Chapter Twenty

“This is boring,” I whispered, squirming in my seat.

Nathanial glanced at me long enough to disapprove of my fidgeting. Then his attention returned to the stage.

Not that there was anything to see on the stage. The Collector had raved about the view from her private box, but it overlooked the same musicians who’d been playing for the last half hour. A singer might have livened things up a bit, but it was just one instrumental piece after another.

I squirmed again, and Nathanial lifted a white-gloved finger to his lips, not even looking at me this time. His eyes closed, and his fingers twitched a pattern to the music as if he were the conductor. He obviously enjoyed the symphony.

Hell, he was damn near enraptured by it.

I sighed, blowing a loose strand of hair out of my face and fidgeting with the small pouch where I’d stashed Avin’s ring.

In all his rapture, Nathanial better remember we’re not staying in Demur. The Collector might “encourage each of her cities to grow into a cultural apex” as she put it, but I sure as hell wasn’t joining her sideshow so Nathanial could attend symphonies.

I slouched in my seat and picked at the satin gloves that matched my scarlet gown. By the time the last note faded, I’d pulled apart the inside seam of my right glove. I balled my hand in a fist, hiding the glove’s damage as the audience burst into applause.

As the lights came up, the Traveler, who I’d been trying to ignore through the performance, turned toward me. “You seem restless, child. I take it absolute music does not agree with you?”

“No. I mean, it was great and… loud.”

He stifled a laugh. “I must say, this is the first time I’ve heard the adjective ‘loud’ as a principle description of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony.” He turned and regarded Elizabeth on his other side, “What did you think, my dear?”

“The orchestra as a whole captured the expression of feeling in an enchanting way, but the piccolo in the fourth movement did seem off.”

“My dear you always say that.” The Traveler leaned closer to me and whispered, “She was at the Theater an der Wien when the Sixth premiered. All and all an under-rehearsed mess from what I heard, but she loves to remind me of my absence that night.”

I stared at him blankly as he laughed at what was obviously a long-running conversation. The boisterous sound echoed around our box, and his eyes sparkled merrily by the time he turned back to Elizabeth.

“Come along, Hermit,” the Collector said, sweeping by our seats. “Demur’s elite are gathered here for the gala. There is a reception in the hall, and it is a time to see and be seen.”

Oh goody. Mingling.

Aphrodite, her eye-candy, and her council accompanied the Collector out. The twins, the Traveler, and Elizabeth rose to follow, and Nathanial held his hand out to me. I reached out, remembering too late about the gaping hole in my glove.

He lifted an eyebrow, staring at the ruined glove.

Oops. I winced, stripping off the gloves. I looked around for somewhere to stash them before anyone else saw the damage I’d done. There was nowhere. Oh well, can’t be helped. I tossed the balled up gloves over the balcony ledge.

Nathanial stared at me like I’d just sprouted whiskers, and I flashed him a sheepish smile. Shaking his head, he took my now bare hand and led me from the box.

“You like it here,” I whispered as we made our way to the reception hall.

He shrugged. “The orchestra was quite talented.”

That wasn’t what I meant. I bet he knew it, too.

The small hallway from our box emptied into a room filled with Demur’s rich and powerful. I scanned the crowd of tuxes and gowns—no one was wearing leather. Or chains. Or electrical tape. Even in its elaborate up-do, my tri-colored hair stood out, but Nathanial fit right in. The Collector and Aphrodite stood amid a crowd of humans, both holding glasses of champagne they couldn’t drink. Nathanial joined the group, and the smile that touched his lips was more genuine than his typical masked expression as he joined the conversation.

“While it is incontrovertible that Beethoven’s early works were influenced by Haydn and Mozart, his later—”

I backed away as Nathanial spoke. I couldn’t contribute to the conversation—hell, I couldn’t even follow it.

My feet itched to pace, and the skin on the back of my neck felt too tight, like someone was staring at me. I need to get out of here. Except there was nowhere to go. Avoiding both the vamps and the highbrow humans, I stopped in front of a painting, pretending to study it.

“An interesting commentary on society, don’t you agree?” a male voice asked behind me. Aphrodite’s second in command, the General, stepped closer, pointing at the painting. “See how the child in white is the only civilized person at the luncheon?”

Right. “Excuse me.”

I grabbed two fistfuls of my full skirt, and lifting it from the ground, negotiated my way to one of the alcoves in the corner of the room. The alcove wasn’t large, maybe two feet deep and only partially shadowed, but it separated me from the mingling peacocks and penguins.

