A Call of Vampires (A Shade of Vampire #51)(24)

Three Lamias dressed in fine red silk dresses hovered around Patrik, sipping from their spiced rose drinks and giving him seductive smiles. He smiled back, and I couldn’t help but feel my stomach churn. Of course he’d be more likely to be interested in Lamias—they were so beautiful, so downright sexy, and confident in their revealing outfits, their lovely reddish scales covering their arms and backs.

And I was… Well, I was me. Fast, always talking, almost never able to focus on something for more than five minutes at once, restless, and blunt. My brown hair was always in a ponytail, and no one, other than my parents, had ever seen it loose. My dress was long, tight and a faded shade of blue chiffon, snug on my curves with a discreet, rectangular neckline—it was nothing compared to what the Lamias were wearing. And the slight Scottish accent I’d inherited didn’t help either. I could hear the Lamias’ soft voices from across the dancefloor, by the opposite wall from where I was, their words pouring out melodiously toward Patrik.

“Dance with us, Patrik,” one of them said, winking at him. “You’ve been alone for too long, and you know we’d be more than happy to put a smile on your face…”

All three of them, I thought to myself, feeling my eyebrows jump. I held my breath, wondering if Patrik would take them up on their offer. There was a lot of subtext beneath that dance invitation, clearly.

“Thank you.” He gave them a polite nod and a half-smile. “But I’m not a good dancer, and you would end up frustrated, and with throbbing feet.”

The Lamias giggled but stayed around, chatting and occasionally glancing at Patrik, while he focused on his conversations with Draven and Serena. Ori and Malachy eventually took two of the Lamias for a spin on the dancefloor, while the third lingered by the spiced rosewater next to Patrik, where the succubi’s proprietary celebratory drink poured out of a beautiful silver fountain, beckoning anyone to help themselves.

But then something unexpected happened. Patrik’s gaze left the conversation and moved around the hall, and stopped when it found me. I felt my heart skip a beat. I looked away, pretending to watch Avril and Fiona dancing with their incubus partners. My cheeks burned as I glanced back at Patrik after half a minute, and noticed he was once again focused on Draven.

I exhaled, feeling like a third grader who’d just been noticed by her crush. Well, I could’ve replaced the “third grader” with my name and gotten a more accurate description. My gaze settled on him for a good minute, wondering what his touch would feel like on my face, when Patrik looked directly at me again. His blue eyes captured mine, sending chills and heatwaves down my spine at the same time.

I held my breath, unable to look away. I lost track of time. It could have been a minute or a second. I couldn’t tell. All I could see were two pools of intense blue peering into my very soul, as my pulse went on a rampage.

Patrik then straightened his back and started walking toward me, a sea of dancing people still left between us. I wondered what he was doing and whether he was actually coming to talk to me. Or was he going to ask me to dance with him? My heart fluttered and stomped around in my chest like a bipolar tempest, stricken with panic and excitement all at once.

“You’re not standing idly by for another minute!” The voice of Jovi’s brother Dmitri pierced through from my right, and I momentarily broke eye contact with Patrik.

“Huh? What?” I managed.

Dmitri was grinning, mischievous as usual, almost a carbon copy of Jovi. He took my hand and dragged me onto the dancefloor. I couldn’t help but laugh as he spun me around, and I tried to keep up without losing my balance and falling flat on my face.

He always did that. He hated seeing me alone and enjoyed making me laugh. Dmitri was also a good dancer and one of the few creatures in The Shade who knew how much I actually loved to dance, as he’d accidentally seen me rehearsing some tango moves with Arwen after her trip to Argentina a few years back.

I realized then that Dmitri’s distraction had taken my focus away from Patrik, who’d been moving through the crowd, and I’d been tempted to think he’d been headed toward me. I quickly looked around and saw him standing quietly on the edge of the dancefloor, glancing around. Dmitri held me, then turned me around in a broad pirouette. I got a quick glimpse of Patrik, our eyes meeting again for a split second.

Then I lost sight of him once more, and when I found him again, he was already walking back to Draven and Serena. I looked at Dmitri, who was beaming as he led me through the dance, and couldn’t help but think that he’d popped up to take me dancing at the wrong time.

“I told you, I’m not letting this evening pass without seeing you dance.” Dmitri smirked, his boyish expression making me giggle. In many ways he’d been like a little brother to me, as he’d grown up without Jovi and Aida and had felt the need for a sibling.

“All you had to do was let me stand there, and someone would’ve eventually asked me to dance. You didn’t have to take matters into your own hands,” I said.

“Yeah, right, liar! You’ve been turning people down all afternoon.” Dmitri winked. “Tell that to someone who doesn’t know you!”

I laughed, partly at his uncanny deduction, but mostly at myself for thinking that Dmitri might have actually inadvertently stopped Patrik from asking me to dance. As soon as I looked around again, I saw the Druid talking to the Lamia by the spiced rosewater fountain. They were smiling and clinking glasses.