Brimstone Seduction (13 page)

Chapter 16

H
e'd spent days avoiding Katherine while still trying to determine if she was drawing closer to his prey. It was a razor's edge that cut far too sweetly. Too often at the end of a long day or after a particularly brutal workout, he found himself near her. Her affinity for daemons and his Brimstone blood were the perfect excuse, but he'd been alive too long. He knew his motivations better than most mortal men.

Her music called him. Her hungry response to his touch and his kisses tormented him with physical needs he was usually able to deny. His gym was a cold release, a grueling punishment that didn't erase her taste.

Severne's tuxedo had been delivered. Sybil was an artist with needle and thread. She'd tailored his clothes as long as he could remember. But this time she'd outdone herself. He'd always insisted on black for the masquerade. He was repelled by the decadent swirl of color that never mirrored his heart on the one night a year when the opera house revealed its true nature to the world.

But this time, when he lifted the soft, clear plastic to glance at the formal suit, his gaze was held by the unexpected blend of shades and fabrics. The tuxedo was all black, no disobedience there; the elaborately stitched midnight brocade of the vest contrasted with the heavy cut of jet wool for the jacket and the obsidian shine of grosgrain cuffs and lapels. But at certain angles, the light brought out an emerald sheen in the brocade.

He lifted the domino mask from its place on the hanger and stared into its empty eyes.

Sybil saw more than she should. She was much older than he was. Wizened by age and circumstance. He would wear the tuxedo and it would be for Katherine, but no one would know. And when the time came, he would still do what needed to be done, the needs buried deep in his dark heart be damned.

* * *

Her cello stood in the corner, near the chair she used when she played it. Tonight it was in its case. She wouldn't hide behind it. In fact, even her mask was a slight frame of pavé gemstones for her eyes with only the sparkle of diamanté dust to hold its shape.

Her hair and eyes stood out. Chestnut curls and chocolate framed by black lashes showed darkly against the white, ivory and glitter of her costume. Everyone would know her. Which made the bodice of the gown that much more daring. It was a complement to the mask. A delicate network of crystal stones, the perfect, simple accompaniment to the layered opulence of her skirts.

But as the mask only framed her eyes and didn't hide her face, the bodice only framed her torso, allowing the honeyed expanse of her chest and the swell of her breasts to catch the eye. It was the possibility of catching a certain intense gaze that made her long to go back for her instrument. Severne's eyes would gleam green for her, only for her, in this dress.

She shouldn't crave that gleam.

The same young man who had initially welcomed her to l'Opéra Severne had delivered the
Cinderella
shoes to her door.

They sat on her bedside table while she dressed, a delectable challenge, before she finally decided to wear them. She wasn't sure if the idea of Severne requiring a payment for the gift weighed on the side of wearing them or not. She only knew they were perfect, and once she'd placed them on her feet there was no going back to the warehouse to return them.

She was walking on a cloud of anticipation as she wore them. The network of webbing that hugged her toes complimented the other textures and fabrics of the dress itself.

She didn't go back for her cello.

Even though she had not one ember of Brimstone, her blood was bolder than that.

It pumped hotly in her veins as she followed the flow of the crowd to the cluster of decorated salons that had been prepped for the fete.

She was braced for whatever this dark night would hold.

The sconces glowed. The murals seemed to moan—silently, eternally—and she walked on decadent feet, feeling at her most beautiful and her most vulnerable.

Her time with Severne on the riverboat had been unexpected. Tonight was different. She'd had time to regret the kisses they'd shared and pine for more. She'd anticipated and dreaded, planned and prepared.

For so many things.

Tonight she had to keep an eye out for monks from the Order of Samuel. Worst case scenario, Reynard himself. She had to avoid shadows, watch for the patron named Michael who might have something to do with her sister's disappearance. She had to fear Sybil's mechanizations and the price of the dress she had yet to demand.

And John Severne.

She couldn't forget the man who was in the forefront of her fears.

