Page 39 of A Dance Macabre

“This is it?” I ask, scrunching my nose. “We simply walk aimlessly?”

A small puff of air leaves her lips. “Yes.”

“Interesting,” I mutter, the crunch of our shoes over dead leaves accompanying the heavy silence.

One of the two dogs chasing each other suddenly runs up to me and drops a bone at my feet. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be a humerus. I stop in my tracks and give the dog a side-eye. It sits at my feet, peering up at me expectantly while its tongue lolls out of its mouth.

“What does it want?”

Mercy’s giggle is so soft that I almost miss it. My eyes snap to her, convinced I must have heard wrong. There’s an ephemeral smile on her lips as she stares down at the dog, gone as soon as she looks up and finds me staring.

“She wants to play fetch. Throw the bone,” she says, her tone still carrying an amused lilt to it.

I eye Mercy warily. Taking out my ostrich-skin gloves from my pockets, I carefully slide them on. Picking up the bone with two fingers, I ask, “Is this from a grave?”

She shrugs, giving one of the dogs a scratch behind the ears. “Perhaps.”

“How tasteful,” I mumble before reluctantly wrapping my hand around the humerus and letting it whistle through the air. The dogs bark excitedly, racing after the bone as if it still has some meat on it.

“I’m sure you’ve done far lewder things than touch an old bone in a cemetery, Vainglory. Quit the act.”

My first urge when I hear her provoking words is to shove her into whatever half-dug pit I can find and fill it with dirt. I stop in my tracks when I find her piercing gaze fixed on me. Studying me amidst old graves, half of her face cloaked in shadows. The fire burning behind her irises propels me back to when I found her spying on me in the bathhouse. And I suddenly realize the intent behind her three last words.

Quit the act.

Because I know what she saw that night when I played the violin.

She’s seeking the man behind the mask.

24

WOLFGANG

While the sun set over Crèvecoeur cemetery, Mercy informed me that Gemini wanted her to come visit him at Pandaemonium. In addition to a century-long feud between our two families, I’ve never been particularly fond of Gemini. But that didn’t prevent me from telling Mercy I would accompany her.

“Great opportunity for a candid photo-op of us,” I said.

She studied me, a small wave of curiosity rippled over her face in the way she lifted her eyebrows and pressed her red lips.

I wasn’t interested in dwelling on the small lull of peace this day had brought forth between us. Thankfully, she didn’t either and simply nodded.

Now here we are, in Mercy’s town car, each of us staring out of the window on our respective sides of the back seat.

Except.

I’m carefully watching her from the corner of my eye, my thumb cradled under my chin and index finger resting near my temple. It’s like being confined in a tight space with a deadly predator. Even if I’m just as much a predator as she is, it doesn’tremove the vague but uneasy feeling pulsing inside my chest when I look at her.

My eyes flit down to her feet. She’s changed back into pumps, and there’s a pinch somewhere deep in my gut when my eyes skate over the dainty row of pearls wrapping around her ankles. It’s those same damn stilettos again. Must be her favorite pair.

My fingers twitch on my lap, and I flex my hand around my thigh while my mind replays feverish flashes of Mercy splayed wide open, her skin supple under my touch.

Heat curls up my spine, my gaze smoothing up her fishnet stockings to the slit in her dress where her dagger is proudly displayed. Then upwards to the swell of her breasts pushed up high by the tight corset around her waist, until I end up staring directly at her jeweled eyes already trained on me.

I don’t look away. Don’t pretend I wasn’t just caught surveying her physique.

Instead, I just continue to stare. The carnal ache building and building.

My breathing turns slightly harried. The molecules in the air charged with whatever untapped need Iknowwe’re both experiencing.

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