Page 23 of Smoke and Mirrors
“Was there anything else you needed?”
He posed the question coldly. Those grey eyes challenged me, daring me to answer a certain way.
I need you to be sorry for throwing my past in my face. I need to know you still want me and no one else. I need you to kiss me again and mean it.
“No,” I answered just as coldly. “Nothing at all.”
His expression twitched just slightly. For just a fleeting moment, I saw the raw, vulnerable side he revealed when he showed me his dragon shift. It passed over his face in a glimpse before the cold mask settled back over him.
“Then you may go.”
He said it like another dare but I wouldn’t rise to his bait.
Clutching my prize in my fist, I turned my back on him and left.
12
CONNOR
“Are you sure?”
“Babe,” I sighed. “My answer isn’t gonna change, no matter how many times you ask me that. Yes, I feel fine.”
Mel’s brows furrowed extra hard as she applied her lipstick in the mirror.
“I’m just saying if you don’t feel up to it, I can make something up in my announcements—”
“There’s no need,” I slipped a hand under her red tailcoat to wrap around the corset that defined her hourglass shape, “because I am just as fit as ever to perform.” I moved her hair to drop a kiss to the back of her neck, enjoying the shiver that elicited through her.
“I just want you to be okay,” she sighed at the mirror. “And I’m nervous, I guess. This is my last night as ringmistress. Who knows where we’ll end up after tonight?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I murmured, pulling her back against me until my lips were in her hair. “I got you and you got me. And Hunter. And Razvan.”
“Scratch that last one and you’d be right,” she muttered, checking her makeup one last time before reaching for her top hat.
I looked at her in surprise. “You mean y’all didn’t make up passionately when you went to get my pills?”
“No, quite the opposite in fact.” She ran a hand along the brim of her top hat before twirling to face me. “We both made it very clear that it had nothing to do with us. We just want to see this show through so we all get paid. And you owe him now, since he feels he was generous to you twice.”
“Damn.” I rubbed my jaw. “The two of you are being stubborn as fuck.”
“You’re one to talk,” she jabbed with a playful smack to my chest.
“Takes one to know one.” I slipped my mask in place and offered her my arm. “Ready, babe?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she sighed, wrapping her hand around my bicep so we could walk backstage together.
I wished to reassure her, to tell her even bigger and better things awaited us after this was over. We’d be part of even grander shows and make enough money to not worry about anything. We’d develop our own following and people would travel across the country just to see us, no matterwherewe performed.
But we could just as likely find nothing. As much as I wanted to believe we’d come out on top, I didn’t have it in me to make promises I couldn’t keep. So I walked out proudly with my gorgeous ringmistress on my arm, taking in all the curious looks in our show attire. For all we knew, this would be our last night dressed up like this.
The backstage area buzzed with even more chaotic, excited energy than the past few nights. Everyone could feel this was the final night and prepared to give it their all.
“I’m going to check on Hunter,” Mel said, giving me a quick air kiss to not mess up her lipstick.
“Sure you are,” I teased, sitting down as I prepared to remove my normal prosthetics and put on my stilts.
Our wolf boy remained out of sight until he did his partial shift for the show. It was just safer for him if people didn’t know what he looked like in human form.
