Page 156 of Filthy Rich Vampires: For Eternity

I couldn’t fault her for that. Not when I knew what it was like to fear losing someone—a fear I’d lived with most of my life. A fear I’d felt again in recent days as the wedding neared, as I faced taking the next step into the future and away from my past. I nodded, a plan forming in my mind, but there was something else. “If I asked you to help me with something, would you?”

“Right now?”

I shook my head. “It can wait until after the Rite.” I licked my lower lip, scrounging up the courage to ask for something that felt impossible. “With everything happening, I need to stay at court. But the wedding is coming up, and...”

“Cold feet?” She lifted a brow.

“No! But I want... I want my mother there. She’s in the city. There’s a safe house for sirens in Cannaregio.”

“I’m assuming the vampires don’t know about this?”

“Julian does,” I admitted, “but no one else. I need someone who can find her. The house is warded against vampires, and even if I sent Jacqueline or Lysander—” she flinched at the sound of his name “—they might not find it.”

“So you want me to find her?”

I swallowed, trying to ignore the knot of hopeful fear in my throat. “Yes. I want her at the wedding... I need her to be there.”

She considered for a moment before inclining her head. “I will seek her out and tell her.”

It was the most I could ask. Mom might refuse to attend. Even with a siren on the throne, it was dangerous. But I suspected it wasn’t fear that might stop her. She didn’t approve of Julian, of my mate being a vampire, and while she might have accepted the facts, she didn’t have to support me.

“About tonight,” I continued. “Don’t wear a mask.”

She huffed. “I’m not sure that’s an option.”

“Don’t wear that one. We’ll find you another. Will anyone know that it’s not one of the enchanted ones?”

She hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

“Then it doesn’t hurt to try, and if they force the issue, we’ll leave the party.”

“You said yourself that you need to be there,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but I have a good excuse to duck out.” I patted my stomach. I wasn’t eager to announce my pregnancy to every magical creature in the city, especially when so many of them wanted me dead. Considering everyone we met picked up the changes in my scent, I didn’t have a choice. “But we should try.”

She nodded, but she remained silent as I changed into the soft ivory pants and top. The clothes felt amazing, especially given the way my body seemed to sway between overheating and freezing, thanks to my changing hormones. I prayed that whatever magic the mask inflicted wouldn’t change that. I didn’t bother to put on makeup or do my hair. There was a pretty decent chance none of that would matter once I put on the mask. If it knew me at all, I hoped it just transformed my clothes into a pair of jeans and knotted my hair into a messy bun—that was the skin I would feel comfortable wearing.

“We should go soon,” Aurelia announced to me.

“Wait.” I rummaged inside the closet, willing whatever magic listening to my desires to hear me. I tried to reach onto the top shelf and discovered I was too short. I guess the magic hadn’t considered that. The magic, apparently offended, responded, and another shelf appeared, along with what I was looking for.

The mask, composed of layer upon layer of delicate rose petals, matched Aurelia’s crimson lips. Its silhouette was lined with silk thorns along the edge that curved to cover half her face and that full mouth. Not the scarred side. No, it would show that, and I wondered if the magic knew what she needed as well. Not to hide from a past she had no say in but to embrace who she was now.

I passed it to her., grimacing once before placing it over her face. “I’m not sure it reveals my true self.”

I thought it did, perhaps. The rose was beautiful and delicate, a pretty distraction from its dangerous thorns—so like the woman in the glamour before me. I said nothing.

She adjusted it on her face and bit her lip. “About what I told you... can we keep it to ourselves?”

“Of course.” She deserved that respect, and my heart hurt to wonder how few had shown it to her.

“If some people knew...” Her eyes faded into some distant place, and I wondered if she wasn’t worrying about people so much as one person in particular.

Once again, I kept my mouth shut. Things were complicated enough for everyone. If she needed to talk through her feelings, I would listen. But I wouldn’t pry.

“Do you want to put this on now?” She pointed to the mask.

I stared at it for a second, my stomach churning in a way that had nothing to do with morning sickness. “I think if I’m going to face my true self, I’d rather do it in private.”

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