“You look like a queen,” Alexandra said softly.

“Of death,” Blair added, and my sister nodded in agreement. I didn’t disagree.

“Where is everyone?” I asked. The leaky faucet was the only sound apart from us, and that unsettled me.

Today had been a big day, and that demonstration had had a lot riding on it. Now, hours later, I was feeling spent, and the party hadn’t even started. Rebuilding the barriers that kept the monster locked up had exhausted more energy than I was used to, and after facing the Hydra…I needed food, and sleep, and to never see a Hydra again.

“They left a while ago. You were pretty out of it, though…so I’m not surprised you didn’t notice,” Alexandra said.

I nodded in silent understanding, letting her lead me away from the bathroom. Something ate at the back of my mind. Something I needed to remember. When Alexandra stored her phone inside a tiny black velvet clutch, it came to me.

“Has anyone heard from Lily today? We leave tomorrow, and I told her I would come find her,” I said. My voice sounded as scratchy as my throat felt, despite my ability to heal from pretty much anything.

“I talked with her a few hours ago. She told me to tell you to she’ll be in the library after the party,” Blair said.

I nodded, but despite her assurances, I checked my phone for messages and found none. Loosing a nervous breath, I typed out a quick message and stashed my phone under my pillow.

“Okay. Let’s go,” I said, lifting my dress with half a thought while we ascended the stairs.

The top level was dark, and the hole from the simulator hadn’t been fixed. I shivered at the sight and kept walking, wanting to forget all about the Hydra, and the boogeyman that lived in my mind.

My sister didn’t need to show us the way—we all knew where the ballroom was—but she did anyway. I suspected she needed to feel in control, and know that I was safe. I would’ve, if the situation had been reversed. I shuddered to think what the Hydra would’ve done to her, because in a world made of water, even a phoenix couldn’t fly.

The soft strum of a waltz lured me to the doors, but it was Blair’s hand on my back that made me cross the threshold into devastating beauty.

The room was painted in red and gold light, as the socialites of the Supernatural society gathered on the eve of our departure. Couples twirled around us under the colored lights, and the smell of citrus and mint permeated the room. My skin flushed under the intense heat, and the air tasted like sweat and lies. So many people were here, far more than I’d expected.

It was the perfect place to be forgotten, just another mask in the crowd.

I left my sister mingling near the door and made my way to the bar. Blair trailed me, a huntress in her own right as she eyed our bartender.

“What will it be for you, ladies?” the young man asked. His eyes glowed gold, and this time I knew why.

“Bone dry martini,” Blair purred.

I vaguely wondered where Alec was, but it was none of my business to bring him up here.

“Double gin and tonic,” I ordered, leaning back against the counter while I waited for my drink.

“Make that two,” another woman said.

I turned sharply to look at Johanna, and, man, she’d really outdone herself. Modest and classy, she wore a long-sleeved dress of pure gold, and a mask of a dragon.

“I didn’t peg you as a gin and tonic kind of girl,” I said softly.

She chuckled quietly as the bartender slid my drink across. I winked at him, and downed it in one shot.

“Or I you a girl who drinks to block out the voices,” she murmured.

I shot her the finger as she sipped hers daintily.

“Sometimes, you have to become a monster to defeat one,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed, piercing my nonchalance. She opened her mouth as if she had something to say, when someone coughed to announce their arrival. She gave me a sly smile then disappeared among the crowd faster than should’ve been possible.

“May I have this dance?” Aaron asked, his voice huskier than usual.

I glanced over at the male who’d planted himself between me and Blair. Little traitor was preoccupied with the bartender and didn’t even notice.

“No,” I said stiffly, eyeing his well-fitting tux and...raven mask. A small gasp escaped my lips. Traitors indeed.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his gaze traveling down before meeting mine.

He was burning up, I realized, though I didn’t know how. Something inside him was on fire when he looked at me, and this wasn’t the first time.

“Quite.”

I walked away, but only made it three steps before my feet refused to move. Lucas and Anastasia were wrapped like lovers in the tango of their lives. Her dress was like midnight, and his mask was a snowy white owl. I didn’t cringe when he held her tighter. I didn’t wince when he swept her away. And when the song came to a close, I didn’t look away when he saw me over her shoulder. Even under this light, I could read the sudden tension in his jaw.

