by Angel Payne
I pull Cassian to a stop at the top of the stairs. Pull in a long breath, celebrating the very best aspect of the place.
“Books.” I close my eyes, letting the glorious scent fill me. His guttural growl brings me back to attention. “What?” I add a perplexed giggle. It turns into a sigh when he lifts a grin, dimples on full display.
“Just ignore me.” He leans closer, gaze hooded. “I was pretending the smell of three and a half million books really just hit you like an aphrodisiac.”
I slink my regard to his mouth. It’s one of the most fascinating parts of him, curving in new ways with all his moods. Aroused is definitely one of my favorites. “Maybe…it did.” I slide a finger up his satin lapel. “Add some chocolate and you may get lucky in the library, Cassian Court.”
New growl. “I thought we were ‘scheduling’ dates now.”
“Chocolate gets you priority status on the calendar.”
His eyes darken to my favorite color—sage smoke—as he dips in, brushing those captivating lips to mine. “Before we sprint to the dessert buffet, I need to make a mental note.”
“About what?”
“About buying a chocolate factory.”
My giggle expands to a laugh, opening me for his full plunder. I am secretly—perhaps not-so-secretly—delighted when he does just that. Though we do not give in to a full “mack session,” in Vy’s terms, it is enough of a tangle to reheat my body’s need for him—and rekindle my heart’s hope that one day, he will think about trusting me with more than just his playful side.
“Well, Cassian Court! There you are!”
The exclamation, bursting the air like a full flock of geese, breaks us apart with matching effect. I look up, stunned to realize the voice belongs to a woman who appears more like a swan. Her steps are fluid glides, her arms float like a ballerina’s, and her eyes are huge and dark against practically translucent skin.
“Carol Idelle.” Cassian transforms back into a gallant courtier, stepping forward and bowing low. The woman laughs, a new honk on the air, while tugging him close for air kisses. “Yes. Here I am.”
Carol bats her eyes, making her false lashes look like swan wings in flight. The impression cannot be helped, since the lengths are a curious blend of black and white strands—but when the woman notices my gawk, she exaggerates the effect by tossing me a saucy wink.
I believe I like her.
“Well, better late than never—especially in your case, darling. You look a-maz-ing. Who did this for you? Tom Ford?”
“Valentino.”
She huffs, accenting with a honk. “Of course. I was just speaking with Yolanda Wood. She guessed you’d pick Valentino. I was hoping for Ford.”
Cassian’s responding smile is, for a long moment, mesmerizing. I have not seen the expression for two weeks, since becoming obsessed with it from across the room at official Sancti court events. It is one part charm, one part decorum, one hundred percent sexy. From his first night on Arcadia, Vy nicknamed it “The Panty Melter.” Watching Carol Idelle react to it now, I send a long-distance fist bump to my friend. Right on the money, Vy.
The reminiscence of my friend brings a shot of confidence at the perfect moment—for the woman decides to ogle me now. “And who is this…exquisite…creature?”
She draws out “exquisite” in a way that makes me doubt her sincerity. Glancing to Cassian for clarification lends no help. The Panty Melter remains across his lips but the warmth is miles from reaching his eyes, even as he curves a hand around my waist again.
“I’m honored to introduce Mishella Santelle, gracing us with her presence from the Court of Arcadia. Ella, this is Dame Carol Idelle, a bastion of the city’s library foundation, among other worthy endeavors.”
I dip my head, offer my hand, and debate a curtsy. In the end, I simply murmur, “Bon aksam. It is lovely to make your acquaintance, Dame Idelle.”
I refrain—barely—from starting when the woman releases her largest honk of all. Since the sound could be anything from a climax to a sneeze, I am not sure about selecting any other reaction.
Finally, she exclaims, “Oh, my word. Cassian, she is a-dor-a-ble. It is lovely to make your acquaintance as well, Mishella.”
I open my mouth, preparing a proper return in the form of asking about the building’s grand architecture—but the air is sliced by a new interruption.
