Page 81 of Wicked Salvation

I drop the joint and grind it into the flagstone with my heel.

Showtime.

A hush fallsover the ballroom the moment I step back in.

Not out of fear.

Not yet, at least.

But I know they all feel it. The shift in pressure. The way the light seems to bend around me, as if the chandeliers themselves remember who I am—what I am.

I bite back a smile as I stride through the party.

Recognition rushes around the room, virulent. One pair of eyes catch the crests of the House of Augustine, and the House of Beaumont on my cufflinks, then another, then another. Within seconds, murmurs start rippling through the crowd like cracks across a frozen lake.

Silas might have sat at the top of the social hierarchy of that wretched school.

But I rulehere.

In the real world.

Where it actually matters.

Lucian Augustine-Beaumont.

They whisper it with the kind of reverence people reserve for ghosts or monsters. The product of the two near-mythical aristocratic families. One of the three sons of the Duchess of Ebonleigh—Her Grace, the Queen’s own niece. Blue blood, purer than most of the dying dynasties crowding the hall. A direct descendent of the King himself through my father, the Earl of Thatchmere. I’m aristocracy in its final form, wrapped in black wool.

I cut through the crowd like a scalpel—measured, deliberate,fatal.My presence is like a contagious disease, infecting the gala one trembling gaze at a time. Every polished back stiffens as I pass, every simpering mouth falters mid-gossip.

I’m sure they’re thinking about how to put the best foot forward.

Nobody expected to see me here—especially not Eden and her fuckwad fiancé. I keep my head high and avoid looking in their direction. But I can imagine Eden’s face when the murmurs get to her ears. Or better yet, when her witch of a mother realizes who I am.

The stories.

The gossip.

The whispers.

Anger sizzles at my collar.

The hypocrisy of it all burns like whiskey. Her mother will want to know who invited me, who managed to pull a member of my family out of the shadows. That’s when Eden will realize that I was always the right choice.

But she wasn’t brave enough to choose me.

I reach the heart of the ballroom, just as the host clears his throat. He stammers through the closing of some forgettable toast, voice cracking under the weight of my presence. The claps come in short bursts, the crowd distracted.

That’s when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

Only one person would dare.

“You’re not welcome here,” Silas says through clenched teeth, trying to look like he’s wearing a smile, trying to look like he doesn’t see the writing on the wall.

I grin. “The attendees would beg to differ.” I shrug him off.

All eyes are on us.

He can’t do or say anything.