Page 50 of Lord of Dance and Desire

“I addicted myself when it came on the market,” she said, reading my lack of expression with an ease I liked not at all. “I do it with every drug there’s no known defense against which has the potential to be weaponized. I have a tolerance.”

So did I. My last dose had been only days ago, and my tolerance was now at seventy percent. I tried to stay away from Anah while in its throes. Con had been forced to distract me a time or two.

“Han owes me a debt,” she added.

I made a split-second decision. “Go after the drug.” If it led to Coal District, she was better deployed there than one of my warriors. “Coralene. Lord Dartanyon was the one supplying the dancers. Tell Ashlyun.”

She nodded, clearly unsurprised, and was gone the next moment.

HASANNAH

It occurred to me, belatedly, after I woke that I should play dead. But the first thing I did was rotate my ankles and flex my toes, instinctively checking for damage. My brain caught up with those rather narrow-minded instincts seconds later, but I accepted I'd blown my chance for deception.

The ground was cool, hard and smooth under my back, the silence unnatural.

I heard nothing, not the clop of hooves or what should have been the panicked chatter of a crowd. No breeze on my face or sense of the city around me. I opened my eyes to oppressive darkness.

Absolute darkness, stale air. I was inside, though as I sat up, I didn't get the impression I was underground.

Despite stale air, it wasn't damp or dank. It lacked odor at all, the temperature ambient.

If it weren't for the very physical floor beneath me, I would have thought I'd woken up in some type of magical mist.

The click of low heels on a hard floor, and light flared.

I stared up, up, at ceilings that must be three stories high, at white walls inlaid with the rows of mirrors framed in gold gilt.

At a glossy white and gold veined marble floor. No windows, no obvious source of the light reflecting off mirrors, bouncing off gold frames, gleaming on marble. I flinched, wanting to cover my face to shield myself from the awful brightness.

When I finally turned my head, I stared into the cornflower blue eyes of Lord Dartanyon.

And realized that some of the distortion was because we were separated by a dome of glass.

Chapter

Thirteen

ANDREIEN

We burned precious minutes organizing the theater staff to clear and cordon off the building. The moments that ticked by until my duty allowed me to go after my bonded threatened to tug on the unraveling strands of my sanity.

But this was what it meant to be Heir.

This was what it meant to rule.

I could not see to my own heart before I saw to my people, and when this was over honor would compel me to sit Hasannah down and explain this to her. She knew I would protect her, and she was right. I would protect her with everything in me. But she wasn't the only one I was oath bound to protect. Or the only one I had failed. That Ixnie was in my city proved I had failed.

I was going to take that failure out on every Lord of the High Court.

There was no doubt in my mind that Dartanyon was behind this, and where there was one Lord, there werealwaysothers. TheNinephene female would find me and report, but I set one of my warriors on her trail as well, to watch and lend aid if need be.

Constin, Mathen, and my luudthen went after Anah.

“He's insane, not stupid,” Constin said grimly as we again searched the estate that until recently, Lord Dartanyon had occupied. “It would have been too simple for him to bring her here.”

I ran my finger along a side table. “He hasn't returned here since we began the hunt.”

“We already have a list of former staff,” Mathen said. “I'll begin interviewing them to see what they know.”

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