Page 9 of Emerald Malice

The doors open onto the ballroom. I can see my brother standing amidst a throng of his useless, half-drunk friends. One of them spots me and claps Viktor on the back.

I feel a blur of motion at my side. In the second it takes me to signal to him that I’m coming, the little lastochka has darted out of the elevator, ducked between two security guards, and careened out of sight.

I let her go—for now.

My mind was made up as soon as I tasted her, so her quick getaway is just the nail in her coffin.

I’ve never met a mystery I couldn’t solve.

And she’s a mystery I’m determined to get to the bottom of.

3

NATALIA

“Watch where you’re going!”

I stumble backwards, wilting on the spot at the murderous glance I’m getting from the six-foot-tall woman I just ran right into. She pulls her white fur stole tighter around her body and skewers me with a disdainful glare.

I follow her gaze to the ruined neckline of my dress. Is my boob hanging out? Well, would ya look at that? It sure is. Nice going, Nat. Way to be an upstanding member of polite society.

“S-sorry,” I mutter awkwardly as I shove the girls back in place.

The haughty woman rolls her eyes and walks away, talking loudly enough for me to hear. “Honestly, if I’d known they’d be inviting the riff-raff, I’d have stayed home. I expect more from the Kuznetsovs.”

Katya would have tackled the snobby bitch to the floor and strangled her with her own chinchilla. But all I can muster in my current state of flustered undress is a pathetic sniffle in her direction before I run off in search of a place to hide.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. My thoughts are as much of a mess as my dress is.

Is security following me?

Is he following me?

Where the fuck is Katya?!

As though I’ve pulled her from thin air by the strength of my thoughts, a door opens to the side. Katya’s slim arm darts out, grabs me, and hauls me in after her like Satan himself dragging me down into hell.

Where the hell have you been?” she breathes in my face. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

This is so typical of Katya. Usually, I just laugh it off.

But nothing about today is “usual.” Today, I’ve been forced into crashing a wedding, chased by security guards, trapped in an elevator. And the cherry on top of the shit sundae? I completely and totally humiliated myself in front of the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on.

That moan will be echoing in my nightmares for the rest of eternity.

“Me?” I explode. “Me?!”

Katya takes a startled step back. Only then does she seem to notice that my clothes aren’t sitting right. “Your, uh… your dress is a little torn up there, babe.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious.” I grab the neckline and try to pull it into place. For a moment, it obeys—but as soon as I let go, it withers right back like a dying flower.

“Okay, calm down. Let me try.” She toys with it for a second, then magically produces some safety pins from a box on the shelves at our elbows and works some witchcraft that fixes it right up.

“There! Good as new.” She wiggles her eyebrows at me. “You wanna tell me why you’re running around half-dressed with sex hair and smudged lipstick?”

“Is my lipstick smudged?” I pivot on the spot in search of a mirror, but of course, the utility closet is fresh out of those. Just as well—I can’t bear looking at myself right now.

“Only a little.”

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