Page 32 of Seduced By Darkness
“Vi!” Another low hiss of the word. “Where in the Underworld are you? Mother’s looking for you.”
Vi?
I try to reach for her but she’s gone, vanishing from my arms as if she’d never been there. Whipping to her feet, she snatches at her dress and then her shoes, clearly trying to find her underwear.
“You weren’t wearing any,” I remind her, lying back on the grass and rubbing the heels of both hands over my face. “You don’t have to go.” I shoot her a lazy smile. “Your mother won’t mind if you’re a little late, I’m sure.”
Vi shimmies into the gown, draping its loose straps over her shoulders. She shoots me a look. “You don’t know her.” The words are dry, and then she lifts her voice. “I’m here, Andi. Just… give me a moment.”
A shadow pauses outside the thicket. “Vi?” the woman hisses. “What—? Are you—?”
“Not alone,” I call out, which earns a certain scalded silence.
Vi crouches before me.
“Thank you, my handsome prince.” There’s an edge of wistfulness to her. “Thank you for giving me a night to remember.”
Light’s starting to creep through the thicket. Her gaze drops to the shadows of Darkness obliterating my chest.
“Here,” she murmurs, gesturing to the back of her neck. “There’s a tiny button there. Can you—?”
I brush her hair aside, finding the little pearl button among the dripping lace. It’s ridiculously small, and my fingers too clumsy, but I manage it, even as the woman outside our little nest paces. There’s something dark down her spine. I try to brush her hair aside to see what it is, but she slaps my fingers impatiently. “Button.”
“As my lady wishes.” Unable to help myself, I press a kiss to her neck. “Will I see you tonight?”
She hesitates.
“I want to see you again.” Another glancing kiss. I’ve only just found her. I’m not letting her go now.
“I shouldn’t.” She glances back over her shoulder, biting that lip. “I shouldn’t have given you even this. My mother….”
“Fuck your mother.” I capture her chin and with it, her mouth. She tastes like sweet hesitance, but the second my tongue darts against hers, she moans and kisses me back.
“You don’t understand.” Vi trembles as she presses her forehead to mine. “My mother will kill you if she hears of this.” Fingertips brush against my cheeks. “I just wanted…. Once. I just wanted a single night to pretend I was free to make my own choices.”
Don’t we all?
But there’s something in the way she says it that makes me draw back and consider her heart-shaped face.
She doesn’t want me to know her name.
She’s scared of her mother.
There’s no reason to connect the dots, but a lead weight starts to settle in my chest. Premonition, perhaps.
Then she’s gone.
She peers out through the brambles, dawn’s soft light pouring over her as she winds her hair into a knot and pins it atop her head. Without the cascade of her hair, her back is revealed. The dress cuts wide and dips low, revealing all of that smooth, olive skin. Skin I never truly noticed last night, when she danced in my arms. Her hair was always covering it. Gold flashes on her back. Gold and black and red…. It’s a tattoo that runs down her spine, one I never noticed in the light of the stars.
One by one my eye picks out roses, and then the gold begins to make sense…. Thorns. Thorns and roses, and a gilded crown.
Everything within me goes cold.
My mother.
She’s got the royal fucking crest of Asturia on her back.
“Vi.” Relief floods the stranger’s voice, and there’s a whispered half-exchange between them that ends with, “What were you thinking? Staying out so late? She’s already asking for you!”