No. Not sliced.
Butchered.
“Lovely.”
The word hacks at us, a mixture of drawl and shout that is so unmistakable, I can think of at least three Vy-isms to fit the mahogany brunette in the Romanesque red sheath, approaching on slinky steps with her clutch in one hand and martini glass in the other.
Tanked.
Shitfaced.
Annihilated.
But none of the labels matter, the moment Cassian gives her just one.
“Amelie.”
My heart tumbles into my stomach. Plummets even further, sinking until my knees are weighted with the burden, and I grip Cassian for purchase. I have no doubts about getting it. Beneath my hold, his arm is a log of tension—a limb extended from the taut tree of his whole body.
Yolanda Wood at the Literacy Guild will need to be called. Clarify my RSVP is for two…my guest’s name will definitely not be Amelie Hampton’s.
“Well look who’s here!” Carol saves us all from a honk—thank the Creator—with a cheerful clap. “Amelie, my dear. Don’t you look stunning? Is that Christian Siriano?”
“Valentino.” Amelie’s button nose quirks with a strange expression, something between a huff and a flare. “I picked it tah match mah date.” New nostril twitch. At some point in her life, someone probably told her the expression was cute. It is not cute—but it is also impossible for me to accept it for what it is: a drunk girl’s dig at the man she wants to keep her claws embedded into. My heart continues racing through my body. My belly lurches, trying to keep up with the pace.
“Isn’t that a coincidence,” Carol croons. “Cassian is also—” She stops herself with a comprehending honk. “Oh. Oh, dear.”
Cassian, confirming he truly must have been James Bond in another life, dips a nod as if Amelie’s glare is made of silk instead of mud. “You always have been the go-getter, Amelie. But it’s always best to make sure the parachute’s strapped on before you leap from the plane.”
“Ha!” Carol claps again. “Isn’t that just the way of it? Ohhh Cassian, you’re a clever fellow by half.”
Amelie sips at what is left of her drink. Bursts with a brittle laugh. “Isn’t he just? Carol, ya make the most astute obsahvations.” Another laugh gurgles out her nose. “Ya gettit? Asssss-tute. Asssss-tute. Hee hee.”
Carol huffs. “It might be time to call a car for you, young lady.”
Amelie hurls her a glare. “Ah’m fine.” Pulls back her shoulders so hard, her balance is thrown off. She wobbles. Drops her clutch. I hasten to help but am shoved away. “I said ah’m fine! Don’t you dare touch my things, bitch!”
“Amelie.” Cassian steadies me with both hands, his grip as forceful as his voice. “Enough.”
“I am all right.” I address the question in his gaze before he even utters it.
“I am all right.” Surprisingly, her sing-song echo does not change my stance—perhaps because I know it for the imbecile move that it is. Even so, the poor woman does not know the difference. “‘I am all right, Cassian. Jush because you’re here now, Cassian. Oh, hold muh now, Cassian. Ah love you, Cassian!”
By the powers. Could she dig her grave any deeper?
“Amelie.” Cassian is not a tree anymore. His frame is now a monolith of rancor, pushing the confines of his clothes. His hands tremor against my arms, betraying his battle for composure. “You. Are. Done.”
She spurts a high-pitched laugh. “Oh God, Cassian. I’ve known that for weeks now. But does she?” One whip of motion in my direction, and the woman has surrendered her martini to the center of my chest.
“Saint
George on gingerbread,” Carol mutters.
Cassian wheels away from me—straight at her. “Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
“No.” She plants an action hero stance—stunning, given her gown and condition—and flings up an arm, cocktail glass still in hand. “But it’s clear you are.”
Before I can blink in comprehension, the glass has left her hand—cracking against Cassian’s forehead before smashing to the floor.
“By the Creator!” I rush to him as Carol shouts for security. Amelie struggles against the two officers who arrive, though the stare she swerves toward me, filled with she-cat celebration, is the first thing to truly scare me about the woman since she arrived.
