Chapter 183: Contemplating Murder

Kairo:

If I thought the night couldn’t possibly get any worse, I was spectacularly wrong.

"Looking rather lonely, Kairo." Aria Cross’s voice slid into my ears like honey poured over something rotten, and before I could turn around, she had attached herself to my arm, pressing close enough that I could feel the warmth of her body through my suit. "You know, you could at least pretend to be happy to see your girlfriend."

She tilted her face toward me, her glossy lips curving into a seductive smile as she ran her fingers down my sleeve, making certain that anyone watching us would have no difficulty understanding precisely how close we supposedly were.

Ever since that kiss, she had become insufferable, parading around with the confidence of a woman who believed she had secured her place beside me. The sight of her should have been unremarkable. Instead, it reminded me of the single most idiotic decision I had made in years, and the moment her fingers tightened around my arm, my stomach twisted with an instinctive revulsion I could no longer ignore.

I pulled my arm free so abruptly that her hand slipped off my sleeve, then stepped back before she could cling to me again. "Don’t do that." My voice was quiet, but the warning in it was unmistakable. "I made myself perfectly clear, Aria. I have no interest in you, and that kiss didn’t change anything between us."

Her smile faltered for half a second before she recovered, lifting her chin and angling her body toward me with calculated confidence. "Perhaps you should stop making decisions before you have given me a proper chance, Kairo."

She let her gaze travel over my face, her voice dropping into something deliberately intimate. "You haven’t even tried to know what I could offer you. I could be exactly the woman you need beside you, if you would only let me prove it."

She stepped closer, her perfume surrounding me, and I felt the beginnings of a headache pulsing behind my temples. Her desperation was practically written across her face, and I didn’t need my family’s political instincts to understand the arrangement unfolding before me. The Cross family had seen an opportunity in that kiss and decided tonight was the perfect occasion to turn it into an engagement without anyone having to say the word aloud.

When she reached for my hand again, I withdrew it before her fingertips could touch mine.

"I did give you a chance," I told her, staring directly into her eyes. "And I discovered that you are not the kind of woman I want beside me." Her expression hardened, but I wasn’t finished. "That single kiss was enough to tell me everything I needed to know. Neither my brain nor my body accepted you, Aria. Not for a second."

The words landed exactly as brutally as I intended, leaving no room for her to twist them into a promise or mistake my politeness for hesitation.

"So stop parading around as if you are my girlfriend. You are not. You won’t be. And whatever story your family has decided to tell themselves about us, make certain they understand that I will never marry someone because her relatives think my name would look attractive beside hers."

Her face flushed, the seductive mask cracking to reveal the humiliation beneath it. For a moment, she looked as though she might slap me. Then her eyes narrowed, filling with furious disbelief.

"You are a complete jerk," she spat, spinning on her heel and storming away, her heels striking the polished floor with enough force to announce her anger to half the room.

I exhaled slowly, feeling considerably better. At least one disaster had been dealt with. Unfortunately, the universe apparently wasn’t satisfied with my suffering, because when I lifted my gaze a moment later, I saw Lorien Moonveil making his way toward Elara.

And then the bastard asked her for the first dance of the evening.

I stood far enough away that nobody could accuse me of deliberately eavesdropping, but close enough to see the subtle changes in Elara’s expression as Lorien stopped before her. She looked composed when he offered his hand, yet something shifted in her eyes, a flicker of tension that hadn’t been there when she had addressed the entire gathering moments earlier.

She hesitated for the briefest instant before placing her hand in his, and I watched Lorien draw her toward him with the effortless confidence of a man who had never once doubted that the world would make room for him.

What unsettled me wasn’t the dance itself. It was the way Elara struggled to meet his gaze, the way Lorien looked at her as if the crowded ballroom had disappeared and left only the two of them standing beneath the chandeliers.

Then his palm settled against her bare lower waist.

My fingers tightened around my wineglass. A sharp crack sounded beneath my grip, and I immediately loosened my hand before I shattered the damn thing in front of half of Starfall’s nobility.

The lights dimmed, the music transitioned into a slower, more intimate melody, and the room gradually turned its attention toward the couple taking the floor. The former royal prince and the current royal princess. The last Moonveil and the last Argentis. Even without knowing the complicated history between them, the symbolism was enough to make every noble within sight lean forward with interest.

But I couldn’t spare a thought for their politics because Lorien was guiding Elara through the dance as though he’d memorized every breath she would take before she took it. He leaned down to whisper something near her ear, and she responded with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher. Then he said something else, and her lips parted in what looked suspiciously like a smile.

I hated it.

I hated the ease with which he held her, the way his hand rested against her waist as though it belonged there, and the quiet familiarity between them that I had somehow failed to notice before. Most of all, I hated the moment Elara finally lifted her eyes to his, because for one fleeting second, her silver gaze held an almost dreamy softness that made something vicious twist inside my chest.

I had seen her angry, stubborn, amused, exhausted, and heartbreakingly vulnerable, but that expression belonged to a part of her I had no right to demand access to anymore. I had thrown away the privilege of being the man she looked at like that. Knowing it didn’t make watching someone else receive it any easier.

"God, they look perfect together," a woman nearby whispered to her companion. "Look at the way he holds her. You would think they had been dancing together for years."

Another voice chimed in, praising how naturally the former prince and the Crown Princess complemented one another, and I was seconds away from relocating myself to a room where nobody could speak when I caught sight of Reign across the ballroom.

His expression could have frozen an entire lake. His blue eyes were fixed on Lorien’s hand at Elara’s waist, his jaw so tightly clenched that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he cracked a tooth. The sight offered me a small, bitter consolation. At least I wasn’t the only one contemplating murder over a perfectly ordinary dance.

Five interminable minutes later, the music finally ended. The ballroom erupted in applause, and Lorien escorted Elara from the floor with the same infuriating composure with which he had claimed the first dance.

Before I could decide whether to congratulate him on surviving Reign’s glare, the musicians launched into something livelier, and the crowd flooded the dance floor. Jasper stepped forward to take Elara’s hand, and she accepted without hesitation, allowing her blood knight to guide her into the next dance.

That was easier to watch. Jasper was safe, familiar, and utterly devoted to her, and the way Elara relaxed around him reminded me that she still had people she trusted. People who hadn’t made her feel disposable for the sake of some misguided lesson.

I stayed where I was, pretending to listen to conversations while keeping track of every dance, every partner, and every time Elara stepped away to rest. I wasn’t going to be another man who demanded more from her than she could give. When she finally left the floor for a brief break, I saw Jasper offer her a glass of water and murmur something that made her roll her eyes.

Fifteen minutes passed before the music shifted again, returning to a softer melody as the lights dimmed until the dance floor lay beneath a wash of shadows and muted gold. I watched Elara thank Jasper, then turn toward the edge of the room, clearly intending to step away before another partner could approach her.

That was my moment.

I crossed the distance before I could talk myself out of it, slipping between two guests just as Elara reached the edge of the dance floor. Her attention was elsewhere when I caught her hand, but the instant her fingers tightened in surprise, I drew her toward me. She stumbled one step, and I caught her before she could lose her balance, pulling her straight against my chest.

The warmth of her body met mine. Her familiar scent filled my lungs, and every carefully rehearsed word I had planned vanished from my mind.

For the first time that night, I had Eleanora Argentis in my arms.

And I wasn’t ready to let go.