Page 137 of Red Masquerade

My stomach dropped.

“Well, alive as could be.”

I searched the crowd for Veronica, foranyone. One of them had to know I was here by now.

But the balcony above was all masked partygoers. The servers couldn’t even weave through the crowd, staying to the outside of the dancefloor, watching with clear, emotionless expressions. None of them noticed me, either.

“Once I revealed the truth to them,” he leaned in closer again, his lips brushing my ear, “they were devastated. How could their son rise up to the top and leave them behind? How could he beso richand leave them so poor?”

I swore I felt his tongue on my ear, sending chills down through my shoulders, down my spine. I shut my eyes against the sensation, against the brightness of the room, the racing of my heart.

“Don’t worry, Helena,” he whispered again, his hands tight on me.

His fangs were so close. He could bite me and no one could do anything about it.

“I relieved them of their problem,” he said. “They don’t have to worry anymore.”

God, he was sick.

Then, he really did press his lips to my neck. I cried out, the sound swallowed by the cacophony of the party. Shoving against him with all my strength, I tried to wrench myself away, but he didn’t budge, his grip on me too strong.

His tongue was hot, teasing my ear and my neck, threatening that bite, and I wasn’t sure he’d pull away.

He’d bite me and drain me.

He had looked at me with such bloodlust before. He would do it with glee.

“Relax,” he breathed. “Your heart is beating a mile a minute.” He traced his nose along my jaw, against my cheek. Such an intimate caress, one I’d felt over and over again from Vince—the way he’d press his face into my neck as though to cement himself to me.

“Have I ever harmed you?”

I clenched my jaw so hard I thought I’d hear a crack. “No,” I managed.

“Have I been nothing but truthful to you?” he murmured, speaking against the flesh of my throat.

To anyone else, it just appeared like he was kissing me, kissing my neck. No one would be the wiser. No one likely even noticed, caught up in their own dancing, the other women too preoccupied with the men holding them, the men too preoccupied with the girls in their arms.

None of them knew there was a vampire in their midst.

He could pull himself away from me and turn on any one of them in a split second.

There were probably other vampires in the crowd. Some ofhisallies.

If I ran, would I even be able to lose him? Or would a stranger dig their nails into my arm just for him to catch me again?

“You don’t know me.” I forced myself to speak.

“But I want to.” His leg came between mine, my bare thighs against his clothed ones, his arm around me, crushing me to him. “You’re right,” he breathed. “I don’t need a million dollars. I think I’ll just keep you for myself.”

“Let go.” The words came out of me in hardly more than a whisper.

He just chuckled. “Why, so you can go running back to your boyfriend?”

“You don’t want me.”

“Playing hard to get isn’t going to go in your favor.” His voice darkened. “What does he do for you, anyway? He came back to America years ago, and it took him this long to get you back? And something tells me you don’treallyknow who he is…”

“Letgo,” I insisted, pushing against him, however futile.