Lucian Zacarias greeted Josh, Dot, and Charlie just as warmly, and then his full attention was on me.
“Uncle, this is Eve Blackburn. My girlfriend,” Ethan introduced me, his arm wrapping around my middle as he smiled widely. He had been introducing me to people as his “girlfriend” all evening, but those interactions had been tinged with the same lightheartedness that was always present when we were pretending we were an item.
When he introduced me to his uncle, his chest puffed out, his arm around me flexed possessively, his smile was genuine and warm. Ethan clearly cared for his uncle and craved his approval. Knowing that approval, in that moment, rested on what he thought of me made me a little nervous.
“Is she?” was Lucian’s perplexing response. His face was still relaxed, a small smile playing on his lips, but he was studying me intently, eyes flying over my features, from my eyes to my lips to my hair.
His examination was making me feel self-conscious, so I looked down at his very shiny black shoes as I extended my hand, hoping he didn’t notice the little shake in it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
I managed to look up and make eye contact again as he gently took my hand and shook it.
“The pleasure is all mine, I assure you.” He sounded sincere, and some of my nerves melted away.
He released my hand just as the guest of honor arrived. We all turned to see Senator Christine Anderson, resplendent in a stunning gold gown, make her entrance. People crowded around her immediately.
She’s much shorter than I expected, I thought as she disappeared, buried in a sea of suits, dresses, and jewels. Not as short as Dot, but nearly.
“Duty calls, I’m afraid. I’ll catch up with you kids later. Enjoy your evening, Eve.” Lucian gave me an amused smile, and I frowned—what did he find so amusing about me?—but he’d already turned away, pushing through the crowd toward the senator.
Before long we were sitting down to a six-course meal while a string quartet played onstage at the back of the room. Tyler was seated at the senator’s table with Lucian, while the rest of us were on one of the many tables filled with young Variants eager to mingle. I’d caught only glimpses of Alec since we’d arrived, but I couldn’t spot where he was sitting. I wondered if he was at a table with Dana—I had seen him speaking to her—but pushed the thought aside.
The organizers had arranged the seating plan so that no one would be next to someone they already knew, facilitating the process of finding the members of your Bond, if you had one. Ethan blatantly switched the name cards around so that I was seated between him and Josh.
The food was exquisite, and even getting to know the other people at our table wasn’t too bad. The champagne continued to flow freely, and it wasn’t long before I was busting for the toilet. Halfway through dessert, I excused myself and headed toward the bathrooms.
“. . . Eve Blackburn. You certainly haven’t mentioned her in your updates.”
The sound of my name pulled me up just short of the corridor leading to the bathrooms. I pulled back and tried to look casual while straining to hear what was being said.
“Eve? Why would I mention her? Our calls would be unnecessarily long and boring if I briefed you on every one of Ethan’s playthings.”
Lucian Zacarias was the one who had spoken my name, and it was Alec’s voice answering, reducing my connection with Ethan to something cheap and dirty. I swallowed hard, my brow furrowing. I knew he was just trying to throw his uncle off, protecting our secret, but it still hurt to be referred to as one of Ethan’s “playthings.”
There was a long pause, and I leaned in to hear better.
“Alec, you and I both know she’s much more.”
“Not here,” Alec replied immediately, lowering his voice.
“No, certainly not.”
It sounded as if the conversation was over before it had really begun; they would be coming around that corner any second. In a panic, I decided to beat them to it.
I rushed into the corridor, nearly barreling into Alec.
“Oh, hello!” I said a little too loudly. “Sorry, got to go. I’m busting! Too much champagne.”
Laughing nervously, I speed-walked to the ladies room, hoping they would attribute my odd behavior to too much alcohol.
I was equally impressed and disturbed by how calm they’d both looked when I’d appeared, even though they had just been talking about me. I guess it came with the territory when you, respectively, ran and worked for an agency like the Melior Group.
In the bathroom, once my bladder was empty, I looked at myself in the mirror and practiced my neutral, polite face. Had something in my expression given our secret away? I knew Lucian Zacarias wasn’t a mind reader, so it couldn’t have been that. The boys had told me he was a shield—similar to Dana, but where her ability blocked all others from working around her, Lucian’s blocked them from affecting him specifically. I wasn’t sure how he’d figured out his nephews weren’t presenting the whole truth about me, but I had a feeling I would need a better poker face with Variant high society.
As I walked back to our table, I scratched absentmindedly at my forearm, gradually becoming aware that my ankles were a little itchy too.
Shit.
I cursed myself for getting distracted by all the glitz and glamour, the cloak and dagger, and the politics and gossip of the evening—for letting my concentration slip. I had to get my Light under control.
Because there was no way we could explain me transferring Light to any one of my guys when I wasn’t even supposed to be a Vital.
Nineteen
With dinner over, people moved out of their seats, mingling about the room, going to the bar. Ethan and Josh got stuck talking to a dignified, elderly gentleman with a cane. As she dragged me away, Dot explained that he used to be the dean of Bradford Hills Institute and took every opportunity to talk the ears off current students, regaling them with stories that began with “when I was dean” or “back in the sixties.”
