Page 21 of Temptation
I turned around to see who he was talking about, but all I saw was a black cape disappearing through the open door.
“Who?”
“Stay here,” Rowan barked and took off in the same direction, leaving me with Kane.
My focus was split between Skylar and wherever Rowan was headed, when one of the figures in a red cape, wearing a white mask, stepped in front of me.
I didn’t see it before, because I wasn’t paying enough attention with everything that was going on with Skylar, but I could see now that the mask this person wore was completely different from the masks we wore.
Black vines were spreading on the right side of the mask, over the eye and all the way to the center of the forehead where a sign I saw before stood proudly, marred in red.
The Aquarian Star painted in vermilion red stood in the middle of the forehead, letting the vines touch its edges. Empty brown eyes stared at me from behind the mask, but I couldn’t decipher if it was a male or a female standing in front of me.
They were shorter than me, almost a head shorter, but there was something about the way they carried themselves that made me both fearful and in awe of this person.
Dark eyeshadow was smeared on their eyelids, and without a word, they lifted the tray they carried, containing the drinks I saw earlier.
“What is this?” I asked, but the reply never came.
“It’s wine,” Kane answered instead and took one of the glasses. “Well, wine and something else. If I were you, I would take it.”
The person in the red cape lifted the tray higher and pointed toward the last remaining glass.
“Drugs?” I asked and looked at Kane.
“Probably. I just know that drinking this makes the insanity go away. At least for a little while.”
I looked back at the wine glass and then at Kane who was already gulping down the contents as if it was holy water, when the voice from behind pulled my attention back to the pair of brown eyes.
“Trust no one, Asher Crowell. No one. Only trust her.” The person looked at Skylar.
“What?”
“Save her,” she pleaded. Her raspy voice could’ve been mistaken for a man’s, but it was definitely a female hiding behind the mask. “She deserves to be saved.”
“Who are you?” I asked, and she shook her head.
“What did you say?” Kane came closer, and I had a feeling that he shouldn’t know about her talking.
I took the glass from the tray and turned to Kane, pulling his attention back to me. “Just talking to myself.”
The second figure in the red cape passed next to us, holding the same tray and Kane took another one, leaving his empty glass on the tray. I turned back to ask the unknown female another question, but she was already gone.
“Who are they?” I asked Kane and took a sip of my drink.
Sweetness erupted in my mouth—much sweeter than regular wine—mixed with something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Kane was already downing his second drink and with hazy eyes he followed the other red-caped figures walking around the room.
“Red Maidens,” he murmured. “Born to serve us.”
“Who?”
The look on his face would’ve been hilarious if it wasn’t for the situation we were both in.
“Red Maidens,” he repeated slower. “Servants of His Infernal Majesty.” I looked at him blankly. “Pure girls chosen by the Order to carry on bloodlines when our woman couldn’t.” I still stared at him like a deer caught in headlights. “How the fuck do you not know all these things?”
“Because I didn’t grow up in the Order, Kane,” I murmured. “You know about my parents. You said so yourself. Everything I know is from the people I’ve met, and every single piece of information I’ve gathered is from books and from those that used to be a part of the Order.”
