Page 59 of When Bones Whisper
“Is that what you mean by your sins?” she asked, jaw slacking. “That is not your fault.”
“She swore to me she was going to stop practicing sacrificial magic when she believed she would become my wife until I broke her heart.”
“You didn’t make her that way. People have their hearts broken every day and do not murder innocents as a result. She was already inclined toward darkness from what you said. It had taken root in her long before you.”
“It bloomed in my abandonment of her.”
Charlotte’s heart ached when she looked at him, when he stood, shoulders back as if he had the weight of the world on them. “She did not become evil over losing you.”
“You cannot know that,” he barked and she clicked her tongue.
“No?”
“No.” He faced her, and she crossed her arms.
“Don’t be so conceited, Nathaniel.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re excused,” she said, jutting her chin. “You think you made her evil, but I say you didn’t. You are not so special that a woman would abandon all her morals in your absence.”
His pupils darted around her face, searching her expression, before the corners of his mouth curved with tension, and he laughed for the second time since they’d met. It was infectious, boyish, and she loved the deep, hearty sound.
Through hooded eyes, his smile settling back into a smirk, he said, “You might be right.”
“I usually am,” she teased, and his dimple deepened.
“I must leave. I have some final checks to go over for the guest list for tonight,” he said silkily, her gaze following the path of his fingers when he pushed back a stray curl, tucking it behind her ear. Slowly, he brushed his thumb over her cheek, before pulling away. “Do you want me to carry you back to your room?”
Her chest heaved when his hand landed on her waist, eyes softening when he looked at her. “I’m okay,” she promised, even though her muscles screamed at her in protest.
“Do you know your nose scrunches when you lie?”
He noticed that?
Her eyes widened.
“I’m not—”
“Don’t be stubborn. Hold on to me,” he commanded. “I’ll take you back so you can get some rest. We’re going to need all our strength for tonight.”
As she wrapped her arms around his neck, his breaths hot against her throat, she glanced at the mirror and jolted when she saw a flicker of the demon’s reflection, its humorless grin in contrast to the entities furious eyes when she glared at them before he whisked her out of the attic and to her room.
Chapter Eighteen
Charlotte pondered how many humans they had invited to the ball to make it appear legitimate, not that the Avery witches would ever be fooled into thinking itwasn’ta trap. However, the clever caveat behind Nathaniel’s plan relied on that reticence.
She only hoped that no innocents would get caught in the crossfire of their supernatural war. Though unfortunately, Alexander’s words, spoken earlier that night when he collected her, did nothing to ease her nerves. What name had he used to address the arriving guests? That was it.Collateral.
Taking a sharp breath, she glanced at Alexander before descending the staircase and into the ballroom. Her painted fingernails ran over the intricate carvings of the balustrade as shelooked down at the guests. There had to be at least four hundred people in attendance, most of them familiar faces from high society. It shouldn’t have been surprising. Nathaniel was not just any vampire. He was a lord, and sometimes she forgot that.
The velvet skirts of her dress billowed around her in a dark storm cloud, the glitter shimmering against a velvet stream of midnight black. The lace on the sleeves ran up her arms like vines, meeting the tips of her long, raven curls that tumbled over chest and shoulders.
“They’re all looking at me,” Charlotte whispered to Alexander when they reached the half-way point, and eyes climbed the steps to land on her. “I thought the mask would obscure my identity.”
He leaned in with a smirk and said, “That is not why they are looking, beauty.”
“You flatter me.”
