CHAPTER 2: FIRST MEETING

DANIEL

The weariness gnawed at me like a thick grey cloud, thick and grey, clinging to my skeleton. Hours upon hours of consecutive meetings had sucked the life out of me, and all I craved was to go home, pour scotch into a glass, and just sit—dark and I. Maybe even read a book if my eyes wouldn't get too heavy before that. But of course, Klaus would not allow me that respite. "You're going to the gala, Daniel," he'd shouted at me in the previous moment, with that voice you can't resist because he'll wear you down until you've fulfilled what he had wanted. "This is your gala. Do you know how it will go if you don't go?" And here I was. Left stranded in a ballroom that was an Emerald City but could just as well have been a prison, surrounded by artificial smiles, rehearsed laughter, and the sort of dialogue that held no sense and had a high cost. Klaus nudged me, growling like a cross parent chastising a child. "Smile." You're at a wake, not a party. I smiled, rigid and plastic, the kind that never reached the eyes but I offered it to him anyway in the hope of dissuading him from chasing after me. "Better," he gasped, as if he didn't care. "Treat yourself like human, Daniel. You are not marble or a life vase that is not moving; you are flesh. Show them that." Flesh. amusing, I did not feel flesh. I felt stone—cold, tired, still. Finally, Klaus snarled and chased me off. "Go cool off. Take a break, recharge your face. And when you come back, for the love of God, don't look like you hate everyone in the room." I didn't need to be told twice. I came into the bathroom, rested against the sink, and scrolled through emails and texts until words ran together. Thirty minutes had actually passed before I regained consciousness, my body frozen, my mind racing. I was still staring at the light of my phone when she bumped into me. The shock jolted me back to life. My arms automatically braced her upright before she fell. The overhead lights poured down, and the red silk of her cocktail dress was caught and pulled up, and the cloth clung and flowed in every direction—liquid fire that raged around her. And then her eyes. Dark brown with gold streaks, hard enough to rip me open and soft enough to cinch my chest into a vice. I couldn't catch my breath for a second. "Sorry," she whispered. Her voice… God. Low and sweet, with a sound I couldn't place. I swallowed, words knotting in my throat. "No. my fault." They didn't sound like me, strangled, someone else speaking. There was a flash of electricity in the air, sudden and fleeting, holding me to her. And then—just as suddenly—she smiled, thin and enigmatic, and vanished. A shadow in red. I was stunned, drained chest already empty of something I didn't even have. "Let me guess," Klaus sneered, standing next to me with that crooked smile that had my hands clenching to punch him. "You think she did it on purpose? Teasing the big fish?" "No." My objection had been reflexive, louder than I'd meant. I'd shocked myself with its ferocity. "And if she had. I'd have been a willing catch." Klaus's eyebrow ascended but fell. I ignored him in any case, my gaze roving the room, aching to catch a glimpse of her. My heart still was not at rest. Who was she? The. rest of the evening was agony—. gritting my teeth in grins at. things I was indifferent to and nodding at conversation, simultaneously working the room. I saw her again, with some old man who could have been her father. There was something ugly and vicious inside me. Possession. Starvation. I did not think. I acted. "I'm cutting in," I said to her, no warning, no asking. The man smiled and laughed and moved back. And then she was in my arms. Her hand against my shoulder. My hand at her waist. The music spun us around, but it hardly seemed to matter. The world narrowed down to her. "Daring thing," she said, the voice precisely halfway between challenge and curiosity. "Necessary," I answered, looking at her. "Who are you?" Her lips curled up—teasing, maddening. "Does it matter?" "I would like to know." She cocked her head as if weighing her response, then squashed hope in four words: "You won't have my name." The line ended before I could gather some more. There was a champagne waiter. She took a glass, tasted and put it on the table as if it did not matter. "I should leave," she said indifferently. Too easily. As if leaving wasn't a big issue for her. Panic congealed in my chest. "Wait—" I reached for her wrist. My fingers brushed against metal. Cold. Hard. A gun. Adrenaline slammed into me like a sledgehammer. My head reeled. No one went to a function like this armed unless they had a reason to do so. She frisked me, calm as always. Didn't jump, didn't shatter. A backward glance—and she was gone. I stood there, free hand, constricted chest, all the cells of my body screaming to go after her. "Klaus," I snarled, low and commanding. "Get the men to follow her. I want it all. Who she is." Where she comes from, who she's with, parents and foes are who, any shred of information must be gotten not held back. "He glared at me for a moment, taken aback by my tone, but nodded and called. An hour passed and the call was nothing. She was gone." I didn't tarry long at the ball, choked by my own party, worried at her absence more than the expanse of flesh ever could. Outside, the night was cool, nipping at my skin, but not strong enough to silence the storm in my head. Her face, her voice, the touch of silk beneath my hand, the heaviness of that gun—all tormented me.

Who was she? And why did I know, deep in the marrow of my soul, that nothing would ever be the same for me again until I laid eyes on her again?