It hadn't escaped her notice that he'd been around every corner and behind every turn in the last few days. Her affinity brought her to him, or his Brimstone blood brought him to her. Either way, they haunted each other's movements but avoided actual conversation and contact.

He was not being forthright with her in ways she couldn't ascertain, and yet she still tasted his kiss on her lips and longed for more.

But she wouldn't regret the shoes on her feet. Those she accepted freely. She might never truly know the side of the opera master he had shown her in the warehouse, but the shoes were a reminder he had a side that longed for something other than death and darkness. She couldn't refuse that part of him if he chose to share it with her. She wouldn't. Even if she couldn't trust him.

The salons were a crush of beautiful guests in an array of costumes, wigs, hats and masks. There were many in the Venetian style featuring long beaked noses in garish colors. The effect was edgy chaos just this side of madness.

Kat's heartbeat kicked up in response. The night would only get more chaotic as time passed and champagne flowed.

She made out several of her friends. Tess waved with a glass in her hand, the mask she'd worn as an older and wiser Juliet was already hanging from her wrist by its ribbons.

Music played in the background on discreet speakers. The orchestra had the night off. Instead of Tchaikovsky, an epic rock ballad played, surprisingly fitting with the decadent, theatrical mood.

There were many people she didn't recognize. So many people at the opera house were still new acquaintances. There were also former players, city officials and wealthy patrons. She would never be able to pick out anyone dangerous in the crowd.

But that lie held for only moments before a tall, lean figure dressed all in black parted the crush of partygoers gracefully, easily, with a masculine authority unmistakable, unmatched by anyone else.

He moved toward her slowly, but his approach was as inevitable as a bolt released from a crossbow. She was the target. He hit home with the intensity of his eyes while he was still half a room away.

They'd been drawn to each other for days. Tonight, behind the masks and in the middle of the crowd, could they indulge the impulse to come together?

The stiff black domino was perfectly molded to his face and seemed soft in comparison to his set jaw. A shimmer of starched silk over chiseled stone. When he was steps away, she noticed what Sybil had done.

Severne's formal tuxedo with all its textural fabrics in varying shades of black was the perfect foil to her own snowy ensemble with its shades of ivory and white.

They were a pair.

No one here would doubt it.

She was the Gothic angel to his heavenly daemon, and he took her breath away when she saw his eyes widen as he noted the costume magic, too. She could already see a hint of green glimmering from the shadowed holes of his mask.

“I've been to this masquerade a thousand times,” he said.

He stopped in front of her only when they were toe to toe, only when he could tilt down to speak for her ears alone. “I've never wanted to dance before now.”

She pressed willingly into his darkness, the white of her skirts crushed against his hard, straight form, the swell of her barely covered breasts full against his midnight brocade.

Contrast. And both costumes even more beautiful than before because of it.

He pulled her onto the dance floor, and she tried to keep up. He waltzed in spite of the modern music. No one cared. Many tried to emulate him without the practiced immortal moves of a man who'd been on the floor many times before. The short moments they'd been on the dance floor of the riverboat had been only a preview of what she experienced now.

“This isn't your first waltz,” Kat said midwhirl.

“I've danced a thousand times before. Out of duty, obligation and boredom. Never need. Never hold my dance partner or die. Never hold her
and
die,” Severne said.

She'd been approached with smooth, practiced lines before. But never such a raw emotion. She didn't reply in kind. Her need to be in his arms was a confession that stuck in her throat and warmed her cheeks to what must have been scarlet against the crystal gems below.

“I've known Sybil since I was a boy. She practically raised me. In this, she plays a dangerous game. Take care you aren't caught up in it,” Severne said into the soft curls above her ear.

“She seems too serious for matchmaking,” Katherine said.

“Never doubt it. She is,” Severne said.

“Then she didn't mean for us to be seen as a couple tonight?” Kat asked.

“We are a pair, Katherine. But there are many pairs who are destined to remain apart. Sybil's artistic needles and thread bewitch, but they are cruel. This night only shows us what we can't have,” Severne said.

