Page 31 of House of Ydril

Goddamnit, this night. “You know what, Nuala?” I say as I take a few steps to the side, stopping a waiter to grab two shot glasses off his tray. “I think a combination of shots and darts is in order.”

I make her throw back the shot with me. And then I take her by the upper arm and I drag her over to the corner with parlor games.

“Is this regular darts?” I ask without waiting for an answer. I just grab a dart and take my position. It makes me warm around the heart when I see her mouth crack into a smile.

It doesn’t take us long to forget about the world around us. I make the bartender keep bringing us drinks as we laugh our heads off trying to play darts while drunk as skunks.

At one point, Nuala jabs me with her elbow and says, “There’s a lot of eyes on us.”

“Of course there are,” I reply. “They’re all being stiff and I’ll bet more than half are uncomfortable in what they’re wearing, while we’re here actually having fun.”

And I honestly don’t care, but curiosity still overtakes me. As I glance around the room, I see a lot of the girls shooting us nasty looks. And just as many guys staring at me as if I were a glass of ice-cold water someone left in the middle of a desert.

One of them, a hot shifter, catches my eye and doesn’t hesitate. He immediately starts walking up to us.

“I saw you staring at me,” he says with a smile. “And I decided to do you a favor and introduce myself.”

This makes me laugh. Mostly because I’m drunk, but still.

With a smile followed by a wink, Nuala subtly excuses herself and I let the shifter by the name of Cormac chat me up. And he seems nice and it definitely doesn’t hurt that he’s ridiculously hot, but my eyes still keep darting to where Faust is, surrounded by his admirers. At one point, I see him with some vampire girl. Just the two of them.

And yes, she’s thin, blonde and sophisticated. He leans to whisper something in her ear and all of a sudden, I feel like I’m burning up.

“Anything I can do to make you look atmelike that?” I hear Cormac say.

I snap my head back, frowning. “You want me to look at you with contempt?”

He laughs and takes a step closer. I’m a bit disappointed that the look in his eyes has no edge to it, but I still let him lean in to whisper, “To start, I’d settle for you letting me take you to the Ball.”

While he’s still saying it, I feel it again. The eyes on me. I nervously look around and I catch a glimpse of Leo disappearing into the crowd.

The feeling lingers, but I tell myself to ignore it. I shift my focus onto Cormac and I say, “Yes. I’d love to go to the Ball with you.

“What about now? Want to go somewhere with me now?” he whispers in my ear again.

I already open my mouth to say I’m with my friend, but then I see Faust walking down the hall, the blonde vampire girl on his arm and a black rose boutonniere on his lapel. Once again, he doesn’t even glance at me.

So he’s actually picked her as his date for the Ball.

As soon as they’re out of the Main Hall, I turn back to Cormac and I nod.

He smiles, reaches into his pocket and puts a moon vine corsage around my wrist. “Just so everyone knows you’re taken.”

I give him a smile, I text Nuala and I let my date lead me out of the Main Hall and into one of the hallways with locked classrooms on both sides.

As soon as we walk around the corner and find ourselves alone, he grabs me by the waist and makes me turn to look at him.

I smile and he smiles too, but just as he starts leaning in for a kiss, his body tenses up and his face takes on a pained expression.

I freeze, opening my mouth to ask what’s wrong, but he just lets me go, grabs my hand and pulls the corsage off my wrist.

Frowning, I watch him pull away, throw the corsage on the floor and almost yell out, “No,” that pained expression still twisting his face.

Then he turns on his heel and startsliterallyrunning away from me.

I just remain standing there for a while, wondering if I’ve just witnessed someone using Mind Magic on my date for the Ball.

Nah, I finally tell myself. It must be all the beer and the shots messing with my head. But wow. The night could hardly have gone better thanthat.