Page 8 of Losing Wendy

“There’s another one on the left. Leaning against the doorframe like he owns the place. I’d steer clear of that one too,” says John, still irritated, though mocking the suitors has returned the levity to his voice.

Eager to continue his game, this proffered respite from my imagination carrying me into scenes of how my next few hours will unfold, I search for the man John is referring to.

When I find him, the marble floor shifts underneath my feet.

He’s the type of beautiful that cuts, every detail sharp. The intense greenish glow of his eyes, rimmed with jet black lashes. His ink black hair, cut short to frame his forehead in jagged but somehow neat lines. The set of his jaw, even down to the slight stubble rimming it. The crisp line where his forearm bulges over the tanned arm folded beneath it. Everything about this man screams that touching him could draw blood.

And why has my mind wandered to what it would be like to touch him?

I let out a breathy chuckle, meaning to affirm John’s commentary on this stranger, but I’m silenced when the man unfolds his arms and tugs at the golden buttons of his sleeves.

Perhaps it’s the panic of my limited choices: find a husband tonight or be condemned to the shadows. Perhaps it’s the silly girl who, despite her mother’s warnings, spent her adolescence dreaming of the man to whom her Mark belonged. But for whatever reason, my gaze snaps to his hand. The way his crimson coat sleeves go taut as he adjusts them.

There’s a faint trace of gold etched around his wrist, up his hand.

A gold that matches mine.

CHAPTER 4

“Excuse me.” I slip out of John’s arms and toward the stranger.

Faintly, like my ears are clogged with water, I hear him calling out after me, but I hardly pay him attention.

My heart is racing. In panic or wild, desperate exhilaration, I can’t be sure, but it’s off-beat with the clicking of my heels against the marble floor.

It’s then that it hits me what exactly I’m doing.

I’m not one who by nature or temperament would typically be comfortable approaching a man like…well, like him. John was supposed to be my buffer. Was supposed to introduce me to the suitors, steer me away from awkward silences, ensure my evening avoided wastes of time I can no longer afford.

But I’ve never seen another Mark before. Well, besides the ones in the dreams I learned to stifle years ago.

Still. I’ve always held out hope. Just a glimmer. Just a morsel. That one day, he’d come for me. But now, several paces away, I’m second-guessing myself.

He’s leaning against the cedar frame of the balcony doors, so thatat least provides me with a bit of privacy as I sneak behind a pillar and toward him.

With the subtlety of a predator marking its next meal, the man tilts his head. His sleek black mask only emphasizes his daunting presence. Metallic ears, fashioned to razor-sharp points, jut from the side of the mask, a nod to the legendary fae that once ruled our realm before the curse that dwindled their numbers. Curiosity flares in those ivy green eyes of his as he detects me approaching him.

Oh no. He’s seen me now. Meaning there’s no turning back. No throwing myself behind the nearest pillar to get away from his assessing gaze.

The stranger lifts a haughty black brow over the curve of his mask.

“Hello,” I say, because that’s the only word of the millions in the Estellian language to come to my head at the moment.

“Hello,” the man drawls, flicking his gaze down my body and back up again, though there’s nothing really to examine given the modesty of my silk wedding garb.

My face flushes as I realize how forward this must seem. I’m not typically this nervous around men. The same way a market vendor isn’t shy around her customers, I assume. All my life, I’ve been in the business of selling myself. Practice has made me competent, if not comfortable, with engaging potential suitors in conversation, even if I have to shed my natural reticence to do so.

I’m unsure whether it’s this man’s Mark or his demeanor that’s tying my tongue like a knot on Michael’s shoestring.

I can’t think of what to say, so I blurt the first thing that pops into my mind. “Would you like to dance?”

The man says nothing, just stares at me in that brutally assessing way, so I add hastily, “With me, I mean.”

“I assumed as much,” he says, and not kindly. There’s a jeering in his tone, one that catches me off guard. Perhaps in his home kingdom, it’s offensive for a woman to ask a man to dance.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“What are you apologizing for?”

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