Dot introduced me to a couple of her other girlfriends, and I promptly forgot their names—I had met so many people that night, my brain was refusing to retain any more information. Not that it mattered—I got separated from Dot soon after.
While the frenzy of people introducing themselves had died down on campus, there were plenty of people at the gala who were enthusiastic to meet me. I got swept up in a dizzying game of musical chairs, except I was the chair and everyone wanted to sit on me. One of the guys was always nearby, keeping an eye on me, but I had to make pleasant conversation with all the new Variants without them as buffer.
“. . . noticed the increased security?” a young guy with glasses and platinum-blond hair continued, drawing my attention away from the itch at my elbow. “There’s a Melior Group guard in every corner.”
“It’s because of the Dimes out front,” his tall, skinny friend replied, rolling his eyes. “Not that they’re any kind of threat against a room full of Variants.”
They both laughed, their noses in the air. Were their derisive comments and casual use of slurs supposed to impress me?
I frowned at them, but my attention was pulled away again. The itchiness on my arms had spread, and now it was around my neck and chest. I took a sip of my champagne and tried, surreptitiously, to scratch my collarbone. Suddenly I was wishing the dress had a plunging neckline.
“I have to go,” I rudely declared, cutting the blond off midsentence. I turned on my heel and walked away, scratching with my free arm as I finished off my champagne and scanned the room.
Looking for Ethan was probably the best bet; he was the tallest. Alec was nearly as tall, but not quite. But Alec wasn’t relevant—why was I even thinking about him?
Ethan’s booming laugh came from somewhere to my right, and I headed in that direction, depositing my empty champagne flute on a side table. I found him surrounded by a crowd of bimbos and had to push my way through to get to him.
The girl with short black hair who had glared
at me as I left campus that morning had her hand on his bicep, laughing with her head thrown back. I wanted to tear her arm out of its socket, but I settled for shoving her out of the way and taking her place by Ethan’s side.
“What’s up, buttercup?” He smiled wide at me, all but ignoring his growing harem.
“Yeah, hi,” I said hurriedly as I again tried to scratch my chest through the fabric of my dress. I was in no mood to play our nickname game. “I need your help.”
He nodded.
“Um, excuse me.” One of the chicks behind me was not happy to see me monopolizing Ethan’s attention. “Ethan was in the middle of telling us a story.”
I completely ignored her and leaned up to whisper in Ethan’s ear, very careful not make skin contact. “I need you to help me scratch an itch.”
I gave him a pointed look. He wasn’t always the best with hints. My big guy was all about direct communication.
I could almost see his mind going into the gutter as his lips curved into a naughty grin, but he got there in the end, realization wiping the cheeky look off his face. “Oh. Right.” And then louder, for the benefit of his audience. “Yes, we have to go speak to that guy. About that thing.”
He barreled through the small crowd of disappointed girls, all of them giving me dirty looks as we passed.
“Real smooth,” I said dryly, rubbing my arm against the beading on the side of my dress, trying to find relief.
“Haha! You put me on the spot. It was the best I could do. There’s Josh.” He pointed to a back corner near the bar, where Josh was speaking to some people I didn’t recognize.
As we approached, he looked up, saw me writhing in my own skin, deduced the situation immediately, and extracted himself from the conversation before we even got to him.
“Ethan, stay here with her. I’ll find Gabe.”
Ethan nodded and somehow managed to usher me to the end of the bar without actually touching me.
The dress that had felt like smooth butter gliding over my skin just a few hours ago was beginning to feel like coarse wool. Tearing it off my body in strips seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea.
Thankfully, Josh and Tyler returned quickly, managing to look casual while still moving through the crowd as fast as they dared.
Tyler positioned himself next to me, our backs to the wall at the end of the bar, and Josh and Ethan stood facing us, blocking most of my body from view. Ethan had ordered drinks while we waited, and he handed them out, leaning one elbow on the bar counter. To any casual observer, we would have looked as if we were simply chatting.
I didn’t know what to do next, terrified of making a scene, so I kept my eyes trained ahead of me, on a spot in the middle distance between Josh and Ethan’s heads. The itching was becoming unbearable.
“Eve.” Tyler spoke without looking directly at me. “Take a few deep breaths. Remember your meditation practice. You’re going to have to do this discreetly.”
“Here? In front of everyone?” Couldn’t we go find a private room somewhere?
“My agents are under strict instructions to keep the three of you in sight, but even if I call them off, there are eyes and ears everywhere. It would look too suspicious for us to slink off into a bathroom stall together. Now, focus.”
I wanted to argue, but we were running out of time. Instead I did as Tyler said, focusing on the cool air as I breathed in through my nose and the warm air as I breathed out. The amount of Light coursing through my veins, demanding to be released, made the mindfulness technique frustratingly difficult.
“Good girl. Now, place your hand in mine and try to release it slowly.”
My hand found his, and our fingers laced together instinctively. I tried to release the Light gradually, but once it knew it had an outlet, it just rushed out.
Tyler grunted, and Josh covered the sound up by coughing. Ethan clapped him on the back animatedly, drawing away any unwanted attention.