“Only this, then. The dance. Now,” Kat said, fully surrendering to the dizzy thrill of circling the room in his arms.

“Yes. We have this dance and, for now, it can be everything,” Severne replied. “Forget about all else.”

Including promises and lies.

She didn't say it out loud. She danced. Until her head was light, until when he finally left her to stand alone by the dance floor, it took her long moments to catch her breath and calm her heart. Did he mean for the dance to be a finality between them? No more kisses. No more contact. No more desire.

As her pulse slowed, she took careful, steady inhalations until she could draw oxygen in and release it without the air fluttering from her lungs like butterflies shaken from a bush.

She planted her feet firmly on the ground. She forced her head to clear. She cursed the warm sensation he'd left on her body where his hands had been, on the small of her back and on her hand. She might want to follow him and the music through the crowd to discover wherever he'd gone, but she didn't.

Kat turned down several other partners.

She wished she had recovered sooner. It took too long to banish the dance. It was dangerous to fall under the heat of his eyes, his voice and his touch. His reaction to her was as heady as hers to him. She'd seen his cheeks darken. She'd felt the restraint he'd practiced not to hold her closer than the dance required. She'd seen the glitter of her bodice reflected in his eyes.

Her perceptions couldn't be clouded tonight.

She willed his effect on her away.

She tried to pick out individuals in the colorful mass around her.

Severne played havoc with her senses. His proximity had hidden Sybil's true nature from her detection. She hadn't discovered the daemons on the riverboat by their magnetic pull. She'd had to pick them out with only her eyes. The room could be full of daemons and Severne's monopoly on her affinity would hide them from her view. It was new, this feeling of uncertainty. She'd always rejected her ability to detect daemons, but now that it was hampered, she was frightened by her inability to sense their presence.

As she stood resolute and determined to recover from his touch, it was precisely the senses Severne had overwhelmed that pinpointed an anomaly.

She sipped a lemonade cocktail she'd taken from a server's tray, and the crowd whirled and laughed and sang and talked and argued. But one figure in a crimson cloak moved with steady purpose at the edges of her blurred perceptions. Closer and closer still the figure crept. Not dancing. Not pausing. Not accepting champagne. A porcelain mask painted in the French style of the pantomime clown, Pierrot, covered the figure's face. The stark white facade glowed brightly within the hood of the crimson cloak, its hard, pursed lips red and a single black teardrop painted on its cheek.

Kat forced herself to sip casually while she focused on the figure, but her attention didn't go unnoticed. Crimson-cloaked clown stopped. The swirl of the blood-colored fabric wrapped around its legs. Feminine hands reached from the cloak's folds to keep it from tangling in legs encased in black leggings and tall, shiny boots.

A woman.

And something about her hands...

It had to be wishful thinking, but as she watched the woman pause with one foot placed toward her, it was as if the cloaked figure would rather run to her side than run away.

Kat stepped toward the woman in red. She allowed the empty glass in her hand to drop and roll on the heavy rug behind her.

“Vic?” she asked.

The woman was too far away. Kat couldn't tell what color eyes shone behind the black holes of the clown mask. But when the woman in red heard the utterance of her sister's name, she backed away. Urgently. She bumped several other partygoers but didn't pause to apologize.

“Victoria?” Kat said, louder and more desperate now that the woman in the crimson cloak had reacted to her first cry.

Several revelers near her turned to see why she had called out.

The crimson-cloaked figure also turned and pushed her way into the crowd away from Katherine.

Kat followed. Her progress was slow. The crowd of people had tripled in seconds. They pressed in around her on all sides. She pushed. She apologized. She excused herself through dozens of dancers.

But she couldn't hurry. She could only propel herself desperately at a slow slog through people determined to ignore her pleas.

She reached the hallway as the crowd thinned. It branched in two different directions. The way toward the exit was the most crowded. The opposite way led into the heart of l'Opéra Severne. It was darker. The sconces had been turned low to discourage partygoers from areas that weren't part of the event. But it was the flickering sconces that lit the vanishing flash of crimson around a distant corner.