Chapter Thirty
he hour ticks past, and Gabriel still doesn’t appear. I see Tesni talkingT with her warder, their heads bent together before they pull apart and both scan the room, seeking her mark.
Halo and Apricia also confer with their warders and then begin moving through the crowd. I huff out a breath of frustration. Now I’m already behind.
Gabriel is such an ass. He’s busy fucking around while I stand here waiting like an idiot. The sound of deep laughter drifts through the door, and my teeth grind together.
Another minute passes and I watch as Tesni approaches a beautiful woman with straight black hair and dark angled eyes. She’s wearing a large silver brooch pinned to her collar. In another corner, Apricia is talking to a tall Fae
male with cropped chestnut hair. He has an ostentatiously sized diamond winking in one of his pointed ears.
Shit. I’m going to be the last one to get my trinket.
I spin and pound on the door, not caring what I’m interrupting anymore.
“Gabriel! Get your asshole ass out here!” I keep pounding and calling his
name until a few seconds later, the door finally pops open and I stumble forward, crashing into my warder. He does nothing to break my fall, just stares down where I’m crumpled at his feet like a pile of dirty laundry.
“My asshole ass?” He cocks his head and raises a brow. “Surely you can do better than that, Tribute?”
I snarl as I stand up, smoothing my skirt. “Shut up.”
“So eloquent tonight.” He circles my biceps with his large hand and shoves me out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Who was that in there with you?” I demand. “You’re supposed to be helping me, not sucking random cocks! Is this what you get paid for?”
He doesn’t answer me as he continues shoving me further from the door until we’re on the other side of the ballroom. “You’re hurting me.” His grip is so tight, I feel like my arm might snap. Finally, we stop and he whirls me around so I’m facing away from him.
The room is spinning, the music playing, the dancers swirling like dandelion seeds across a golden meadow. I touch my forehead, really regretting those two bottles of champagne now. Gabriel leans down and
whispers in my ear, “Your target is him.”
I follow his gaze to the table at the front, where the kings and queens of Ouranos sit. Atlas is standing, facing a male with wavy dark hair that falls past his shoulders. Not all of them are kings and queens, then.
His black-as-midnight suit is a dark smudge against the gilded brilliance of
the palace. He’s an inch or two taller than Atlas, broad and muscled, though he’s leaner than the Sun King. Nevertheless, he’s every inch a warrior, draped in the elegant attire of a dark Fae prince.
“Who?” I ask, sure Gabriel can’t mean who I think.
“The ring on his hand.” I look to the prince, where a silver ring with a
black stone flashes on his index finger. Not black. When he moves his hand ever so slightly, I see the striations that run through it. Crimson and emerald and teal and violet. Waves that undulate against a dark, star-strewn sky. The only source of beauty in my life for twelve long years.
“The Aurora Prince,” I whisper, the air around me shifting as if to make room for the syllables of his name. It’s not the king, but his son veers close
enough to the object of my loathing that something sharp and familiar twists in my stomach. Everything The Aurora stands for has been distilled down into my bottled rage with a potency that has kept me going through every moment of misery that my siblings and I have suffered.
And now the Aurora Prince is here, standing in this room.
“His name is Nadir,” Gabriel says, and there’s an inexplicable sense that at that moment, everything has just changed forever. I shake off the strange feeling, the room spinning around me again. I really shouldn’t have had that second bottle of wine.
“What if he recognizes me?” I look up at Gabriel, who stands so close I can feel the brush of his body against my back.
“Why would he recognize you? You were nothing more than a prison rat.
Even if he had seen you, you look nothing like you did when I pulled you out of that hole.”
I take a deep breath, conceding his point.
“But why him? The others have regular guests.” I look around the room
and see Halo sitting down next to an elderly Fae who wears a sparkling tiara nestled in her silver hair.
Gabriel’s chuckle is low and definitely a little menacing. You’d think he’d
be in a better mood after what I just caught him doing. “Afraid of a little challenge, Final Tribute?”
I look up at him, scowling. But he has a smug smile on his face that dares me to back down from this test. He wants me out of this contest, but I am determined to win and will never give him that satisfaction. I swallow the hard uncertainty in my throat and smooth down the front of my dress. I can do this. Stuffing down my acrimony for the Aurora King and everything he holds dear, I flick the hair off my shoulder and then take a tentative step
forward before I glance back at my warder.
“Problem?” Gabriel asks with a tip of his head.
“Zerra, you are such an insufferable ass,” I say, because he really is. First, he made me late, and now he’s clearly fucking enjoying this. I turn back to face the front of the room and then blink. The Aurora Prince is no longer there.
Atlas is now sitting on his throne and speaking to The Woodlands King.
Their angry gazes drift to the side of the room, where I catch the prince weaving through the crowd. Is he leaving? Shit.
Without thinking about it, I pick up the hem of my skirt and make my way quickly to the edge of the room, speeding up the short staircase to intercept
him. A server passes with a tray of full glasses of champagne, and I snag one without missing a beat before I make a beeline for the prince.
Just as he’s about to pass through a group of partygoers, I turn my head as if I’m looking away and casually sidestep in front of him. We crash and the world seems to tilt. The glass in my hand goes flying, spilling its contents as I
trip and fall into his arms.
