing its place above his pocket.
A pair of hands clapped Charlie’s shoulders, startling her and making her fingers fumble. Luckily, the pin was already in place, and the flowers held fast.
“Well.” Mason squeezed Charlie’s shoulders. “Now that all the dull chitchat is out of the way, shall we get this show on the road?”
“Not yet!” Their mom waved her iPhone in the air. “We need a few pictures before you all head out.”
They all groaned but obediently filed out the front door, onto the porch.
The parents trekked down the stairs to take their positions on the grass below, phones held aloft.
All the kids lined up on the porch, standing diagonally with their backs to their dates—girls in front, boys in back.
Except Abigail, who maneuvered to the back so that Bex could stand in front.
Charlie stood with a good inch between her back and Elias’s front.
“What’s the matter?” Elias whispered in her ear, low enough that no one else could hear. “You feeling shy?”
“I don’t need to be pressed right up to you for the picture to be good. ”
“You had no problem with touching me last night.”
Charlie shivered, trying to squash the memory before it could do away with her good sense. “One lapse in judgment doesn’t mean I’ve done away with my sanity entirely.”
“Are you saying that I mess with your sanity?” His breath blew cool through the hair hanging beside her neck. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Charlotte.”
She sighed. Then, just to prove a point, she inched backward until her backside rested against his pelvis, pointedly ignoring the shocks that whizzed up into her stomach as she did so. “There,” she whispered. “Happy?”
Elias brought his arms around her sides, resting his palms on her hips. He squeezed once, and she had to hold back a startled gasp.
“Thrilled,” he whispered back.
“Look down here!” yelled Charlie’s mom, waving her hand as if there were some way they could possibly miss her.
Charlie leaned into Elias, feeling the heat of his body through his clothes—he must have been regulating again, because he wasn’t so hot that she needed to jump away—and gritted her teeth, pasting a smile onto her face, even as a deep sense of dread began to simmer just below her belly.