Aftermath (22 page)

She pushed her lips
into a thin line. “No, Adriana. I can’t force you,” she said
with a practiced calm.

I exhaled a surprising
breath of relief and nodded. “Please, just go home. I will call you
tomorrow, after the ball, and we can talk about everything then.”

Everyone was looking at
me like I had said something taboo. And I met their glances with a
questionable one of my own. With fearful eyes, Elizabeth willed me to
stop. Were they really that afraid of Rachel? What loyalty did they
have to her? I looked at Hayden, who didn’t reveal one ounce of
emotion, then back at Rachel. Her eyes closed briefly before flashing
back open with sadness. She turned on her heel and walked toward the
door. “You are so much like your father.” The door slammed shut
behind her.

Everyone immediately
relaxed when she left.

I gave Hayden a look
that said he owed me one heck of an explanation.

“Go ahead, Hayden. We
need to have a little talk with Luke, anyway,” Christopher said
after reading my expression.

Hayden gave a curt nod
to Christopher before turning back to me, “Let’s talk upstairs.”
He held out his arm for me to lead and I hated the way he
deliberately avoided touching me.

The ding of the door
bell halted our ascent. “I’ll get it,” I said with a little
irritation in my voice that my mother had returned so soon.

Hayden’s ear titled
toward the door, “It’s not your mother.”

“Human?”

He nodded.

“I’ll get it,” I
said again. My mind was going over the possibilities of who it could
be as I opened the front door. “Marie,” I smiled at the nice
surprise.

She returned my smile.
“Hi. Were you expecting somebody else?”

“Kind of. Sorry, long
story.” My eyes darted to the garment bag she held in her arms. “Do
you want to come in?”

Her eyes floated behind
me to Hayden who was still on the stairs. “I'd better not.” Her
answer gave me more questions.

“Why not?” More
surprising was that she didn’t seem to have any questions for me.
Like she already knew. I hadn’t had the chance to talk to her since
I'd confirmed she was a voodoun.

“Are you still going
to the ball?” She ignored my question and it was becoming
increasingly difficult to read her.

“Yes, are you?” We
were still standing in the doorway.

She nodded. “I wanted
to bring this over to you.” She held out the garment bag for me to
take. When I didn’t reach for it, she added, “I know we talked
about this and I know you said you won’t wear it, but I’m giving
it to you anyway.”

“Marie, I can’t,”
I shook my head, “it’s like a family heirloom.” The dress was
in the chest that was passed down to her from her grandmother. I
couldn’t wear something that was so valuable to her. It was
practically an antique.

“The dress is yours.
I mean, it literally belonged to you.”

“I think I would have
remembered owning a dress like that.”

“You know exactly
what I mean, Ana.”

And I did. Because
something about the way she said that the dress was mine reverberated
in me. I was comfortable with her statement, like I knew that it was
true. It just seemed… familiar.

“How?”

“Just take the dress,
Ana.”

I nodded and took it, a
little shocked from her command.

“See you tonight.”
She started to leave my front porch.

“Marie?” I stopped
her.

“Yeah?” She paused,
turning back around.

“Nothing’s changed
between us, right?” I was suddenly afraid of losing her. Just when
our friendship was getting going, it had become awkward between us
and for some reason I thought it was because she knew about my Hunter
blood. I wanted to be there for her. I knew she was going through a
lot, discovering who, or what, she was. Even though I was now going
through the same thing, I still wanted to help her figure it all out.

“No, nothing’s
changed.”

As she was walking
away, I was hoping that that was true.

Hayden was still
waiting for me when I got back inside.

If something from Marie
and I’s conversation showed on my face, Hayden didn’t comment on
it. Instead, he just followed me upstairs where we could talk in
relative privacy.

“Why didn’t you
stand up for me?” I jumped right in to what hurt me the most.

“Ana, she’s your
mother. It wasn’t my place.”

“No, it wasn’t just
that. It was something more. Like when she told you who she was. When
she told you that I would be Queen.”

