CHANDELIERS BLAZED above them, spilling fractured light across gowns, velvet, and gleaming masks. The crowd had only grown wilder, champagne flashing in crystal as if the night itself were determined to keep reveling long past its welcome.
Mailah's lips still tingled. Her skin still burned where Grayson had touched her, seared as though he had left invisible bruises she'd never be rid of.
Every step at his side made her dizzy with the memory of his mouth, his hands, the way he'd said "that's how" like a promise and a threat wrapped in silk.
She should have been furious. She was furious. And yet—her pulse thrummed in time with his. The bond, unspoken and unwanted, coiled tighter.
"What did you mean," she whispered as they slipped through a cluster of guests and jeweled sleeves, "by 'costs far more than I'd ever want to pay'?"
Grayson didn't answer right away.