“Gah ’head, sugar plum,” she purrs. “He’s all yours now. Take gooood care of him, because ya won’t get a chance at it for long.”
Carol marches forward. Blasts at the guards, “Get her out of here!”
But their persistent prisoner breaks free. “Ya haven’t told her yet—have ya Cassian?” She cackles through a laugh as they wrestle her in again. “Ha! Imagine that. Cassian Court, preachin’ about a girl bein’ readah with the parachute—only he’s holdin’ the rip cord.” Her head lolls to the side. “Or was it Lily who had the cord…in the end?”
I finally fish a tissue out of my purse—but as I raise it to Cassian’s face, my hand trembles. The crowd that’s gathered…they are surely here to watch the rambling soused girl, not her hapless target…
Then why do I feel the weight of a hundred stares on my back? Squirm against the potent heft of their curiosity and shock?
Feel the probe of Cassian’s desperation because of it, even before he looks up, through his own blood, at me?
“Don’t listen to her, Ella. Don’t. Listen.”
I feel my stare narrow—as my heartbeat quickens. “Is there something to listen to?” A boulder careens down my throat when he gives back only thick silence. “Cassian?”
“Ohhhh, wait. Maybuh she’s jusss your type, Cas. Sweet. Cute. Clingy. Suicidal. Right?”
“Fuck.” Cassian mutters it—as the tissue drops from my limp fingers.
“What’d’ya think, little Arcadian princess? Ya have what it takes to be a real Lily Rianna Court, hmmm?”
Her giggle blends with the crowd’s buzz, rising with the pitch only possible with a mix of nerves and scandal—a sound with which I am sadly familiar, thanks to the machinations of the Sancti Court.
As the guards jostle her out the door, Amelie starts to sing, high-pitched and off-key. “Lileee of the vallleee…you are so beeeaut-i-fulll to meee…”
In the strange hush that follows, my lungs fight for air.
The crowd still gawks.
As the whispers begin.
And the walls close in. And the room becomes my prison.
“Ella?’
And his voice, my cruel jailer.
“Ella?”
I take jerking steps back. Hold out my hands at his face, now wavering in the blur of my tears. “I—I need air. I have to get air.”
“Ella!”
I do not listen. I do not turn. I cannot.
Somehow, I find my way back outside. It is not the same way we entered the building. Nothing is as bright here, and I am grateful for the shadowed paths. They…fit. More than I want to comprehend…
The only thing I can think about now.
Ella…it’s time to live in the light.
“Bull…shit.” It stutters out between sobs. Ends in a rasp, mingling with the streams down my face, that are finally rescued by gravity to fall away…
into the dark.
“Ella.”
His voice makes me falter.
Fool. Fool.
I double my pace.
“Ella, for fuck sake!”
I stop, telling myself it is more for me than him—that it has nothing to do with the serration in his voice, or how his breath clutches at the end. I freeze, staring across the dark expanse of the park’s main lawn. In the distance, le carrousel glows, alight but empty, only a promise of magic.
Like the man who scrambles to stand in front of me now.
“Ella.”
“No.” It hurtles out, unthinking and unmitigated, from the same awful place where my tears live. My fears. The dread with which I have wrestled since the day I went to Kate’s and learned that the knight who carried me off to his kingdom is not the shining Lancelot I originally painted into my Cassian Court journal…the omen that his “ghosts” were much more than just that, and I would confront those specters too damn late?
After too much of my heart belonged to him.
Like now.
After the point of no return, between it hurting me…and crushing me.
Like now.
“No, Cassian. I—I cannot—”
“Or you will not?”
Again without thought, I whirl. Launch myself at him. “How dare you.” Drive fists into his chest with any shred of strength I have left. “How fucking dare you.” Pummel him again and again, until the tears build and swell and spill once more. “I will not? I will not what, Cassian? Hear your side now, after I begged you for it at Temptation? Try to make sense of you now? Try to figure out why you have crooned to me about our destiny, our connection, and our light, only to learn—in front of hundreds of people—that you were—that…you have…been…”
It grinds to a halt deep in my belly. Stuck in my soul. Brimming instead in my tears.