“Your mother is
basically a ruler in the underworld. In all my years, I have never
seen anyone go up against her. Or, at least, no one has lived to
disobey her. Especially not Hunters. What you are is far more than I
could have ever imagined.”

“So, what, we can’t
be together?” I said jokingly, but then saw his face. “What? We
can’t be together?”

Tears blurred my vision
before I knew it.

Hayden quickly rubbed
my shoulders, shushing me. “I didn’t say that. There just a few
more… complications.”

“Why are you avoiding
touching me?” I noticed how he didn’t hold me, rather just
comforted me at the bare minimum.

He dropped his arms and
turned away so I couldn’t see his face. “Ana, that’s
ridiculous.”

“No, it’s not. Look
at you, you can’t even say that to my face.”

His back remained
toward me.

“Is it true, then,
there's something about me being a princess, or whatever I am, that
is why you love me?” The realization hit me like a bucket of ice
water.

When Hayden turned
around, his green eyes were fierce. “I’ve loved you from the
first moment I saw you. When you were just Adriana Alexander. Human.
Not a future queen.”

The edges of my heart
burned. I felt like there was a lingering
but
to his
statement.

But
we can’t
be together.
But
this isn’t going to work out.
But
your mother will destroy me if this continues. That was what he was
going to say, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that the reason he had become so
cold toward me? Why he barely touched me?

“Then kiss me,
Hayden.”

“Ana,” he looked to
the heavens, struggling with something internally.

“Kiss me!” My voice
shook with anger, fear and desperation.

When he looked back at
me his eyes had fire in them. He closed the distant between us,
covered my mouth with his, and gave me a quick, punishing kiss. He
pulled back only to look at me. His dark hair was disheveled from my
hands, his lips bruised from my kiss. “Nothing, and no one, can
change how I feel about you.”

I nodded as he released
me.

“You'd better get
dressed if you are still bent on going to the school dance.”

I nodded. He left me
alone in my room with my thoughts and one heavy, Victorian dress.

When I finally
finished struggling to get into the dress, I looked over my work in
the mirror. The dress was even more beautiful than I remembered when
I first saw it that night at Marie’s. There was just one thing
missing.

The mask.

Laying on my bed was a
matching half-mask. It was beautifully detailed with dark purple and
black mesh fabric against a silver background. The silver peeked
through just enough to make it sparkle. It had a black velvet trim
with peacock feathers accentuating the right side. I picked up the
mask, admiring the enchantment and mystery that came with it.

“I guess it’s true,
then.”

I turned around to find
Luke leaning against my doorway.

“What’s true,
then?” I said with a childish stubbornness, too curious to remember
that I was supposed to be ignoring him.

“It doesn’t matter
what you wear, I simply won’t be able to keep my hands off you.”
His gaze raked the length of my body and suddenly the layers of the
dress felt entirely too hot.

I swallowed, fighting
the smile that was threatening me. Why did it have to be Luke that
was the only one who didn’t act any differently toward me?

I turned back around,
facing the floor-length mirror. It wasn’t helping that I could
still see him in its reflection, but I had to continue my plan to
avoid him.

“Back to giving me
the cold shoulder, huh?”

I put the mask over my
eyes and tied the black satin ribbon behind my head. I had hoped that
the mask could help hide some of my emotions.

“I need to talk you.”
Luke was more serious now; gone were his charming, indifferent ways.

“I have nothing to
say to you,” I said as I smoothed out my hair. When I finished, I
picked up my skirts and turned toward the door to leave.

As I tried to walk past
Luke out the door, he grabbed my arm. “Ana,” he pleaded.

His eyes dipped to my
chest that was rising and falling with ragged breaths. I needed to
leave immediately. “Let me go, Luke.” I pulled my arm free,
physically able to do so with a strength I didn’t know I had. Luke
looked at me with wide eyes filled with awe—and desire. I whipped
away, fleeing down the stairs, a trail of skirts behind me.

