Darkness Becomes Her

courtyard set with round tables, freshly cut flowers, and candle centerpieces. Waiters moved beneath glowing strands of lights hung from the tree limbs.

I gripped the wrought-iron railing and scanned the crowd below, looking for Josephine or Michel. But it was hard to distinguish anyone in their masks. I went to relay my disappointment to Violet, but she was gone. “Violet!” I whispered, turning swiftly and going back through the house, but there was no trace of her.

The butlers had closed the entry doors and took up residence on either side. Violet was here somewhere. And so were the others. Focus. Josephine wouldn’t hurt them, would she? Sebastian was her grandson, after all, and the others were his friends. But she herself had said she didn’t have a heart.

After a complete but very discreet check of the first floor, I lifted my skirts and hurried back to the second level, intending to look there.

Dancing had begun in the ballroom. A crowd gathered to watch the spectacle of dancers whirl by in a blur of glittering colors. Slowly I made my way through to skirt the edge of the dance floor.

“Ah, a beauty among beauties,” a French-accented voice said as a hand fell lightly on my arm, directing me through the onlookers. “Care to waltz?”

I opened my mouth as I was pushed gently backward. We’d broken through the crowd and were on the dance floor. His warm hand slid from my arm to my waist, guiding me toward him and spinning me around.

My body stiffened. I pulled away, his hand at the small of my back giving slightly. But he didn’t release me. “I’m not the best dancer,” I muttered, overcome by a deep sense of embarrassment. I didn’t know how to do this. I didn’t belong here. With these people. “I should really—”

“One dance. Please.” He increased his steps to keep pace with the others on the floor as we whirled in one direction, in a fast and breathless oval. Sweat broke out along my back. My eyes scanned the crowd for a place to break, and— “Relax, ma chere. Just let me lead.” My mind tried to play catch-up as he whisked me along, twirling and carrying me with the flow. “Breathe. It helps if you breathe,” he said, laughter in his voice.

My exhale came immediately; I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath. My fingers flexed on his shoulder as my feet began to pick up the simple steps. We swept past a staircase, my gaze going up until the mask cut off my vision, and I was forced to pay attention to my partner. I wanted to get away, but something inside me wanted to stay, too.

His eyes, cheeks, and nose were shrouded in a simple gold mask, but he was tall and young. His lips curved in a half grin, and his eyes sparkled like two emeralds held to the light. His hair was light brown and wavy, touched by the sun, and long enough to curl over his ears and the collar of his white dress shirt. Subtle notes of cologne made me inhale deeply. Nice.

There was something about being behind the mask that allowed me to relax for this one dance, to be someone else, a young woman who loved to have fun, to dance with a man, to flirt and feel special.

I whirled and whirled, losing all sense of time.

I changed partners many times, and it seemed as though each masked guy who held me grew more mysterious and handsome than the next. The music warbled. I grew drunk on it, on the beauty and the laughter and the warmness in my body.

I was let go suddenly by my partner, laughing and spinning until another caught me around the waist, my momentum slamming my front up against his chest. “Oh, sorry!” I paused, breath coming fast. “It’s you again.”

My first partner had returned, and he held me close, his hand warm against my back. He bent down and brushed my ear with his lips. A whoosh of light air breezed through my stomach. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not.” He kissed my ear and then whisked me into another dance.

“What’s your name?” he asked. “Nymph? Siren? Fairy princess?”

There was something joyful in flirting, in the sense of power it gave me. “I am none of those things,” I said, smiling.

“Ah, you are more, much more.” He pulled me closer, our chests touching as the side of his cheek came to rest against my temple. “I shall call you the Moon Queen.”

I laughed. “So what does that make you?”

“Good question.” He leaned back to gaze down at me. A slow grin tugged his mouth. “Being the king would be quite boring. I’d much prefer. . the queen’s consort.”

Heat seared my cheeks, and my breath became labored. His mouth skimmed my temple, slowly, lazily trailing his lips down to my cheek, my ear, and then my neck, sending hot shivers down my spine. I wanted more, wanted to fall into a careless spiral of sensations. To hell with the consequences. He pulled me closer as if sensing my need. And I let him, exposing my neck more as we spun around the room.

I swallowed, somewhere in the back of my mind knowing that it was too fast and too odd, but the mural ceiling and the lights blending into shimmering colors distracted me. His arms tightened as he kissed my neck, small, feathery kisses and hot breath that weakened my limbs. My eyes rolled, falling onto the dancers, the music fading to the background, the voices and laughter going with it.

As we floated around the ballroom floor, I saw flashes of things, wanton things. Other masked men and women, putting their lips on the necks of their partners. Some against the walls. Kissing. Sighs of pleasure. A dark- haired couple — his mouth going to her neck, her head against the wall, her eyes closed.

Around the room again. The thunder of my pulse drowned out the music. My responses became slow and lazy, but inside fire raged. As we came to the spot where the dark-haired couple kissed against the wall, I couldn’t help but look again.

Oh my God—the guy’s lips drew back, his teeth elongated as they sank into the girl’s exposed neck. At the same moment, my partner flicked out his tongue and swirled it around my neck. My short black fingernails dug into my partner’s shoulder as the girl’s lips parted. I wasn’t sure if I heard the moan of pleasure or just imagined it. But it rang in my ears.

My heart thudded hard, stomach flipping. I couldn’t breathe. My vision grew faint and the room spun.

Suddenly the far wall pressed against my back, my partner pinning me there as his teeth grazed the skin of my neck. I was lost and didn’t care. I was somebody else, a masked stranger, a desired woman.

Yes.

And then he was gone.

Cool air breezed over my hot skin. I blinked, mind hazy and unfocused, missing the contact.

“Leave her alone, Gabriel,” a familiar voice said.

The drunken sensation refused to go away, but I tried my damnedest to focus, realizing that something wasn’t right. My reactions were not right.

“She doesn’t want to be left alone,” my partner said. “Just ask her.”

The room still spun beyond me, but the music was becoming clearer, the voices around me sharper. A figure in a plain black mask stepped into my line of sight and lifted his mask.

It was like a bucket of cold water. “Sebastian?”

Fourteen

WITH A FEW RAPID BLINKS, THE TWO GUYS IN FRONT OF ME came into sharp focus. My face became hotter than the surface of the sun as my behavior sank in and I realized what I’d almost done. Idiot! If I’d had one wish right then, it would’ve been to disappear. Just vanish in a cloud of mortified smoke.

There were blood drinkers, vampires, all around me. Taking freely from those who offered their shiny white necks, those revelers lost in some kind of hypnotic state where the only thing that mattered was sensation and need. And I would’ve been one of them had Sebastian not intervened.

Was I that weak, that willing to sate Gabriel’s “need”?

“Ari,” Sebastian said, “are you all right?”

I shoved away from the wall. “I’m fine.” But I was pissed at how naive and willing I’d been, pissed at the warmth that still radiated beneath my skin and the tight confines of the gown. Thank God for the mask. At least my