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My heart dropped into my stomach. Was it signed? Was I too late?
My eyes drifted back to him. I could only imagine the fear and love swimming in my orbs. I passed through a parting crowd, closing the distance until he looked up. Alexander locked on to me, and frowned.
I expected no less. The full-face butterfly mask did its job. Everyone would remember what I did here tonight. They didn’t need to remember my face too.
Sara, Penelope, and Elisavet fell quiet staring at me. The loss of their attention finally turned Sirena’s head.
“What’s this?” she asked. “Do you want something?”
“You should be careful sitting there,” I said, speaking only to him. “Someone might jump on your head. You’d never see them coming.”
Understanding dawned in an instant, slackening his jaw. Alex came alive before my eyes. Shoving the mugs aside, a beatific smile changed his whole face... because he was looking at me. For as long as I lived, my pulse would never stop racing at the look in his gaze whenever it caressed me.
“Jump on his head?” Sirena shattered the moment. “What are you talking about? No one’s going to jump on his head. Are you stupid?”
Hard to believe no one other than her friends wanted this woman to rule.
“It’s okay, Sirena. That was a joke between us.” Alex spoke to her, but smiled at me. “This is Tasia. An old friend from Xeniagapia... Town... Island. In the north. I visited there two or three, or five years ago.”
Sirena’s face screwed up. “Xenia what? Up north? I’ve never heard of it. Where exactly did you—?”
“I owe her a dance.” He shot out from behind the table and wrapped me in his arms. My mask hid my glee, but his Phantom-of-the-Opera-like half-mask did nothing to hide his. “Be back in a—”
He was already done with the conversation, leading me off. “What are you doing here?” he whispered. “And what is this dress?” Alex raked me up and down, heat igniting his dull eyes. “You are... wow.”
I was glad the mask hid my blush. Alex’s hands passed through the there-and-not-there gown as easily as mine. It covered everything and nothing. It concealed what his warm, stroking fingers were doing to my skin but it didn’t stop them popping feverish goose bumps up my spine.
“A friend gave it to me,” I said, “in honor of growing a backbone and deciding to fight for what I want. You.”
His smile dimmed. “Aella, you have no idea how happy I am to see you. I’ve been dying to hold and touch you so much, it felt like actual dying. But the contract’s already signed,” he said softly, kicking my heart the rest of the way down and stomping on it. “Sirena demanded we sign it while the guests were still coming through the door. It’s done.”
Of course she did.Bile burned my throat.She’s waited too long to sink her claws into Alexander. She wasn’t waiting another second.
“After, my father put it in that magicked case. It’s been spelled unbreakable,” he said. “An elephant could stomp on it, and it wouldn’t get so much as a crack.”
I nodded slowly. I felt the prickle on the back of my neck from Sirena watching us. That prickle was nothing compared to the pressure beating down on me from high above. The council of Olympia. The ones who’d kill me and abandon my mother if they found out the truth of why I was here.
“So what do we do?” I croaked, fighting down tears.
“Right now?” Alexander pulled me in close. “Right now I dance with the woman I love.”
My goofy smile lit up the inside of my mask. I rested my head on his shoulder, forehead brushing his cheek, and all of me brushing against all of him. As if they waited for this moment, the band slowed their melody as we swayed, lapsing into a lovely soft tune for our slow dance.
My eyes drifted shut. For the first time in days, parts of me I didn’t know were coiled and tight, finally unwound. Alex was right. I missed him so much, it was like actually dying.
We swayed back and forth, then suddenly I was gone. Alexander spun me out—laughing as my impossible skirt fanned around me. Two dancing couples moved aside for us, which was when I noticed everyone was moving aside. Falling back, and clearing the dance floor for us. Only us.
We giggled and danced like I hadn’t done for... years.
Alexander spun me in, and we touched back to chest, taking his hand across my chest. Head dropping back, I thanked every deity for our masks, because if anyone had seen our faces then, they wouldn’t question another moment who Alexander had fallen in love with, and who had fallen hopelessly in love with him back.
“Growing a backbone...”
I skipped a beat, opening my eyes.
“What does that phrase mean?” he asked, voice soft.
I hesitated. “It means to do something brave. Something that scares you.”
