Page 150 of Prince of Masks
Dray…
Dray…
I’m shaking my head. Or at least hair is whipping at my cheeks, lashing at my eyes, sticking to my temples, and the room is swaying too fast, too violently.
The heels of my stilettos are clacking on hardwood floors. I wobble with my rushed backsteps as Oliver steers me.
I think he guides me to the settee, lowers me onto it, but the thundering beat of my heart just pumps blood too fast through my veins, and through the dizziness, I can’t quite latch onto my surroundings.
Oliver is an anchor in a storm.
His hands are gripped onto my shoulders, tight; the gleam of his emerald eyes are lights in the dark.
I latch onto him, my hands too tight on his forearms, nails cutting into his flesh.
The waves are violent, ripping me away, but he holds me firm.
“Breathe,” he says, and I feel the command of it.
He imitates, one long breath inwards that swells his chest. Then he softens it with a pursed mouth around an exhale.
“Breathe,” he echoes, soft.
I focus on him.
Hands tight on his forearms, I blink against the disorientation crashing down on me.
I mimic him.
It lures air out of me like a hooked ribbon; then a slow, choppy inhale serrating through me.
My bottom lip juts with the sobby breaths.
“D-d-d-d…ray,” I heave the name and look around the marble and gold room, as though I’ll see him in the mirrors around me, on the faces of the portraits lining the walls.
“D-d-d-d… r-r-r-ray…” I choke on it, something between a sob and a retch.
“What about him?” He lures in my wandering gaze, the panic in me. “Liv, focus, look at me. What about Dray? What did he do?”
A hand abandons his forearm.
I touch it to my chest, over and over.
Still, Oliver just considers me. Tries to work out my charades.
I close my hand, curl my fingers into a fist—all except my ring finger.
I lift it to him. “Drayyyy.”
Oliver’s face pales.
He blinks at my ring finger once, then lifts his darkening gaze to me.
“Who told you?” he urges. Desperation clings to the wild greens of his eyes, and his fingers dig a bit deeper into the flesh of my shoulders. “Who told you that?”
There’s a dazed sort of look to me, I’m sure of it, but I look at him from under my lashes. I see the urgency in him, like he gives a damn.
My face twists with a cry.
