Shadow's End (Elder Races, #9)(8)

His mouth compressed in a smile as he straightened. “I disagree. The whereabouts of every beautiful woman’s husband is of immense concern to me. My darling radiance, this year, please say you’ll be mine.”

He was so outrageous, despite herself, she felt her lips pull into a responding smile. “You only want what you can’t have.”

“You never know,” he said, with dangerous gentleness. “Eternity might be captured in a single kiss.”

“Not your eternity,” she told him dryly. “And not my kiss.”

“If I still had a heart, it would be broken at how you spurn me,” he murmured. “I could give you so much pleasure, more than you have ever dreamed of, if only you would let me.”

Her eyes narrowed. She remembered Oberon when he was much younger, but something had happened to him over the course of the centuries. Perhaps it was an event, or maybe it was just the inevitable march of time.

Whatever had caused the change, the young, smiling Fae King that he had once been was gone. He had grown icy and distant, and his dark eyes glittered like hard onyx. She had heard whispers that his cold, compelling Power could bring his lovers to a screaming ecstasy, only to leave them at dawn, shattered and weeping in desolation at his absence.

She had been shattered enough in her time. She had no intention of deliberately choosing to experience that again.

Easing her fingers out of his grip, she glanced sidelong across the dance floor at the stern profile of her husband, Calondir, High Lord of the Elven demesne, as he talked with a couple wearing matching satyrs’ costumes. As Oberon had observed, Calondir did not glance once in her direction.

She was quite content that it remain that way.

“Don’t worry,” said Oberon, catching the direction of her attention. “He has displayed a perfectly perplexing indifference to my flirtation with you.”

Calondir wasn’t the only one who was displaying a perfectly perplexing indifference to Oberon, who was tantalizing and goading in return. Again, she was reminded of a snow cat, batting at her in frustration with one paw. It wanted to play with prey.

But she was not, nor would she ever be, Oberon’s prey.

“I can’t think of a single reason why either Calondir or I should be troubled by your flirtations.” She gave the Unseelie King a bland look. “Your party is beautiful as always, Oberon. You should go enjoy it while you can.”

His nostrils flared, and he exhaled with some leisurely force, emitting a barely audible growl. “Before I go, tell me—what would it take to win you?”

For a brief moment, her troubles fell to the side, and her smile widened into real amusement. “My dear winter’s night, you ask an impossible question that cannot be answered. There’s nothing that could win me.”

Behind the silver mask, his deadly gaze narrowed. “We’ll see, my darling radiance. Eternity gains more answers from us than we might wish.”

Despite her best effort at maintaining appearances, her smile slipped. She knew the worn anxiety she felt showed in her expression, but as luck would have it, Oberon’s attention had moved on.

As he stepped away, she moved also, picking up her pace as she strode along the edge of the dancing crowd.

Magic sparked and eddied, so thick and plentiful from the many types of Power present, that no matter how she tried, she couldn’t sort through it to find the one life spark she sought.

Certainty chilled her veins. She didn’t need Alanna or Lianne’s return to confirm what she already knew.

Ferion hadn’t come. He had broken his promise, and she knew where he had gone—to the one place he had sworn he wouldn’t. The place that would destroy him, if she could not find a way to stop him.

Determination hardened her jaw. If he couldn’t keep his promise to show up, why then, she would go to fetch him, by force if necessary.

She would need Alanna and Lianne in order to pull it off. Calondir mustn’t discover what was happening.

He might ignore Bel all he wished—and, the gods only knew, she welcomed his neglect—but she had said she would attend the masque, and if he realized she had gone missing, he might start asking questions that nobody wanted him to ask.

Intent on finding her attendants, she pivoted to go in the direction of the paths they had gone to search.

A lazy-seeming, good-natured mountain stepped in front of her. The wintry, elaborate masque disappeared from her sight, to be replaced by a waistcoat that covered a broad expanse of powerful chest. At the same moment, she was enfolded by a golden warmth.

All of the first generation of the Elder Races carried something of creation’s first fire. Graydon was no exception, and his Power rippled around his body in an invisible corona.

While Oberon’s chill Power might have no hold over Bel, stepping within the radius of Graydon’s warm aura was like coming close to the comfort of a warm, bright fire, and she felt her breath leave her in an involuntary sigh.

To be honest, the tailoring was rather indifferent on that very large waistcoat of his. It was so unlike Oberon’s or Calondir’s glittering elegance, she felt the most ridiculous desire to pat it.

She lifted her gaze to Graydon’s face. Smooth, classic handsomeness had passed him by. He had rough features, with a strong bone structure.

Eschewing the current fashion maintaining a pale, indoors complexion, he was clearly a man who relished the outdoors. The fact was stamped in the athletic shape of his muscular body and deeply suntanned skin. The sun had also lightened his short, tawny hair, and faint lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes.