Forbidden Honor (Dragon Royals #1)(66)

But there would be time to sort that out later, because my stepmother swept in briefly, with a pinched look on her face.

I was very familiar with that look. Alis almost always had it when it came to anything involving me, and she was probably not very happy that I had gone missing when she intended to parade me around. She glanced around, looking far less satisfied than usual to have five such august heroes drinking her booze, then minced angrily out.

“I’ll be back,” I said.

“No rush,” Lynx said magnanimously.

I offered him a sweet smile before I remembered Lucien wasn’t likely to give him any such thing, even sardonically. Eventually, Lynx was going to get tired of being such a dickhead, wasn’t he? The Lynx I met in the library instead of the training yard seemed like a sweetheart. Maybe Branok had the magical effect of turning Lynx into a monster.

Or maybe they had their reasons for hating me. Maybe Honor could charm one of the Golden Twins—ha, that did not seem promising—and wiggle the truth out of them. If not, I needed to find Alina and uncover exactly what her story was. No one was likely to let me chitchat with her, given whose face I was wearing at the moment, so perhaps it would have to be Honor who squirreled into her life. But I had to try. I had to know exactly what had happened.

I walked into the corridor and glanced around, making my way toward the back of the house where the servants’ stairs were. There was a constant rattle of dishes and prattle of voices coming from the kitchen. All hands were downstairs making Alis’ party magical. When the stairway was clear, I slipped up the servants’ stairs to reach the second floor.

I darted into Honor’s room, hoping that anyone who saw me would assume once again that I was having an illicit tryst with myself.

Honestly, now that I’d had my first orgasms with Talisyn and Jaik, I wished I had had more trysts with myself all along.

If it weren’t for the annoyance of the men that I had to deal with now, and the precarious nature of life as Lucien Finn, I’d be in a much happier mood now that I was beginning to have regular orgasms.

I hurried into my gleaming white bathroom to wash away the stink that clung to me. Even after I scrubbed my body twice, that odor lingered in my nostrils. I hastily sprayed on some perfume, hoping that it was just my imagination. The monster and the corpse in the labyrinth would probably haunt me.

A long red gown with a diving neckline and beautiful, billowing skirts hung from one of the hooks in my bedroom.

It was truly beautiful. Although my complaints about my stepmother were many and varied, there were some things that she did well. She certainly knew how to dress.

It was sexy—sexier than I probably would have picked out for myself.

And I was thrilled to wear it in front of the guys.

I wanted to have an effect on them. I wanted to drive them wild and make them want me. Even if I didn’t exactly want them right now.

In that nightmare down below, I came face to face with my deepest childhood fears: monsters, enclosed spaces, drowning, all in one particularly unsavory evening, and I knew who I had to thank for the terror that still clung to me.

The memory of Talisyn’s face as he closed the door, of Jaik, and the others pausing as they let me continue forward to my doom, might haunt my nightmares, too.

But maybe not. Not if I took my power back, not if I made them pay. I’d been stalked by a monster—and worse, by my own panic—tonight, but I’d also murdered a monster.

Maybe someday, I’d be able to murder the fear that sat like a knot choking my throat.

I raked my hand through my long, red hair, which was only faintly damp by now. If only I was confident enough in my ability to wield flames without lighting myself on fire; I didn’t want to leave the faintest connection between Honor and Lucien.

I opened my jewelry cabinet and looked for my favorite gold and jade bracelets, the ones that Honor didn’t dare wear as a maid, but I couldn’t find them. I had to settle for a simpler golden set. Then I gave myself a final once-over in the mirror. My hair cascaded around my shoulders, and my cheeks were pink, my eyes wide. My face was innocent, but the way this dress clung to my curves channeled my mischievous side.

This time, I strode gracefully down the sweeping stairs with my shoulders back, my chin held high. The interior doors downstairs had been pushed open, turning our entryway, dining room, ballroom and receiving rooms into one enormous ballroom, dripping with brightly colored flowers.

The guys had finally left their whiskey to rejoin the party. Talisyn was dancing with someone, smiling down at her, but when he saw me, he came to a dead stop. He forgot to twirl her and she tripped, caught his arm, glared at him. But he didn’t even notice.

Lynx stared at me, his mouth agape, until Branok cuffed him in the back of the head. But I’d caught a glimpse of the desire written across Branok’s face, a second of raw longing before he caught himself.

Even Arren gave me a second glance, his eyes widening faintly before they narrowed, as if he saw this dress as a threat.

The sense of power that flooded me was a welcome relief to how I’d felt the rest of the night. I reached the bottom of the stairs just as Talisyn reached me, and I smiled up at him, struck by how quickly he’d abandoned his dancing partner.

“Honor, you look beautiful today.” Talisyn’s gaze was admiring, the look on his face very different from when he slammed the door, shutting me into the realm of nightmares.