Page 38 of Chasing the Night

“I thought you wanted a tie to House Krypt…” I scoffed in disbelief. She had threatened to disown my brother when he bulked over unioning with Reverie. “Now…”

“Now, I have to bury a son. Are you daft? Do you really need someone to sit down and explain to you why you will not see that girl again?” Mother raged.

Behind her stood my stepfather, a man ten years her senior and a fraction of her height. He cowered when she roared, apologized when she often demeaned him, and worshipped the ground she walked on in public.

She bragged to everyone about how he melted before her. I’m not sure how she was figured it to be any kind of feat—I mean, the man had never possessed a spine to begin with.

He argued his case, insisting that he had been looking at something past Lady Chalice, oblivious or perhaps unwilling to accept that her attention had splintered. Mother turned and slapped him. The sound of the contact rang so loudly we all grimaced and felt her annoyance. Several slaves scurried off to the corners, one even shrieked.

“You,” she hissed, pointing at random to one of the slaves.

Yep, that was my cue.

I left her to it, letting myself out the front door as quietly as I could. She was a hundred, hundred-thirty pounds at best, but even I knew to tip toe around her when she was in one of those moods.

A quick moving figure caught my eye. Chalice. I started to call out to her, but I knew Mother would hear her name and come unhinged.

“Hey, beautiful,” I called instead. It was the safest bet, no one was around to hear it, and Mother would never dream I was addressing a Lady like that. She’d chalk it up to a slave or Painted Lady.

It was a good call. Wherever she was heading, the term stopped her instantly. Amber hues widened and settled on me. Her smile was quick and nervous. I took advantage of her darting attention, that quick search for witnesses. I knew it well, and closed the distance between us, before she could object.

She sensed my movement and turned back to face me. I expected her to startle or step back, but she didn’t. Instead, she glanced down to my hand and took it in her own.

“Come, have a drink with me?” she asked, fixing me with that sparkling amber gaze of hers. It was so different from all the ones around me. The rest were dark, lifeless, malicious.

“I would…” I said on a whisper, “but what would your brother have to say about that?”

“He’s… he’s not my brother,” she proclaimed before fading off into a laugh that wasn’t hers. I knew what she was doing. The statement had been rerouted entirely, I could hear it in the way her words were delivered, and the emotion left in the latter half of what she had said.

Intrigued, I tucked her arm around mine and waved not toward Blazian’s winery, but to the lower level. A place I trusted we wouldn’t bump into many Krypts, or my mother, for that matter. I preferred it down there, really.

They were simpler people, like my father’s people.

She came willingly enough, taking in the sights and smiling in a way that I assumed meant she was content. She felt comfortable, not that stiff, forced stuff that most of the arranged escorts did. Now and again she would lean into me and gaze up at the barely noticeable stars.

“It’ll be breathtaking on the way home,” I promised.

Her amber eyes snapped toward me, and a knowing smile spread over her lips.

Laughter bubbled from me again. “I didn’t—” I started, but she only cemented the ‘I call bullshit” expression.

By the Fated Few, what the fuck had she taken me for? I couldn’t stop smiling as I led her out of the gate. Instead of going toward the bridge, we weaved between a few residentials to the left of the gate and arrived at the Sip House.

I reached out to open the door, but hesitated. What the fuck was I doing? Had I really brought a Lady of House Krypt to a fucking lower district Sip House? Mortified, I turned to lead her away. It didn’t work out as I intended. She was so close, it caused me to hug her or trip over her. I chose the former and ended up dancing around. Her intent on the door, and me desperate to redirect her.

“Lady Chalice…” I breathlessly grasped. “I… I had a lapse in…”

“In what?” She laughed, looking up at me like I was being silly.

I eyed the door and glanced back to her, before rubbing my neck.

“Stop dawdling or someone will see us,” she quietly cooed before jerking my hand. I opened my mouth to object, but she had already thrown the door open. A dozen or so patrons glanced our way.

A bit of a hush fell over the room when she entered, but the moment they saw a Kantor behind her the place was a chorus of whispers. I pointed to a table near the stairs, choosing it for its exclusivity rather than thinking about what might be going on above.

She settled into the booth while I nervously gazed at the stairs and then back toward the counter.

“Are you going to stand guard over me, or keep me company?” she teased, without a word about the thatch roof or the servers in various stages of undress.

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