Chapter 46

Idon't know how we got through the introductions and into the auction. I blinked and I had a catalogue in my hand, and Alastor was standing proud and smug on the stage that'd been built at the far end of the marquee, guests murmuring as he announced the auction for a signed Lakers jersey. I hadn't bid on anything and I didn't plan to. I was counting down the minutes until I could run home to Lawrence Hall as soon as possible. Or I'd beg Miz to take me to the castle, where I could hide behind the shields and cry my heart out.

My best friend had lied to me. He didn't have a boyfriend. He'd been absent so often it was strange. And there was a cloaked madman stalking the grounds of Ford, threatening and killing people. I didn't want to connect the dots, but I couldn't help it. Honey's words burrowed deep into my brain.

She stood on the stage beside Alastor now, handing him items to display with a smile fixed on her face, the curve of her cheeks visibly strained. They'd already raised a hundred thousand pounds with three lots, and satisfaction radiated from Alastor as he presented items like a king looking down on his lowly subjects. I hated him.

No matter what I thought about Byron, and even if I'd seen him slip something under my door—if he was the Assassin—I knew it was Alastor calling me, texting me threats, grating my nerves to shreds. The messages echoed his threats from the graveyard, when he threw me up against the mausoleum.

Miz snagged a flute of champagne from a roving waiter and handed it to me, tucking me tighter into his side. "Tor should be here soon."

I glanced up at him, taking a sip of champagne and wincing at its sweetness. "Sick of me already?"

Miz replied with a throaty sound. "I'd spend my life with you if you let me."

"Who says I won't?"

His eyes softened, icy blue but unfathomably warm. "Let's go. You've shown your support of Honey."

"I don't feel good about leaving her with Alastor" I admitted, glancing at the stage.

"Why?" Miz's tone changed, like sharp steel. "Has he done something to you?"

"It's fine. It was only once, and he's stayed away from me ever since—"

A lethal sound rattled his throat and he jerked forward, like he'd rip Alastor limb from limb right here, with an audience. I caught his sleeve and held it tight.

"Don't. Miz, please. I need you here with me."

His wrathful expression didn't change, but he stopped charging through the crowd. "Fine, but I want you as far away from him as possible. And he will meet the consequences of harming you." He brushed my cheek with the backs of his fingers, a strange mix of affection and murder in his eyes. "No one hurts my wife."

I swooned, even with my heart broken over Byron's lies—and the texts he'd ignored from both me and Honey tonight.

"Not going to beg me to spare him?" Miz asked, a black eyebrow raised.

"No," I replied, and watched his eyes flash.

His arm tightened around me, drawing me closer so his lips could brush my ear. "The only reason I'm not ripping that beguiling dress off you right here, in front of all these people, and fucking you until you scream my name for all to hear, is because I don't want him to see."

I sucked in a breath, tingles rushing down my neck and across my chest.

"Otherwise," he continued, not entirely keeping his voice down, "you'd be gasping as you struggled to take my cock all the way inside your hot little cunt right now. I wouldn't give you time to adjust, or make sure you're ready for me. I'd take you the way I want, because you—" He bit my ear lobe. "Are." Scraped his teeth down my throat. "Mine."

"Oh, god," I gasped.

I caught Honey's gaze when Miz drew back, looking far too pleased with how affected I was, and I gave her a silent signal that I was leaving. Are you okay? I asked with a look.

I'm fine, go be ravished by your hot husband, she replied with a roll of her eyes.

"Let's go," I said and caught Miz's hand, leading him through the crowd and into the sharp cold. The sun had mostly set now, and a low mist had crept in, weaving around the trunks of evergreens, obscuring the pegs holding up the marquee until it looked like a scene from a fairy tale. Around us, the fog in the air caught the glow of fairy lights and diffused it until the whole space was full of hazy, magical illumination. It was romantic, and the perfect place to stop and tug Miz close for a slow, heated kiss.

"I'm going to bury myself so deep inside you that you'll never get me out," he panted against my lips, his eyes like shadowed ice. "I'm going to fill every aching, desperate hole in your body until you're wrecked and messy and pleading with me to stop. I'll write my name on your pussy in my cum and you can write your name wherever you want in my blood—"

"I'm not making you bleed," I breathed, my head spinning, my pussy pounding with head and furious need.

"Spoilsport," he said with a pout. "You've drawn my blood once before."

"I hated you then."

His eyes softened, lights twinkling in their depths. "But not anymore?"

"No," I said, linking my hands behind his neck. "Not anymore."

He dipped his head for another kiss, but jerked back with a low, threatening sound. "There. The one you call the Assassin."

My breath caught, the sudden chill clearing out the heat of our kisses, and I saw what Miz had seen—a cloaked, hooded figure slinking down the side of the marquee and into the shadows.

I didn't stop to think; I chased after them, my heart pounding in my chest. Please don't be Byron, please don't be—

I skidded around the side of the marquee, Miz catching me before I tripped, and stared at the empty space. "He's playing with us."

"Nightmare is," Miz corrected, his hands tightening on my waist. "We need to go. Something's happening tonight and I don't want you involved."

I stared at the empty stretch of grass, and as much as I wanted to search the woods, the lake, and every building on campus until I found the hooded figure, I didn't want to know. I wanted to cling to the last few scraps of doubt. It could be someone else. It might not be Byron.

"This way, Cat," Misery said, something flat in his voice now. I wrapped my arm around his back, pulling him close. My own voice did that sometimes when I was overwhelmed.

"Miz?"

"We need to go this way," he echoed, guiding me past the marquee and down the back of the laboratory building, the warm lights falling away here until the fog seemed less magical and more threatening. The twisted silhouettes of topiaries looked like watchful figures. I remembered the first time I met the guys, when fog had crept across the moors as Nightmare hunted me. I remembered her howl of frustration when Death stopped her with a veil of dark magic.

"Okay," I soothed Miz, stroking his back. I didn't know what had triggered his panic, but I could guess. The lake was too close here, and his memories must have been eating at him. "It's okay, we'll go this way."

"Do you trust me?" he asked, trembling.

"Yes," I answered without hesitation. I might not have trusted him two months ago, but I did now. He was an asshole sometimes, but he'd never physically hurt me. He'd never lied to me, unlike Byron. Did I still trust By…? I couldn't answer that question until I spoke to him and found out what was going on.

It could be something innocent. He might not be working for Nightmare, stalking Ford students. I prayed for another explanation.

Miz led me across the manicured field where the garage sat, Rosalind Woods hugging the right edge of it. I kept my arm around him, kept him close for comfort, for warmth as the biting wind cut through my tulle dress. My fingers were so numb I could barely feel my silver clutch against my palm.

I scanned the field, and startled when I saw we weren't the only ones here—ahead of us, strolling towards the garage was a squat female figure in a butter-yellow gown, her bronze skin luminous in the moonlight and long brown hair like a ribbon of silk down her back. For a moment, my heart stuttered and I thought it was Darya, but Darya was dead. I killed her.

I hugged Miz tighter, shivering against the cold both inside and outside my body. I wished Tor and Death were here, too, wanted them all at my back, wanted the safety of knowing they were with me.

"Are you okay?" I asked Miz.

Ahead of us, the woman in the yellow dress turned at the sound. My breath strangled in my throat.

I shook my head, staring at the woman, time slowing until she faced forward and began to run.

It was impossible. I stabbed her. She died. Death had to dispose of her body. But there was no denying it. The woman in the yellow dress was Darya.

I didn't stop to think. I ran after her.