I leaned into the darkest corner, pulling the skirt of my dress in so the shadows covered me. I needed to talk to Gil.

We needed to plan how to search for evidence of tagged humans, or ‘city-shifters,’ as the hunters called them. I was considering whether I had room to call Gil without anyone noticing, when a man backed into the alcove and stumbled into me.

“Hey!”

He jumped. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know this hiding spot was taken.”

“I’m not hiding,” I mumbled, pushing off the wall.

The look of polite apology on his face warmed as I stepped out of the shadow. “Of course you’re not hiding,” he said, running his fingers through his perfectly styled hair. He was around my age, and dimples appeared in his cheeks when he flashed me a wolfish grin. “I hate these events too. My father always insists I come. He has since I turned eighteen. This is my usual alcove, when I don’t just sneak out. If this arch could talk…” He shook his head, chuckling at some memory.

“I’m Justin.”

He held out a hand, rolling his shoulders back so his already wide chest became more prominent. Preening and posing like a bird.

I accepted his handshake reluctantly, and even though I was well fed, my pulse raced to match his at his touch. “Kita,” I said, retrieving my hand before my instincts decided it was snack time.

Justin was attractive, but I’d spent the last few weeks with carved-from-marble-gorgeous Nathanial and ruggedly handsome Bobby. Heck, then there was Tatius with his intense eyes and the power that practically leaked out of him, and all of Aphrodite’s fawning male eye candy, who ran around her mansion half naked. I was at the saturation point for attractive men, and Justin just didn’t measure up to the competition. That fact must have shown on my face, because Justin’s dimples faded.

“That’s Justin Morgan, by the way,” he said, propping one elbow against the arch. “As in Morgan Suites, the national hotel chain.”

I’d never heard of it, but I nodded anyway. The skin along my spine tingled, the sensation irritating enough I had to resist the urge to massage my neck. It was like someone was staring—except I was in an alcove with my back to the wall.

No one could be staring.

“Right.” Justin straightened, dropping his arm. His sudden awkwardness as he backed up a step made him look even younger. “Nice meeting you. Guess I’ll sequester a different alcove.”

“Wait.” I tried to shake off the unnerving feeling as I focused on Justin again. “You said you sneak out sometimes? Is there a way to come and go without notice?” If I could sneak away long enough to have a couple minutes to talk to Gil without the danger of being overheard…?

Justin paused. “Yeah, but you have to know how to disarm the alarm. Which,” he raised his shoulders, his hands sliding into his pockets. “I happen to know how to do. Are we getting out of here?” The last was said with a smile, his earlier confidence restored.

We? I glanced around the edge of the arched wall.

Nathanial still stood amid a crowd, his smile real as he inclined his head, conceding a point to the woman speaking.

The Collector and Aphrodite stood beside him, animatedly involved with the conversations if their body language was any indication, but I saw the Collector’s accessing glance sweep over Nathanial, the smugness pinching her lips. They’ll be at that a while. No one would notice if I disappeared for half an hour.

Besides, the feeling of wrongness crawling down my back had turned incessant, and the need to move and do something, anything, had me rocking on my toes. I smiled at Justin.

“Yes, let’s go.”

“Are you here with someone we need to avoid being seen by?” he asked as he led me out of the alcove..

“Several, actually.”

“Blood red isn’t the sneakiest color. You couldn’t have worn a black gown, could you?”

I didn’t have any response to that one. What looked like just another alcove turned out to be a stairwell. He pushed open the door, ushering me in quickly. Then he led me down six flights of stairs—with me in a ball gown. And heels. At the bottom of the stairs waited a fire exit. The red bar across the door proclaimed that an alarm would sound if opened, but Justin turned to a keypad beside the door and punched in a code. Then he took a deep breath and shoved the bar.

No alarm sounded, and Justin’s relieved breath rush out of him.

“See. I’m a pro,” he said, his confident smile at odds with the excited race of his heart I could almost feel crashing against his chest in the small stairwell. He gave a small bow, holding open the door. “Your freedom awaits, my lady.”

I rushed by him, taking the frozen outside steps two at a time.

“Hey, wait up,” he called behind me. Not that it took him long to catch up.

The steps led to an alley behind the concert hall. I could hear traffic on the street, but the alley was quiet, deserted. It would be the perfect place to call Gil. If Justin weren’t present.