Page 71 of All Saints: Pledge

I clear my throat and regain my footing. “Should have worn flats,” I comment loud enough for her to hear. “I’m clumsy in heels.” Her voice kicks loose the information frommy conversation earlier with Clara. “So wait, this auction. It somehow determines if I stay.”

It’s Teague’s turn to nearly misstep. He glances down at me, surprise widening his lovely hazel eyes. “Why would you say that?”

I roll my eyes. The secrecy game is starting to get old.

“Clara said that Irina told her we’d know by tomorrow if we’d pass this test. So what, is the test to see who can earn the most money from their jewelry?”

Teague helps me down the last few stairs, turning to walk under the stairs. We enter the right wing of the house, where I can hear faint strains of music. We’ve caught up with a longer line of people, all walking slowly down the hallway.

Teague leans his head down closer to mine and speaks under his breath. “Something like that. But you’re not supposed to know, so play it cool, okay? I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Look,” I say, squaring my shoulders. The meeting with Dorothea Howard has rattled my dedication to the plan of escaping all this, and what I want is time enough to weigh my options. My real options. The options that might push my life out on a trajectory hitherto unobtainable. And if that means I need to continue this pathway to its conclusion, I’m not going to self-sabotage. “I play games to win. So if I need to sell the shit out of this necklace, I’m going to do it.”

There’s a rumble of a laugh against my side, and the look he returns my glance with a heated one. “Good girl,” he praises me.

I can’t really describe what that “good girl” does to my insides.

“There’s only one thing I can think of that will keep us from being successful,” I say, almost to myself. Teague raises an eyebrow at me as we queue up behind several other black-clad, jewelry-laden couples.

“Kendall,” I explain. I stop myself from confessing everything he’s told me, and make it sound more like I just suspect him. “It feels like he’s dead-set against me becoming a member. Although,” I muse, thinking of his hands on my skin and the boob tape, “he has helped me too. So there’s that.”

There’s something inscrutable that flits across Teague’s face. “He’s supposed to be helping everyone. He won’t be a problem.”

“You sound so sure.” I don’t argue with him that I’m pretty sure Kendall has not been staying the night in other people’s rooms, or helping them with the interviews by handling their boobs. Or giving them orgasms in a library.

He leans down again, and I breathe in the smell of his light, soapy scent. He smells expensive. “It’smyjob to keep him from being a problem. That’s why you’re with me tonight. It’s not a random chance. I’ve got you.”

He sounds so sure, so solid. I gaze up and meet his eyes. For the first time since I arrived here, I feel like someone outside of all of this mess is onmy side. I feel safe, and protected.

“And we’ve got this.” He winks. “If you’re still in the mood to kick a little ass tonight. I wouldn’t mind showing these people what I, what we, can do.”

The smile that erupts on my lips is genuine and radiant. “Yes, let’s do that. Together.”

Beyond the floor to ceiling glass in the foyer, the dark night is broken only by small landscape lights in the curated garden right outside. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the reflection of Teague and I in the mirror of a window; two elegant figures. Two beautiful people, heads close together, arms entwined. It feels like a premonition. Like I’m gazing into my future. Teague lookssignificantto me in this window, like the rest of the world falls away when it’s just us. The sounds of a lavish party fade. For now, I just look at this creature I’ve become. Long and lean in a silk sheath, the pendulum weight of a ruby swinging against myback. The girl who left high school is nowhere in evidence right now. I’m already different, on the cusp of fully transforming into someone else. “I look…powerful.”

It’s not until he responds that I realize I said that last part out loud. “You don’t even know how powerful you are, how powerful you could be.”

Teague steps up behind me. His nose slants ever so slightly into my hair, smelling the flower, maybe? As I lean into him, his hand slips up ever so slightly until his palm rests on my bare skin, fingers under the curtain fall of my dress. I shiver. There’s a slow anticipation building that has nothing to do with the party.

I study his reflection. His eyes glitter, pupils dilated. He looksbothered, in the best possible way. In a way that gives me a heady sense of strength. Like we’re two marble statues, ready to stand the test of time.

“Are you ready?” His lips are near my ear, and I shiver. I look up at him in response. There’s a weight to his words that I don’t understand. “Just stay with me, and it will be okay.”

I nod. “Ready.” Then I square my shoulders and we enter the ballroom.

The airin the ballroom is close—more people packed into the room than I would have thought. The room itself draws my gaze and takes my breath away, though. Literal crystal chandeliers hang suspended from a double-height ceiling. Crown moulding and panels of carved plaster offset beautiful old-world floral wallpaper. It looks like real fabric—likely silk—hand-printed and applied in a different world. And in the far corner, near a set of open glass doors? A small orchestra.

It’s true old world elegance. I feel like I’m on the set of a Bridgerton movie. This can’t be real life, and I certainly struggle to place my self at the center of this reality.

As our line enters, everyone inside quiets and pivots to watch. It should be flattering, but it’s terrifying. Everything hinges on this, I don’t know what Kendall has planned, and it feels like an inordinate amount of eyes train onme specifically.

I glance up at Teague, but his face is blank, staring ahead. Mannequin it is. He squeezes my arm ever so slightly in solidarity. Remembering my dedication to selling this thing, I paste a smile on my face.

People stand around the room, roughly in a large ring. Some faces I recognize from the various events I’ve been at. The man from the cocktail table after the dress/duct tape fiasco—The one Kendall was so mad I talked to—raises his glass to me slightly as Teague walks me past him. I give a small nod or recognition. It can’t hurt to be friendly, right?

Beside me, Teague stiffens, and I chance a glance at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

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