My exhale came immediately; I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath. My fingers flexed on his shoulder as my feet began to pick up the simple steps. We swept past a staircase, my gaze going up until the mask cut off my vision, and I was forced to pay attention to my partner. I wanted to get away, but something inside me wanted to stay, too.

His eyes, cheeks, and nose were shrouded in a simple gold mask, but he was tall and young. His lips curved in a half grin, and his eyes sparkled like two emeralds held to the light. His hair was light brown and wavy, touched by the sun, and long enough to curl over his ears and the collar of his white dress shirt. Subtle notes of cologne made me inhale deeply. Nice.

There was something about being behind the mask that allowed me to relax for this one dance, to be someone else, a young woman who loved to have fun, to dance with a man, to flirt and feel special.

I whirled and whirled, losing all sense of time.

I changed partners many times, and it seemed as though each masked guy who held me grew more mysterious and handsome than the next. The music warbled. I grew drunk on it, on the beauty and the laughter and the warmness in my body.

I was let go suddenly by my partner, laughing and spinning until another caught me around the waist, my momentum slamming my front up against his chest. “Oh, sorry!” I paused, breath coming fast. “It’s you again.”

My first partner had returned, and he held me close, his hand warm against my back. He bent down and brushed my ear with his lips. A whoosh of light air breezed through my stomach. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not.” He kissed my ear and then whisked me into another dance.

“What’s your name?” he asked. “Nymph? Siren? Fairy princess?”

There was something joyful in flirting, in the sense of power it gave me. “I am none of those things,” I said, smiling.

“Ah, you are more, much more.” He pulled me closer, our chests touching as the side of his cheek came to rest against my temple. “I shall call you the Moon Queen.”

I laughed. “So what does that make you?”

“Good question.” He leaned back to gaze down at me. A slow grin tugged his mouth. “Being the king would be quite boring. I’d much prefer . . . the queen’s consort.”

Heat seared my cheeks, and my breath became labored. His mouth skimmed my temple, slowly, lazily trailing his lips down to my cheek, my ear, and then my neck, sending hot shivers down my spine. I wanted more, wanted to fall into a careless spiral of sensations. To hell with the consequences. He pulled me closer as if sensing my need. And I let him, exposing my neck more as we spun around the room.

I swallowed, somewhere in the back of my mind knowing that it was too fast and too odd, but the mural ceiling and the lights blending into shimmering colors distracted me. His arms tightened as he kissed my neck, small, feathery kisses and hot breath that weakened my limbs. My eyes rolled, falling onto the dancers, the music fading to the background, the voices and laughter going with it.

As we floated around the ballroom floor, I saw flashes of things, wanton things. Other masked men and women, putting their lips on the necks of their partners. Some against the walls. Kissing. Sighs of pleasure. A dark-haired couple—his mouth going to her neck, her head against the wall, her eyes closed.

Around the room again. The thunder of my pulse drowned out the music. My responses became slow and lazy, but inside fire raged. As we came to the spot where the dark-haired couple kissed against the wall, I couldn’t help but look again.

Oh my God—the guy’s lips drew back, his teeth elongated as they sank into the girl’s exposed neck. At the same moment, my partner flicked out his tongue and swirled it around my neck. My short black fingernails dug into my partner’s shoulder as the girl’s lips parted. I wasn’t sure if I heard the moan of pleasure or just imagined it. But it rang in my ears.

My heart thudded hard, stomach flipping. I couldn’t breathe. My vision grew faint and the room spun.

Suddenly the far wall pressed against my back, my partner pinning me there as his teeth grazed the skin of my neck. I was lost and didn’t care. I was somebody else, a masked stranger, a desired woman.

Yes.

And then he was gone.

Cool air breezed over my hot skin. I blinked, mind hazy and unfocused, missing the contact.

“Leave her alone, Gabriel,” a familiar voice said.

The drunken sensation refused to go away, but I tried my damnedest to focus, realizing that something wasn’t right. My reactions were not right.

“She doesn’t want to be left alone,” my partner said. “Just ask her.”

The room still spun beyond me, but the music was becoming clearer, the voices around me sharper. A figure in a plain black mask stepped into my line of sight and lifted his mask.

It was like a bucket of cold water. “Sebastian?”

Fourteen

WITH A FEW RAPID BLINKS, THE TWO GUYS IN FRONT OF ME came into sharp focus. My face became hotter than the surface of the sun as my behavior sank in and I realized what I’d almost done. Idiot! If I’d had one wish right then, it would’ve been to disappear. Just vanish in a cloud of mortified smoke.

