“Oh!” I yelp as someone grabs my arm and yanks me backward. I trip over my own feet and land hard on my butt, one ankle folding underneath me.

With shattering crash, a chandelier falls exactly where I was standing. Shards fly everywhere, and I close my eyes, turning my head away. There’s a vise-like hand still on my arm, holding me so tight I think my shoulder might dislocate.

“Are you okay?” someone shouts as I look around.

People are on the ground, bowled over in their chairs, the crowd backing away. Someone is screaming, a high-pitched, wailing sob.

She’s hurt, I think, trying to wrench my arm free. Someone’s hurt, we should go help her, she might have been crushed—

“Aurora!” a voice behind me shouts, and I swivel my head.

It’s Grayson, his face completely terrified, hunched over me. When I look at him the hand on my arm relaxes, and some of the tension goes out of his face.

“Are you all right?” he shouts over the hubbub of other people screaming, wailing, shouting.

I flex my fingers and toes, slowly straightening my leg. My ankle’s a little sore where it folded underneath me, but overall, I’m right as rain.

“I’m fine!” I shout.

Grayson pulls me up. I’m still in shock, wobbly on my feet, especially in my heels. I grab a chair for balance, staring at the wreckage of the beautiful old chandelier.

What happened?

“Aurora!” another voice shouts. “AURORA!”

It’s Declan, and he’s hurtling up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He shoves past people, leaps over the wreckage of the chandelier, and before I know it he’s crushing me in his safe warm arms.

“Jesus,” he says, breathless. “Oh my god, Aurora, I thought you were— I mean it just—”

He squeezes me tighter, his voice giving out. Even though my whole family is standing right here, I wrap my arms around him as well, leaning my head against his chest.

I don’t care. I don’t care what they think, what they’re going to say later, what they’re going to try and do to us. Right now, it only matters that I’m okay and safe, and I’m in Declan’s arms.

“I’m okay,” I whisper. “It’s fine. Grayson grabbed me.”

“Thank you,” Declan says, his voice rough.

Grayson just clears his throat.

“Of course,” he says, his voice also foggy. “She’s my sister.”

Declan squeezes me one more time, then releases me, his eyes shining with something deep and true. I nearly say something, even in front of my brother. I nearly kiss him, beg him to hold me, tell him how close it was and how glad I am that he’s here, right now.

Just tell Grayson, I think.

Tell him what?

That you’ve been having sex with his best friend every night, that you let him take your virginity, but that you’re not even sure if you’re in a relationship?

Well, that’s a stupid question. One look into Declan’s eyes right now and it’s answered.

I swallow hard, swept away in the cacophony of the moment.

“Grayson,” I begin. “I have to—”

“Sweetheart, oh my God,” my mother says loudly, suddenly yanking me to one side, enfolding me in a massive hug. “Grayson, honey, thank God you were standing there to pull her out of the way, there wasn’t even a noise just nothing and then the next second whoosh...”

She ends that sentence with a loud, hiccupping sob, then keeps talking, squeezing me tightly to her. Her necklace is digging into my chest, the smell of hairspray in my nose, but I can’t blame her. If I had a kid I’d probably be freaking out, too.

A moment later, my dad is there. Ella’s standing nearby, bouncing Stefan, who’s screaming at the top of his lungs. People are standing, walking across the broken crystal, patting each other down. Making sure no one is hurt.

I glance over my shoulder at Declan, standing at the periphery. There’s something unreadable in his eyes, something I don’t know how to translate as he stands back, giving my family space.

I want to run over, grab his hand, drag him in, just tell everyone now while they can’t be angry, but something stops me and I don’t.

“It’s the curse,” my mom is saying, tears running down her cheeks. “You’re nearly twenty, and that horrible witch said that you’d be dead by then—”

“Malvina’s a lunatic, not a witch,” my dad says, one hand on my mom’s back. “Besides, remember how we went to that healer in the village in the mountains, and she said that she’d fixed it?”

“She said Aurora would still get hurt,” my mom says, her eyes refilling with tears.

“Mom, I’m fine,” I say, though I know it’s useless.

“Malvina’s got as much power as a fart in a hurricane,” my father tells her, quietly.

Grayson and I both startle, then exchange glances.

Dad just said ‘fart in a hurricane’?

Grayson bites the inside of his lip, trying not to laugh, and I have to look away from him before I do.

“I know,” my mom mutters.

“Let’s all go to the family sitting room and take a few minutes to calm down,” my dad says, guiding me and my mom toward the dais steps.

I turn, my nerves still shaken and shot, obeying my dad, shoes crunching across the shattered crystal. I can’t help but notice that Declan is gone, not that I blame him.

* * *

That night, I’ve got no intention of going to the bedroom in the west tower. I had a close call on my life today, and what I need to do is spend time with my family, then get a good night’s rest afterward.

It doesn’t matter that I need Declan right now more than ever. It doesn’t matter that I’ve got an insatiable urge for him, that no matter how much he gives me I need more.

It doesn’t matter that what I really want right now is to have my hair pulled, to be pushed down onto the bed, face down. I want him to shove my knees apart and growl something absolutely filthy in my ear, and I want him to fuck me hard and deep until I forget this ever happened.

And of course, even if I go tonight, I’m sure Declan won’t. That was a close call earlier, so he’s probably being cautious right now. There’s heightened security around the palace, so it would be dumb and risky for him to come here.

Plus, I need sleep. Plus, I shouldn’t go; plus, I should take it easy.

But none of my reasons are good enough. None of them can overcome the desperate ache inside me, the insatiable need to see him now, the fact that I won’t feel whole or safe until he’s inside me.

And so, just past midnight, I find myself climbing the tower stairs again, hoping against hope.