บททั้งหมดของ His Dark Secret : บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 13

ELENA“Stop moving,” Elizabeth said, a bobby pin between her teeth. “Or, I will end you.”“You have said that four times.”“And, trust me, I meant it four times.”I stood in the middle of my room, with my arms half-raised like I was under arrest, while Elizabeth circled me with the kind of focus she usually reserved for exams. My room wasn’t built for this. The mirror on my closet door was cracked in one corner, the carpet was thin enough to feel the floorboards through it, and somewhere past the wall my aunt’s television murmured on, too loud as always.None of that mattered right now. Elizabeth had brought a bag full of pins, a curling iron, and enough determination for both of us.“Hold still,” she muttered, twisting another section of my hair. “I’m making magic happen.”“You’re making my scalp hurt.”“That’s literally the same thing. We won't make prince charming to be disappointed now, would we?”I almost laughed then caught sight of myself in the cracked mirror and stopped.The

ADRIANI had almost forgotten how to breathe when she opened that door.I’ve seen a lot of things in my lifetime. Centuries of them, if I let myself count. But nothing had quite prepared me for the sight of Elena Carter standing at the top of a narrow, creaking staircase in sapphire blue, her hair swept back, her chin lifted like she was daring the world to look away first.I hadn’t managed a full sentence. “You look…” and then nothing, because every word that came to mind sounded too small for what I was looking at.She had finished it for me. “Ready?”Not the word I’d meant. Not close.I spent the entire car ride afterward trying not to look at her too long, trying to focus on the mission in front of us instead of the ridiculous, human feeling ache in my chest every time she laughed at something I said. It should have concerned me more than it did.It concerned me a great deal more the moment my mother crossed the ballroom floor.I had known the second Rose set her glass down untou