Chapter 4: Not Your Bride

I got dressed while Tristan stood outside the door.

Lucian buttoned his shirt without a word, and through the bond I felt him checking me, a quiet pulse of is she all right.

I sent one back.

Yes.

I opened the door myself.

Tristan stood in the hall in his ceremony black, with two Lowell guards at his back and Bridget behind them, hugging her elbows.

He looked at me.

Then he breathed in, and I watched the smile fall off his face.

"What did you do?" he said.

"I drew a key," I said. "It's four o'clock soon. Shall we go?"

His jaw worked.

The guards looked at each other, because they could smell it too.

Smoke and cold rain, and under it, my own scent, tangled together.

Nobody in that hall needed to be told what a bond smelled like.

"Margo," Bridget said, in her small voice. "Tell me you didn't."

"You'd know," I said, "if you were keeping an eye on him for me."

She went quiet.

Lucian came out of the room behind me and shut the door.

He did not touch me.

He stood close enough that the whole hall could see which side I was standing on.

Tristan's eyes went to the mark on my neck.

"Fine," he said softly. "Let's go and tell the Hierarchy."

Half an hour later we were in the Lowell house on Fifth Avenue, and every candle in it was lit.

Two hundred vampires filled the great hall, the old families in black, their eyes catching the candles.

At the far end sat Cornelius Lowell in a high chair, silver-haired and polite, with his hands folded.

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