The Homecoming Masquerade (Girls Wearing Black: Book One)

Chapter 27

  He brought darkness with him. His presence felt cold but his touch was full of life-giving warmth. He took her hand and drew her close. She smelled him before she really saw him. Sure, her eyes registered his porcelain skin, his bright blue eyes behind the black mask, his perfect nose, his perfect lips, his perfect teeth…

  But what really caught her in those first seconds was the intoxicating scent. It was like cloves and vanilla, a fresh, healthy smell, the clean air on a mountaintop, the sort of scent you didn’t sniff but rather inhaled.

  Nicky was filling her lungs with the smell of him when a small voice from the deepest recesses of her brain sounded the alarm: humans don’t smell like this.

  That voice was enough to shake her mind loose from its trance and allow her to look at her partner’s face. Shoulder-length black hair, tight, rigid muscles behind his face and neck, a haunting look in his eyes.

  Her new partner was Sergio Alonzo. She was dancing with a vampire, and he was doing something to her.

  With that realization came a rush of panic. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was immune. She had resisted Melissa Mayhew, the best hypnotist in the Samarin clan. Surely she could resist Sergio Alonzo.

  Couldn’t she?

  She felt like she was falling – losing herself to his presence, to his strength, the feel of his body on hers…

  They were dancing, soaring around the floor, enveloped in the music. He moved with perfect confidence and control and Nicky had no choice but to follow. She could feel her body slipping into ever deeper submission to his. Her mind was in a daze, conscious thoughts brief and broken. She saw the dance floor as if from above, from out of her own body, looking down at herself and her partner, moving in such perfect unison that they were no longer two people, but a single being, their bodies intertwined, their movements one with the music. She imagined her own body held closer to his, held tightly in his arms, and he made it happen.

  And the music. The gentle bouncing motion, waves in an ocean – he’s pulling me back to the water from which my life had come, back to the most basic, animal part of myself. He’s pulling me into a place where I throw aside manners, conventions, memories, rules, a place where I give reign to the creature that lay dormant inside me.

  The rhythm was everything now. One-two-three one-two-three one-two-three breathe-in-me.

  Those last words were like a whisper on the wind. What did they say?

  Breathe in me.

  It was a message. A signal from a part of Nicky she was about to lose.

  One two three, breathe in me. Breathe in me one two three one two three.

  She saw a picture in her mind, a bright silver ball with beams of sunlight bursting from all sides, and the image made her scared. It was the first of a deluge waiting to come out.

  Breathe in me.

  Something was wrong. Something inside her head, something put safely away, wanted to come out. It was hidden behind that bright silver ball. It spoke to her now, in her father’s voice.

  We’re going on an adventure, Nicky. We leave tonight.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “No?” said Sergio. “You deny me?”

  “You go too far,” Nicky said. The words were exhausting to her, as if every syllable was a brick she had to push from her throat.

  Sergio smiled. Such a beautiful smile. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

  “I go wherever I want,” he said.

  Breathe in me breathe in me one two three one two three.

  One two three turn two three breathe in me turn two three.

  She repeated the words to herself in time to the music. She was back in the ballroom, matching the words to the movement of her feet, trying to remain in the moment.

  Breathe in me.

  She was dancing. Dancing with her sworn enemy, coming back from the brink.

  She looked at him with fresh eyes. He was beautiful, nothing more. Just beautiful.

  Breathe in me.

  He smelled good, but it was just a smell.

  One-two-three, one-two-three, breathe in me, breathe in me.

  His body felt good next to hers, but she could control her desires.

  I can resist the taut muscles on his back, the perfect lines and curves of his body.

  “You’re fighting me,” Sergio whispered. “Why?”

  Her head still in a daze, she had no idea what to say to this question. So she told him the truth.

  “I don’t want to be your slave.”

  Like a dog on a leash, Sergio pulled her to a stop. The music still played, but Sergio and Nicky stood still. He looked right in her eyes.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I don’t want to be your slave. I want to be your equal. That’s why I wore black tonight.”

  She could tell by the way he was looking at her that this was a pivotal moment. She had not reacted as he expected her to. Now he was suspicious. If she didn’t play this exactly right, the entire mission was over.

  Breathe in me breathe in me – come on….breathe in me…

  Her pulse, her pupils, her breathing – Gia had warned her of this and she hadn’t prepared herself properly. Sergio had tried to get in her head and she had pushed him out. He knew.

  They began to dance again. Sergio was looking at her, appraising her.

  “You are a very interesting girl,” he said.

  “I am who I am. Perhaps you don’t normally encounter that with the girls wearing black.”

  “I most certainly don’t.”

  “Some of it’s your fault, you know.” She felt herself sliding into character. Nicky Bloom, the girl with the nerve to tell a vampire she wants to be his equal. Someone sassy. Someone fearless.

  “Please…enlighten me,” he said.

  “You just came in here with your delicious smell, your perfect body, your brooding face behind the mask, and then you swept me up. For a moment there, I would have been anyone you wanted me to be.”

  “But now you won’t?” Sergio asked. There was genuine curiosity in his voice.

  “I suppose that’s up to you,” Nicky said. “I have a feeling if you wanted to, you could turn on the charm to a degree I couldn’t resist no matter how hard I tried.”

  “Perhaps we’ll find out some day,” said Sergio. “For now, we will dance. I will lead.”

  And oh did he lead. For a few glorious minutes, they were a torrent of movement, and the sheer audacity of what they were doing ripped at Nicky’s heart. All that she thought she knew about herself and the character she was playing were called into question. Years of burning, vengeful hatred for these creatures, of desire for justice, of memory – all of it became clouded in those moments, and the best she could do was hold on.

  “Do you know why I come to the Masquerade?” Sergio asked.

  Yes. She did know why he came. He came to dance with her, and the other girls wearing black. He makes them come to their own funeral.

  Nicky shook her head.

  “I am supposed to get inside your head and command you to remain loyal to the contest to the bitter end. And when I am done, I am supposed to leave you with a mark.”

  “A mark? What kind of mark?”

  “You’re being coy,” said Sergio. “But I like that. You know what kind of mark. Would you like to have it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nicky. “Is your work with me complete?”

  “It isn’t,” said Sergio. “You pushed me out. If I am to place the command in your mind, you’ll have to allow me back in. Do you intend to do that?”

  “I don’t,” said Nicky.

  “Then it will be our little secret that I left you alone,” said Sergio. “Just make sure you don’t lose the contest.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t lose.”

  Sergio smiled, and Nicky felt herself swoon back into the trance. Had the music continued, she might have lost herself completely.

  But the music stopped. The sound of silen
ce was like an alarm waking Nicky from a deep sleep.

  She looked up and Sergio was gone. A white orchid corsage was pinned to her chest.