He speaks it instead.
With his tears soaking through it.
“Married.”
I hate myself for gazing back to him. Hate myself even more for how my heart bursts once more for him, sprouting a million vines that reach for the brilliant sustenance of him…even now, as he falls to the grass in his darkest grief.
No.
Especially now.
Slowly, quietly, I lower next to him. As my skirt floats atop the grass, his hand folds over mine. Grips me with fervent force.
I hold on in return. Just as tight.
Finally, his voice quivers the air between us. “We were together…for a year. Married…for most of the next.”
“Until she took her life.” When he only nods, I go on. “And you…loved her?”
I pray he is not insulted by the query. It feels important for me to know…for absolute certain. Aside from Brooke and Samsyn, and soon Evrest and Camellia, I do not know a single marriage born from love.
“Yes,” he utters. “I loved her.”
“But…?” It is as heavy in his tone as the dew across the grass.
“But it was a young love.” He lifts his head. The wind loosens his hair, tumbling it into his eyes, which are earnest…and honest. “A boy’s, for a girl. Not a man’s—for a woman.” His fingers twist tighter into mine. “Mishella…”
He pauses, giving me time to swallow. To breathe. To think.
Then to yank free from him.
To bolt to my feet. And turn. And run.
I refuse to let him speak it. I possess no doubt that he means it. But accepting it now, as some kind of enchanted glue to “fix” tonight—
No.
Not here, in our dark. In our rawness and weakness.
I need time. I am still…
afraid.
“Heyyyy. What is such a pretty lady doing, running around in the darkness like this?”
The voice clutches me to a new stop. My head jerks up and my stare circles around. Lost in my emotions, I have stumbled all the way to the other side of the lawn—to the darker side of the park.
The much darker side.
Into a triangle of men who are definitely not attending the Literacy Ball.
Their faces are unshaven, though their heads are shiny and bald. Piercings turn the three of them into walking jewelry counters. More silver gleams from their fingers—and from the smirk I get from the one now blocking my path.
“I—umm—I apologize, gentlemen. I seem to have gotten a little turned around.”
&
nbsp; “Ohhhh.” Another one sidles in from the left. “Did you hear that, guys? We’re gentlemen now.”
“Moron.” The first one snorts. “We always have been gentlemen.” His pierced brows waggle. “We just…got a little turned around too.”
The third thug steps in from the right. “Maybe we can all get back on the ‘straight and narrow’ together.”
I may be from an island not much larger than this one—and have not seen any of the world beyond it before two weeks ago.
Some may even call me naïve.
But I am not stupid.
I know when to scream as if my life is depending on it.
Because it is.
The world cartwheels and tilts. I kick and struggle but they are strong and many—and the bushes into which they drag me are thick and twisted. And dark. By the Creator, so dark…
Somehow, I get my teeth into the grimy hand that’s been clamped over my mouth. “Dammit! Bitch!”
For a blessed moment, I am able to breathe again. And scream again. “Help! Somebod—”
“Shut her up!”
“And hold her down, dammit!”
A new hand clamps my mouth. More hands pin me down in a pile of leaves and dirt. Still, I never stop struggling, even as they shove my skirts to my waist. I never stop resisting, even as they grab at my thighs, and—
“Get. Your. Fucking. Hands. Off of her.”
Like a bullet shot into a flock of birds, the thugs jump up. I scramble backward, ignoring the twigs and thorns scratching me everywhere, unwilling to trust my trembling knees enough to stand. Fear seizes me like ice. Panic battles it, searing and dizzying. Nausea bubbles in my throat. “C-Cassian?” I finally get out in a choke.
“I’m not alone.” It is him but not him. Rage is a living thing in his voice, a walking beast in his steps. “NYPD’s two blocks away, and they’ve got a GPS lock on my cell.”
“Let’s beat it!”
“Come on, dickwad! Now!”