There were blood drinkers, vampires, all around me. Taking freely from those who offered their shiny white necks, those revelers lost in some kind of hypnotic state where the only thing that mattered was sensation and need. And I would’ve been one of them had Sebastian not intervened.

Was I that weak, that willing to sate Gabriel’s “need”?

“Ari,” Sebastian said, “are you all right?”

I shoved away from the wall. “I’m fine.” But I was pissed at how naive and willing I’d been, pissed at the warmth that still radiated beneath my skin and the tight confines of the gown. Thank God for the mask. At least my red face was partially hidden. I tried not to look directly at what was going on around us. The dancers still continued, the revelers still chatted, but the others, the ones embracing against the walls, in the dark corners . . . “Is this what you are, Sebastian?”

His mouth hardened.

Gabriel laughed, his eyes crinkling behind the gold mask. “Sebastian denies what he is. But he is the same as me.”

Sebastian’s irises went dark and stormy. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Fuck off, Baptiste. I’ll never be like you, like any of you.” The resolute tone was as harsh as the hand that gripped my upper arm. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Even for you, Lamarliere, that’s no way to treat a lady. Why don’t you ask her if she even wants to go with you?”

I cleared my throat, wanting desperately to leave, to get them away from each other before something really bad happened. “Thanks for the dance,” I said, signaling that I was done with our interaction.

Gabriel’s expression and bearing became formal. He gave me a small bow. “It was my pleasure, Lady Moonlight,” and then he stalked off.

Sebastian pulled me in the opposite direction, zigzagging through the press of bodies until we hit an empty spot near the front balcony. The fresh air coming through the open doors helped clear my head. “What the hell is going on? Where are the others? And where’s Violet?”

“What’s going on? What’s going on is that we’ve been looking for you since you disappeared from the market yesterday evening, that’s what’s going on.” He glared at me, nostrils flaring slightly, pulled down his mask with an angry gesture, and then marched onto the balcony.

Sebastian grabbed the iron railing with one hand and dragged his fingers through his hair with the other, letting out a long breath. His gaze fell on the street below, on the Mardi Gras revelers passing by, his profile grim from the edge of the mask down. He looked like a bird of prey, raven hair falling over the black satin mask. He wore a white dress shirt and black slacks, and the contrast of the dark mask against his pale skin made his lips seem redder than normal. Of course, anger could’ve been the reason for that color too.

The crass blow of a party horn from below shocked the admiration out of my mind. This place, this party, or whatever it was, had gotten to me. Had turned me into some willing plaything for a damn bloodsucker. My knuckles became white as I squeezed the railing with both hands.

“I haven’t seen Violet,” he said. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Long story. Your grandmother sent a note that she had Dub and Crank and Henri.”

He faced me head-on, confused. “We’ve been searching for you nonstop until this evening, when my grandmother told me you’d be here tonight. I sent the others back home to rest.”

“Your dad hasn’t talked to you yet?”

He shoved the mask onto his head, staring at me as though I’d lost my mind. “My dad? My dad left when I was a little kid.”

Oh hell. My anger went soft. “No, he didn’t, Sebastian. He was imprisoned by Athena. He’s here, in the French Quarter. I was with him earlier.”

Sebastian’s face went slack and very white. He swayed.

I grabbed his arm and walked him back to the long bench against the outside wall. He sat like he was on autopilot, went to rub a hand down his face, but he was shaking so badly, he gave up and just sat there in shock.

I wasn’t good at this sort of thing, helping people deal with the past. I couldn’t even deal with my own. Sebastian leaned forward, elbows on his knees and head bowed. I stayed next to him, unsure of what to do or say. I lifted my mask.

His head turned, gray eyes glassy. Hopeful, yet uncertain. “Are you sure it’s him?”

“Yeah. You look just like him.” I fiddled with the mask in my hand for a moment, wanting to help, just not knowing how. “He didn’t walk out on you. I saw the prison myself.”

“Fuck,” he murmured in disbelief. “Where is he now?”

“He was at a house in the Quarter. I left there earlier when I heard—”

“Heard what?”

I swallowed. “That your grandmother doesn’t want me to leave New 2. She thinks I’m some sort of weapon, and wants to use me to protect the Novem against Athena. But I’m not like you all. I don’t have powers or the ability to stand up to a goddess.”