Page 2 of The Faceless Omega

Exhaling carefully, she caught herself noting the blended scents of food and alcoholic beverages that had begun to fill the air. Never her favorite combination, but it wasn’t overwhelming. She pushed her feet forward, snagged a glass of what she presumed to be white wine off a passing tray, and adjusted to avoid cutting into the dance floor. No way would she be stepping foot onto that. Not in her heels, or the tighter than preferred dress hugging her hips, and certainly not with the camera snapping soundlessly every ten seconds.

It was time to pretend she was some random, nameless heiress and get her flirt on. Just a little, just enough to make conversation. She could totally do that.

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Lennox hated the annual masquerade party. It was little more than a flexing opportunity. The anonymity was a joke for most of them, for a variety of reasons. Not the least being the fact that half the guests couldn’t stop themselves from grandiose, detailed boasting.

His parents had attended the original party, probably a decade earlier, however. They didn’t have much interest in it anymore, but for appearances’ sake, they insisted he attend. Every. Damn. Year.

The mask that rested on the bridge of his nose was already chafing. He could see well enough, at least, and the obnoxious thing didn’t extend so low as to affect his sense of smell. He never would have agreed to wear it if it did. But he couldn’t stand the way it sat over the top of his head and the feel of it hooked behind his ears. Most of all, though, he simply didn’t appreciate the wolfish features of the mask itself. The visual texture designed to resemble fur and the upward pointing canine-like ears protruding from the top. It was childish.

His mother had thought it was amusing. Ironic, perhaps.

It wasn’t ironic. No one knew for certain what type—or types—of shifter had once dominated their family tree. All they knew was that the shifting gene had been lost. Had their ancestors been wolves? Perhaps. Or perhaps they’d been one of any number of other beasts. Perhaps their family had mixed shifter genealogy. They didn’t know enough about their ancestry to truly ever get those answers.

Lennox exhaled roughly and moved away from the single long table of food options. The meats, cheeses, and little fried things were a great way to keep himself from ripping the mask off his head, but he didn’t need to be accused of snubbing the other party guests, either. Even if he actually wanted to.

The one thing he definitely planned on doing was ignoring the senator who had clearly come to shmooze. The smarmy man’s mask was about as much of a joke as Lennox had ever seen.

He veered the other direction instead, swept his gaze for someone or something of interest, and his gaze zeroed in on the figure of a woman he hadn’t noticed when he’d previously looked over the room.

She stood amidst a group of three others, holding an inconveniently strapless type of purse and a half-full glass of white wine. Her dark green dress clung to her curves, swooped low across her chest, and split from the knee-length hem to halfway up her thigh. She wore a decorated mask that appeared to bear feathers as well as rhinestones, and the harder he stared the more it looked like she might have painted her face, too. Which only made her more intriguing.

Lennox didn’t even realize he’d started moving until he was close enough to recognize the masks on two of the faces in front of her. The sound of her sweet, but subtly strained and short-lived laugh sharpened his focus. It only took another moment to ascertain that the male in the devil mask was leaning in at the perfect angle to give himself a view down the front of her dress.

That probably explained why her body language read tight and guarded.

Lennox practically choked on the low warning growl that built up in his throat as he approached, but any words he might have said were cut off when the vision in front of him spoke up.

With a subtle raise of her chin, the woman who’d drawn his attention said, “That is quite the story.” She slid a heeled foot backward as she spoke. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I—”

Devil Mask took a whole step forward. His expression was largely obscured, but there was desperation in his over-excited eyes that said more than enough. “Won’t you—”

Lennox stepped between them and narrowed his eyes at the other man. “I think you’ve harassed her enough for one night. You should attend to your date.”

Devil Mask’s eyes widened and snapped up to him as he reared back.

The female on his other side tilted her head and raised her drink to her lips as if to hide a smirk.

The other male chuckled so quietly the sound barely carried over the music that filled the air.

Instead of waiting for any real response, Lennox pivoted in place and raised a hand to rest the tips of his fingers against the back of the captivating woman’s arm. Her skin was warm and soft and he immediately wanted to touch more of her. Instead, he gestured away from the group. “Shall we?”

She blinked up at him once from beneath her sparkling, feather-adorned mask. “Let’s,” she finally said as a smile teased her shimmering lips.

He offered her a smile that belied the heat burning through him. The woman was a fucking vision and it bothered him immensely that he couldn’t isolate her scent yet. She had been gorgeous from across the room, but up close she was goddamn mesmerizing. The glittery face paint did nothing to disguise that.

She quietly allowed him to walk her several paces away, took a small sip of her wine, and tipped her head to the side as if to scrutinize him better. “I can’t decide if that was very gallant of you or if you just don’t like competition.”

Lennox felt his carefully calm smile twitch into a grin and forced himself to drop his hand. “I don’t mind competition,” he said. He stopped as she did and adjusted to face her, keeping his back to the more bustling portion of the gathering. The staff was fairly agile, but the longer the night dragged on the more inebriated and less coordinated the partygoers would become. He couldn’t stand the thought of letting her get bruised over someone’s drunken clumsiness.

He thought he saw a twinkle of amusement in her brown eyes. “So it was a chivalry thing, then?”

Lennox tucked his hands into his pockets. He didn’t understand why the challenge in her eyes hit so differently. He normally got irritated, or outright pissed off, when some idiot challenged him. In this moment, however, and at least with her, it didn’t feel like any kind of threat. It felt more like a game. “I didn’t say that.”

She let out a soft hum, never looking away, and took another small sip of her wine. “Oh? Is this the part, then, where you try to blindside me with your charm until you can drag me into a broom closet and scratch that primal itch?”

He scoffed. “You are clearly not the kind of woman a man drags into some dusty old broom closet and fucks out of his system.”

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