When I got downstairs
and far enough away, I pressed my back against the hallway wall to
catch my breath. With my palms flat against the wall behind me, I
squeezed my eyes closed against intrusive thoughts. My body had
betrayed me once again. This had to stop right now. Things were
complicated enough with Hayden as it was. But while my mind was
telling me one thing, my body was doing something completely
different. Now I just had to figure out which side my heart was on.
So long as I could help it, I would stick to the plan. Out of sight
and out of mind, right? It was one of the many reasons I was thankful
that he would not be coming along tonight.

“Are you sure you
want to do this?”

I looked up at Hayden,
feeling even guiltier as I saw the concern in his handsome features.
Hayden looked powerful and confident in a black suit, black vest,
with a dark purple ascot tie that matched my dress. His hair was
slicked back in a way that, combined with the suit, made my stomach
flutter.

“This is a normal
high school dance, for normal high school students, who do normal
high school things. I can do this, okay?” My voice sounded a little
more panicked than I wanted.

Hayden chuckled. “All
right.” Hayden held out his arm. “Shall we?”

I nodded and linked my
arm in his.

He leaned over, burying
his nose in my hair. “You look beautiful. “ The heat of his
breath on my neck caused me to shiver. Hayden led me away from the
garage to the front door.

“Where are we going?”

Before he could reply,
he opened the front door where a man was waiting patiently on the
porch. His posture was erect, and he was wearing a suit which didn’t
match how young he looked. I’d seen him before in passing around
the house and knew he worked for Hayden, although I didn’t know
what he did.

“Mr. Boudreaux, Miss
Alexander,” he gave us a curt nod.

“Troy,” Hayden
greeted back. That is when I noticed the car parked in the front of
our circular driveway.

“Hayden…” I tried
my best to scold him. “I said
normal
.”

He gave me an
impossible look. “This isn’t normal? I thought students took
limousines to dances.”

“I’ll take your
word for it.”

“You’ve never been
before?”

“Not really.”

“Why start now?” He
said, like he already knew the answer.

Yes, a part of me was
going for the wrong reasons. But also I just wanted to have fun and
forget about everything else. I could feel things were changing.
Whereas I used to embrace my differences while longing for something
more, I was now desperately trying to cling to the stability of my
former self, my life before all of this.

“Maybe I just want to
show you off,” I teased.

He pulled up one side
of his kissable lips. “Believe me, that pleasure is all mine.”
Troy opened the door to the limo and Hayden helped me—and my
skirts—inside. Hayden slid in beside me and the door was shut
behind him.

It was quiet and
pleasant inside, like we were in our own little room. The black
leather was comfortable and the mood-lighting calming. This was the
second time I had ever been in a limo. The first was when I was
caught by a rival gang of mortal Hunters called the Vasquez. I'd
endured a seven-hour drive in a limo with four of them. I had been
hit on, insulted, and threatened. It was the worst day of my life. I
thought I would die that day, but it turned out that would be the
first of many times I would think that. I looked over at Hayden,
feeling uneasy from the memories. I felt the car start moving.

“You okay?”

I swallowed, feeling a
little ill. “Just bad memories.”

“The Vasquez?” Of
course he had figured it out.

“It’s no big deal.”
I brushed it off.

“I’m sorry; I
shouldn’t have arranged this.” He remained where he was,
perfectly still except for a scowl on his face, and I found myself
hoping he would put his arms around me. He still was cautious with me
and I hated that. Ever since he found out what I was.

“Make me forget,
Hayden.” I didn’t know where this wickedness inside me came from.
It was entirely new to me and just as shocking to Hayden.

He leaned toward me but
it was too late— I had seen him hesitate. I leaned back in my seat,
heartbroken.

“Stop.” He looked
at me with a groan. “I can sense your pain.”

“You can
sense
my pain?” I mocked.

“Yes, every emotion
is distinct. I can tell when your joy, fear, pain…”

“It doesn’t take
supernatural instincts to know that I’m hurt, Hayden,” I scoffed.

I could feel his eyes
burning into me but I kept staring straight ahead, refusing to look
at him. Because he still hadn’t closed the gap between us and even
though I could tell he was longing to touch me, he didn’t.