Page 151 of The Golden Rose Of Valenul

A pause, and then Nikolai asked, “If I may, what is the purpose of keeping him? It has been almost a fortnight.”

“Questions like that,” Loren hissed, “will get you killed. Now go.”

Emillie sucked in a sharp breath and hurried back the way she had come as the footsteps neared. She slowed her pace and peered over her shoulder. Nikolai marched away, through the front doors. Loren appeared moments later, and she turned back to the crowd, sipping her wine.

When neither vampire approached her, Emillie released the breath. What was he planning now? Though she had missed crucial details of the conversation, she could draw enough evidence to understand what she had heard.

There was only one bastard whose cousin was missing.

Setting her glass on a nearby table, she set off in search of Ariadne.

Chapter 33

Two sides of Ariadne warred within her. One demanded justice for what Azriel did. For the pain he caused. For the incessant stream of dark memories. The other wanted him to look at her as he once did. Not with fear or sorrow but an intensity that thrilled her and made her breath catch.

At the start of the first waltz, she kept her distance from him. She lingered along the outskirts of the dance floor to watch as Emillie took Loren’s hand and moved through the same steps she once did with the General. The look he gave her sister appeared suddenly familiar. His mouth quirked up at the corner, and his icy blue eyes glittered in the candlelight. Where once she saw him as a handsome, warm-hearted suitor, she now saw the truth.

Loren Gard cared for nothing and no one—except himself.

Emillie, to Ariadne’s relief, had none of it. She danced politely, making small talk as necessary, then left abruptly at the end. As the other dancers bowed and curtsied to one another, she walked away without so much as a goodbye.

She could not hide the smile it brought to her face to see her sister’s spirit had not been extinguished. That could change, however, if what she had just done was seen by the wrong people. Namely, their father.

Ariadne scanned the ballroom for any sign of him and found him deep in conversation with another lord, his back turned to the dance floor. He had not witnessed what had occurred. Perhaps he would not care if Emillie gave the General the cold shoulder. After what happened between her and Loren, she hoped her father would be wise enough to keep them apart.

Then again, if he had indeed written off Loren’s abuse as an anomaly and held to his belief that he had overreacted, her sister may be in trouble.

She scooped up a glass of red wine from a passing servant and took a sip. The tannins bounced across her tongue pleasantly, a welcome distraction from the constant twisting of her stomach.

Glancing up at the cause of her distress, she found Azriel watching her from across the room. He spoke with a Lower Councilman and nodded or smiled as necessary, but his gaze always wandered back to her. His face remained neutral as he had done when overseeing balls as her guard. His ability to put on such a mask unnerved her. Like Loren, it was something she had not recognized as negative until it was too late. In this case, it was inescapable.

Unless, of course, she revealed the truth about him.

Would she, though? She sipped her wine again and wove her way back through the crowd. He tracked each step. Those pale green eyes always snapped to where she was, no matter how many Caersans passed between their line of sight. When she turned in his direction and began making her way toward him, his eyebrows twitched together.

She eased closer, and he cut his conversation short. Grasping the lord’s arm, he inclined his head with a quiet word of farewell, then turned to her.

For a breath, she saw it. The heat flared in his gaze as he took her in. His lips parted, and the start of a smile flickered across his face. Then it disappeared behind the worry. The concern. The uncertainty.

Ariadne sipped her wine and slid in beside him. Close enough to not draw attention to their discomfort while still not touching him. She glanced up and smiled a smile that, had Emillie seen her, would have given her away in an instant.

“Will you dance with me?” Azriel asked quietly, his voice rumbling from his chest.

She closed her eyes and drew in a long, deep breath to relish the surge of butterflies in her stomach. That was the feeling she had searched for since she stepped into his study the night before. A lightness washed over her. She felt as though she could fly. The mere sound of his voice—this voice, as a vampire—made her feel whole again.

Because all she could hear in her mind, no matter how she pictured him, was the voice of a dhemon. The dhemon who had told her to sit still as they rode to the east. The dhemon who had scolded her for screaming for help. The dhemon who had pulled his cloak around her and said to keep low as the sun rose above the horizon.

And when she opened her eyes again, she found him. The man she had fallen in love with. The one who stood up for her and took a brutal lashing for her honor. The one who was there whenever she searched for him. The one who dueled the man who hurt her. With his hair pulled back into the half-knot and that perfect peridot gaze, he looked down at her with what she could only describe to herself as hope.

Hope that maybe, just maybe, she did not hate him as much as she had claimed.

“Yes,” she breathed and brushed her fingers over the bruise on his cheek.

Azriel stilled and slowly, oh so slowly, tilted his face into her touch. He closed his eyes. Breathed in. Exhaled. Opened them and gave her a small, optimistic smile.

She dropped her hand into his, and he led her without another word onto the dance floor as the string ensemble adjusted for the next song. They took their place together. She placed a hand in his and the other on his shoulder. He brushed his hand along her side, then let it hover over her lower back.

Despite her previous request for him to hold her—to really hold her—he knew better than to touch her again. Not without her permission.

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