Page 47 of The Shadow Bride

My limbs begin to tremble as he tilts his head.

This is bad.The useless thought plays on a loop, over and over again, yet I cannot think how to stop it. If I intervene, I could make things worse for both of them—his subjects cannot perceive him as weak, or tensions on the isle will escalate again. Neither, however, can I stand by and watch if he threatens my mother. Though my mind instantly rejects the thought of him doing such a thing, it also remembers Priscille and Juliet, even Christo, who lost his tongue for a simple question.

Please.

Like he senses the direction of my thoughts, Michal flicks his gaze to Odessa. She stares back at him in unspoken challenge. A current of understanding seems to crackle between them—a fissure of disapproval—before Odessa shakes her head and sits back in her seat, glaring out the opposite window as if unable to watch the proceedings. Lou frowns at her.

Michal, however, seems to make a decision.

When he inclines his head to my mother in a graceful bow, my limbs go hot and loose at the same time. “I apologize, madame,” he says. “I have been careless with your daughter, but rest assured, she is in no danger from me. Indeed—” His voice softens further, and he addresses those shadows darker than the rest. “—if anyone should attempt to harm her or her companions whilst on Requiem, they shall swiftly regret it.” Though he remains the portrait of civility, his black eyes glitter with malevolence as he adds, “Or perhaps not so swiftly.”

Even my mother blinks at that. She deflates slightly as if just realizing the implications of trespassing on an island of vampires. Her sharp eyes dart around us. “Well, yes, that would be quite—er, I mean—”

She cannot seem to decide whether such a threat would be welcome or inappropriate.

I empathize completely.

“Get in the carriage, Maman.” Lips still numb, I open the door before she can insult anyone else, and Lou seizes her elbow and frog-marches her inside. They settle on the bench opposite Odessa and me. “We should finish this discussion somewhere private.”

As if desperately attempting to bring the situation back under her thumb, my mother glares out the window at Dimitri. “And what areyousmiling about, young man?”

“This isle has needed a lady’s touch for a very long time, madame—and how privileged we are that it should be yours.” He flashes his dimples, bowing low and ignoring Odessa’s scowl. “Célie has told me such wonderful things.”

Though my mother harrumphs, a pretty wash of color spreads through her cheeks, and I watch his reaction closely. Once more, however, hedoesn’treact; instead he winks at me before rapping his knuckles against the door and walking away. My mother watches him go with a slightly mollified expression. “Well now, that—thatis a gentleman, Célie.”

Shaking her head, Lou leans closer and says in a low voice, “My mother once cursed an unfaithful consort to never speak my name without experiencing the agony of childbirth.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

She leans back as if pained, her movements slow and stiff. “Just offering a little perspective.”

“I’ll return for you at dawn, Célie,” Michal says before I can question her. “Your room and trousseau are exactly as you left them. If you wish it, Louise and your mother may stay with you, orthey may reside elsewhere. Any room in the castle can be cleaned within the hour.” Giving my mother another curt bow, he turns to leave, but my hand snakes out unexpectedly. It catches his wrist.

“Michal.”

He tenses slightly at the catch in my voice, and the hair on my neck lifts as Ifeelthe vampires focus on where I touch him. Swallowing hard, I struggle to withdraw my hand, to ignore the ache of dread in my chest. But I can’t do either. Ican’tbecause Odessa is right, and everything has gone so irrevocably wrong. Because Lou is sick, Filippa is a revenant, and Frederic is dead; Death himself has stepped through the veil, and Odessa is fighting with Michal for reasons I don’t understand. Requiem has descended into disarray. And my mother—she sits in the middle of it all, her familiar eyes burning with disapproval as she watches me touch a man who is not my betrothed.

“Is everything going to be all right?” I ask him.

He doesn’t answer for a long moment. He simply stares at my hand around his wrist. Slowly, he turns his arm, sliding his own hand down my palm until our fingers touch. “I don’t know,” he says honestly.

And then he is gone, stalking after Dimitri until the rain swallows him whole. It feels oddly sinister to watch him go this time, and I flex my fingers as the shadows follow, wishing I’d asked a different question.

Chapter Fifteen

Like Mother, Like Daughter

“If I ask you to stay in your room tonight,” Odessa asks when we reach the east wing, “would you do it?”

She stands silhouetted in my bedroom door, flanked on either side by the half-transformed demons of black marble. Their tortured expressions and batlike wings bring back memories of a simpler, happier time—when I remained blissfully human, blissfully naive, blissfully alone after my abduction.

Now Pasha and Ivan stand guard in the corridor, and Lou leads my mother down the sweeping stairs to the chamber below. With a deafeningcaw!, Talon returns to his preferred perch upon the mezzanine and hunkers down to watch us with his beady eyes.

“Why?” I ask Odessa.

She rubs her temples with the beleaguered air of someone desperate to leave. “Just this once, can we skip the deluge of questions? The castle is not safe tonight—”

“You said the castle is never safe.” I study her with increasing suspicion. “What aren’t you telling me? Are you and Michal planning something?”

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