I wasn’t jealous that he was dancing with another woman. I was livid that he’d chosen that woman. The woman who’d thrown me in a cage with a nine-headed beast not even twelve hours ago. The woman who’d watched his brother’s leg almost get blown off, and hadn’t cared. The woman who held my leash, because he’d done a shoddy job of wiping his sister’s memory, and I was the one who’d gone down for it—and for the stupidity of trusting him in the first place.

I think I might’ve taken a step toward them, but only one, before the next song began, and I found myself being swept away to the sound of “Masquerade.”

“You can thank me later,” Aaron whispered as he spun me around.

I glanced up into his deep-set eyes, so much closer when I wore heels. We were only inches apart now, and despite my earlier performance with the Hydra, he looked completely at ease being this close to me. Not afraid in the slightest.

“I can thank you never,” I muttered. The insult died on my lips the moment he brought me closer. His body exuded warmth, a heat more familiar than my own sisters’, even though I’d only felt it once.

“Now where’s the fun in that, little signasti?” he said softly.

I laughed in his face. “I like heartbreaker better.” I smirked. Heartbreaker was the name I’d earned boxing last year. Man, that seemed so long ago now.

The music grew louder as the servers chimed in with, “Masquerade!”

The chandelier shook, just a little.

“I don’t plan on letting you break my heart,” Aaron said sharply, glancing up to see what I was looking at.

We spun faster and faster, dancing the same way we fought—like two halves of the same whole. I never would’ve thought him a dancer, but then again, most said the same of me.

“I’d have to have your heart to break it, now wouldn’t I?” I said slowly. The words were a dare, a whisper lost in the thundering room. Another gin and tonic was calling my name, but this dance had saved me from what Anastasia would see as humiliation and so I would stay—but only one dance.

“Masquerade!”

I could’ve sworn the ground shook a little, as Aaron gripped my hand tighter.

“I know what you’re getting at. Lucas was a damn fool to go after you, though, when he knew what you meant to me,” Aaron said.

My heart stopped.

Literally stopped in my chest.

“What?” I asked. Demanded.

Aaron blew out a breath, making the air taste like rain. It would’ve been dizzying if I hadn’t been rattled by the one piece of information everyone had alluded to, but I’d somehow never seen.

“You didn’t realize…did you?” he asked slowly, almost pained. Something dark crossed his features, too quickly for me to read.

“Didn’t realize that he’s known for a year? Or didn’t realize he’s lied to me for a year?” I paused, looking every which way for Lucas—so I could ask him myself, and then kill him when he told me the truth. “I assumed he’d found out when the rest of them did. In the bathroom. I never— Why did you never say anything? Why didn’t he? I’m going to murder him. I swear to Nyx, to the gods, to whoever the fuck is up there that I will string him up and—” I was speaking low, but my voice was rising with every second until Aaron silenced me with a finger pressed against my lips.

“Masquerade!” was thundering, causing the doors to shake and the room shudder.

“I wanted to earn your affection, but you’d made your choice before I ever got the chance. Part of you recognized me when you opened up as the year went on—your soul did, anyway—but you thought it was him.” He paused, and I thought back to the summer, to Lucas telling me that I was the one who’d let him in. I was the reason he could read my mind. I hadn’t believed him, and now I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him with anything.

“When the summer came…you agonized over him, over feelings you couldn’t understand. Insatiable urges you thought were more. But you didn’t realize until you came back that it was never him. And even then, you didn’t see it. You’re just so fucking stubborn—”

“Do you hear that?” I asked, interrupting him.

Aaron said nothing as we stopped in the middle of the dance floor. My feet were no longer willing to move, as I grappled with the truth of his words.

That lying sack of shit had known for the last year that I was bonded—as in life bonded to Aaron—and never said anything. He’d made me feel guilty for not telling him about my father, and the secrets I’d kept. I’d fucking lost my freedom because of him—and had still been willing to try to forgive him up until he’d slapped me. But this? This was how he’d repaid me?

By lying to me about something that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with me.

I was going to kill him.

The room rumbled, and at that moment I spotted Anastasia, entirely alone on the far side of the room. She was smiling, the most cunning and wicked of smiles.

“Masquerade!”

Lucas was nowhere to be found as the double doors burst open.

Eyes, red and black, surrounded us instantly—and then the first scream came.

The Vampires were here.