Page 2 of Feral King

This evening belongs to me.

That's when I feel it. Somewhere in this glittering room, someone is watching me. Not the way the gossips are watching. Something steadier. Heavier.

I scan the crowd and find nothing. Flattering or creepy. In my experience it's usually both.

"Lyra?"

I turn to see Margaret Chen from the Children's Harbor Alliance coming toward me with a champagne flute and an expression that's equal parts delighted and confused.

"God, it's really you? We all heard you left the company."

"I did." I keep my tone even, like my presence here is no big deal. Even though it most definitely is. "But this event is still my baby. The CEO invited me personally."

"Thank God. Your replacement has been an absolute disaster. Sophia sat a vegan ambassador in front of a lamb shank at the keynote table."

"That sounds about right." Sophia Harrington. My college roommate. The girl who held my hair back freshman year, now dating my ex-fiancé. Has been since college, apparently. I found out three weeks ago, along with the rest of Manhattan.

Margaret's eyes widen, just slightly, like she hadn't expected me to say it out loud.

"Well, we're glad you're back," Margaret says, squeezing my arm. "Truly."

"How's the Harbor doing? Did the Delgado siblings get placed together?"

Margaret blinks, caught off guard, her mouth parting a beat before she recovers. Her face softens. "You remember their names."

Of course I remember their names. That's the whole point of the chandeliers and the seating charts: what the checks written in this room do after the lights go dark. Three kids who lost everything get to stay in the same house.

The weight of that stare finds me again, right between my shoulder blades. I resist the urge to turn around and lose the thread of what Margaret's saying.

When she excuses herself to greet a donor, I drift toward a centerpiece that's tilted off-axis. Old habits. I'm reaching for it when the feeling of being watched sharpens into certainty.

I turn.

Oh.

Oh no.

Across the ballroom, past the champagne tower and the knot of investors near the bar, a man stands with the prowess of someone who doesn't need to move an inch to command a room.

Tall. Broad. The kind of dangerous that makes smart women do very stupid things, and I say that as a smart woman currently considering several.

His silver hair is cut close at the temples, his beard trimmed with precision. He's wearing a dark navy suit, his crisp white shirt opened one button beyond what's considered proper.

One button. That's all it is. I don't know why one button is doing this to me.

And he isn't glancing at me the way the rest of the room has been. He's watching me the way you watch something you've already decided about. I'd bet the dress he's been doing it since I stepped off that elevator.

So I don't look away. I hold his stare across the whole glittering ballroom and lift my glass half an inch.

If he wanted a woman who flinches, he's been watching the wrong one.

As he moves through the crowd toward me, my skin breaks out in goosebumps. Without breaking his stride, he takes two champagne flutes from the tray of a passing waiter.

The waiter goes still. Doesn't look up.

The crowd parts for him. Not politely. Carefully. Two security guards near the terrace doors straighten their spines as he passes, and neither of them will look directly at him.

At that moment, I realize who he is.