Page 17 of Divine Violence
Or he missed fucking her.
Whatever the case, I could see that there was something he wasn’t telling me. Something that would most likely piss me off.
But whatever it was wouldn’t piss me off more than seeing Alexander walking inside the Manor with Echo clutching his arm. She looked like a Goddess in a floor-length dress pooling around her feet, and that corset that accentuated her figure. Her mask was a stark contrast to the rest of her outfit, including her hair. It wasn’t until her eyes froze on me that I stopped listening to whatever it was that Anastasia said.
The defiance in her gaze, the anger, I yearned to fuck it all out of her, to make it known that she had no power here.
After that first conversation, I expected her to be afraid, to tremble or to run away. Instead, she walked as if she owned the place, looking at the rest of the people as if they were mere peasants only placed here to please her. Alexander walked as if he had just conquered the world, and I wanted to wipe away that smug smile.
“Are you even listening to me, Dom?” God, her voice grated on my nerves.
“Anastasia.” I looked down at her and gulped the champagne I’d been holding. “Just shut the fuck up and try not to end up dead.” I handed her the glass.
The other guests mingled, talked, laughed, and chatted with each other, half of them unaware of what was going to happen tonight. The other half—they were checking out their competition. Frankly, I couldn’t give a fuck what any of them did tonight if I managed to get my hands on the girl that seemed to be annoyed by my very presence.
I could see her hair billowing behind her as they walked toward the ballroom, and the moth tattoo taking over half of her back, almost looked alive as her muscles moved.
Her face might have seemed young, but the wickedness I could see in the mirror every fucking day was also hiding there in her eyes, waiting to be released. Her shoulders were tense, her right hand flexing at her hip, and fucking Alexander didn’t think to take her somewhere else first.
I shouldn’t care about her. I shouldn’t want to take her away from all these people, just to make her comfortable. She was prey and nothing more, but God, something inside my chest roared with the need to protect her.
Even if it meant protecting her from us.
“Alex!” I yelled out, stopping them in their tracks. If her shoulders were tense before, it was nothing compared to her body language now. She wanted to appear unfazed, calm and collected, but the truth hid in the lines of her face or at least what I could see of it, and the flat line of her lips.
“We need to talk,” I murmured to Alex, completely ignoring her. “And we need to find Kairos. There are some things we need to discuss.” I allowed myself one look at her, at the smooth, pale skin and the way she held herself.
“Seriously,” Alexander hissed, looking around us. “I thought that we closed this topic.”
“It’s notthattopic.” I looked back at him, fighting the urge to reach out to her, to run my fingers over her collarbone all the way to her full lips. “There’s something else. Something you should know as well.”
“Now?”
“Yes, right fucking now.” I was losing my patience, and I knew that it had nothing to do with the way Alex spoke to me. “Get your ass moving.” I started walking away from them. “Alone, Alexander.”
“Fuck off, Dom!” he yelled after me.
Gladly, but I had to stay here.
Crystal chandeliersand porcelain fucking hearts—that’s what was in store for me tonight, But if anything, I loved seeing that annoyed look on Dominic’s face. Unlike the rest of us, he didn’t wear his mask, and it reminded me of a young Dom who never really cared for rules.
I guess it was easy not following them when the entire world lay in the palm of your hand, and you could do whatever the fuck you wanted to.
Must have been nice living in a glass box, safe from the outside world. No rules and no consequences.
The air conditioning made this place colder than the mountain Athros in the middle of December. But my jacket didn’t exactly go along with the dress I was wearing, and instead of carrying it with me, I gave it to the guys at the entrance, exposing myself to the sharks circling around me.
One of them had it out for me tonight it would seem.
Anastasia was talking to Dominic when we came in, and I couldn’t stop the gleeful feeling when I saw him stepping away from her, annoyed with whatever it was that she was saying.
I could feel her eyes on me. When I tried escaping her and her group of friends by going to the furthest part of the ballroom, they still followed me with their eyes, no doubt whispering about the unknown girl standing alone.
My eyes scanned the crowd. For the first time, I saw that not every single person belonged to high society. Some of them kept looking around as if they weren’t supposed to be here, but the grips those men and women had on their arms were indication enough that some of them didn’t even want to be here.
Which pissed me off even more.
I had no idea what this gathering was about or why that invitation found its way to my room, but as time passed, I could feel it more and more in my gut—I was supposed to be here.