I took a deep breath, sighing in relief as the nervous energy drained out of me along with the excess Light, the itchiness disappearing completely, my breathing returning to normal. Next to me, Tyler was taking slow, measured breaths.
He squeezed my hand in reassurance, and I squeezed back, whispering a sincere “Thank you.”
He nodded, still not looking directly at me, and released my hand. We’d managed to pull it off without anyone noticing; that was what I needed to focus on—not the fact that I’d let it get to that stage in the first place. I’d have plenty of time for crippling self-doubt later.
At the other end of the room, on the stage, someone was trying to get the crowd’s attention. The music had stopped, and people were halting their conversations to face the speaker.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.” The young woman at the lectern wore a simple black gown, her hands clasped around a clipboard. “Welcome to the Variant Party Fundraising Gala. It is my great pleasure to introduce to you the reason we are all here, the most influential Variant voice in politics, Senator Christine Anderson.”
Ethan and Josh turned around but stayed in front of Tyler and me, shielding us from anyone who happened to turn our way. Not that it mattered anymore—we were out of the woods, and everyone’s eyes were trained on the senator, her gold dress shimmering in the candlelight as she made her way onstage.
As she began to speak, Tyler’s hand reached up behind me, the very tips of his fingers landing at the base of my neck. I gasped, my lips parting and eyes widening just a fraction. After weeks of him building up very clear boundaries, only touching me on the hands during Light transfer, the sudden physical contact was unexpected.
He tilted his head in my direction but kept his eyes forward, speaking very softly. “You look stunning tonight. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to tell you sooner.”
It was a simple compliment, but it was undoing all the hard work I’d put in to even out my breathing.
He didn’t say anything else, but his fingers trailed a feather-soft path down the length of my spine, stopping where the fabric started. Then he placed his palm, firmly and confidently, just above the curve of my ass. It felt as if his hand were on fire—as if Ethan were touching me with his fire hands—but the delicate, deliberate movements were so Tyler.
My “thank you” died in my throat, and I swallowed hard, trying not to look affected. What was he doing? What if someone saw? Did I want him to stop? No. I definitely didn’t.
After only a few moments of exquisite torture—the spot where his palm connected with my bare skin tingling in a way that had nothing to do with the Light—he removed his hand and took a step away.
Everyone was clapping; Senator Anderson had said something impressive. I guess I would never know what it was.
I didn’t hear a word of the rest of the speech, focusing instead on controlling my breathing. There was something deeply intimate about the way Tyler had touched me.
I craved more.
What did this mean for the strictly platonic tutor-student approach he’d been adamant about maintaining?
When the speech finished, the music kicked back up, and the people in the room were on the move again—dancing, getting back into conversations, making their way to the bar for more drinks. I excused myself and said I had to find the bathroom. I didn’t actually need to go, but I did need a moment to myself.
As I stepped out of the ballroom, I glimpsed Alec turning down the corridor to the bathrooms. I stopped, unsure about my next move.
The smart thing would be to continue into the ladies’ room and avoid him altogether. But I needed a distraction from the confusing feelings Tyler had stirred up by keeping me at arm’s length for weeks and then touching me like that.
And I still needed to say my piece to Alec. His dogged avoidance of me had turned my simple wish into a mission I refused to fail; the more he resisted, the more determined I became that he would hear it. Plus, I was convinced he knew more about how and why my mother died. I wasn’t sure how much of it was “clas
sified,” but I had to at least ask those questions. I had to try.
I had never seen Alec in a better mood. People were more forthcoming with information when in a good mood. Right? The release of excess Light had made me calmer, and I may have been a little emboldened by the three glasses of champagne I’d had. So I waited.
He came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, pausing halfway up the corridor when he spotted me blocking his way.
“My, what a determined look you have on your face, Eve.” He narrowed his eyes, but there was some humor in his smirk. For once it wasn’t all menace. “You wouldn’t be trying to ruin this perfectly lovely evening, now, would you?”
“Look.” I held one hand out, pleading. “Just give me five minutes. I need to get this off my chest. You don’t even have to speak, just listen. And then I promise I will never bother you again.”
“Highly doubt that,” he muttered before stalking forward slowly. “You know I can easily overpower you. You’re not actually blocking my way.”
“Yes. I am aware of your scary pain ability.” I waved my hands in his general direction. “Everyone keeps reminding me. But I don’t think you would actually use it on me.”
He just watched me, but he wasn’t making a run for it, so I drove my case home in the most pathetic way I knew how.
“Pleeease.” I drew out the word as only someone who was slightly drunk could.
He rolled his eyes, and I knew I had him. “Fine.”
“Oh my god.” Excitedly I shook my hands in front of me, shifting from one foot to the other.
But before I had a chance to start, a group of girls came laughing and stumbling down the corridor. They jostled past me but quieted when they saw Alec, skirting the walls to avoid contact with him. In his usual unyielding fashion, he stared them down, not moving an inch to get out of their way.
Once they were gone, he stepped past me and I deflated, thinking he had changed his mind. But then I heard a door open, and he declared in an impatient tone: “I don’t have all night.”
Variant Lost (The Evelyn Maynard Trilogy Book 1) Page 23