Page 72 of The Girl Who Fell Through Time
Lighter.
She glances back at the ballroom—at Ophelia and Everton, now alone on the dancefloor—at the future that is no longer so set in stone.
Perhaps she is.
Dorian’s voice sobers. “About earlier,” he begins. “I have to ask… Duke Drakefell. Did he ever… did he ever touch you in ways you didn’t want to be touched?”
Selene ponders this question. It is not as simple for her as it ought to be. Yes, yes he did, but never, technically, without her consent.
She still doesn’t think it was right.
“No,” she tells Dorian. “He did not.”
Dorian breathes a sigh of relief.
“What would you have done if I’d said yes?”
“I don’t know. Probably something foolish.”
“For my sake?” Selene teases.
Dorian doesn’t reply.
A breeze stirs the night air, and for a moment, everything is still—the party, the laughter drifting from within, the world itself. It is just them and the moon. Dorian is close,closer than he should be, and his gaze is steady on hers. He has never looked at her like this before. Or perhaps he has, and she was simply too afraid to see it.
Her breath catches.
Then, with a violentthwip, a bolt tears across the lawn.
A champagne glass shatters, followed by another. Dorian jerks back, a sharp hiss escaping his lips. A beat later, red blooms against the fabric of his sleeve.
Selene stares at it, uncomprehending. Then she screams.
The sound shatters the quiet of the night.
The ballroom doors burst open. Figures rush onto the terrace, dresses rustling, voices overlapping—What happened? Who screamed?—but Selene barely registers them. The moment has shattered like glass, and all she can see is blood, bright against linen.
Dorian is speaking, trying to tell her something—I’m fine. It’s nothing. Just a graze.But the words bounce uselessly off the walls of her skull, drowned by the roar of memory.
Blood. The bullet.Her death.
She is on the ground again, pain blooming in her stomach, her fingers slick with red. The Duke is standing over her, impassive, while she gasps like a beached fish.
She did this.
This isher fault.
Her knees buckle, and someone catches her—Isabel, perhaps, or Cecily, or one of the other girls who were just laughing and dancing moments ago. Their voices are urgent, but distant. She barely hears them.
More shouts. More people.
Soren appears out of nowhere, his sharp gaze cutting through the chaos. Selene doesn't know when he arrived, but he’s already moving towards Dorian, clasping his hand against his wound. There’s a flurry of motion—Lord Everton, the guards, too many people, too many questions.
“What’s going on?”
“Is Lord Nightbloom bleeding?”
“Selene, Selene, it’s fine, I’m fine—”
