CHAPTER 96: SO, YOU LIKE ME?

I ignored the weight of Rion’s gaze on me and let Axe’s tiny hands steer mine.

The boy was earnest and determined, carefully counting the steps under his breath as we spun into the tide of dancers.

Skirts brushed my legs, lanternlight skated over glittery masks, and the music stitched everything together with bright, relentless thread.

We turned, we swayed, we made up steps when Axe forgot them.

I glanced toward the sideline and found Rion exactly where I’d felt his gaze.

He had a drink balanced in one hand, the glass catching star-pricks of light as he lifted it. His posture was easy, almost lazy, but his attention was not. It held the same sharpness as the blade-curve of his mask.

He stared at us—atme—with an intensity that pressed heat under my skin.

Can he please stop staring? It’s making me uneasy.

A cluster of girls hovered nearby, all silk and laughter and the kind of courage that only reached halfway. They didn’t come close to him. Even smiling, even still as stone, he was a storm line menaced into shape. They felt it. I did too.

I looked away and focused on my small dance partner.

"Why do you call the Alpha ’Uncle Alpha’?" I asked as we turned, letting the question ride the music. "Are you...his nephew?"

I’d never heard Raye or the men mention any other Morrigan blood. Aboveground stories said Rion had no relatives. No blood ties.

Axe shook his head with innocence. "I just like to call him that."

He tipped up his chin to check my face, as if to make sure I understood the logic. "He’s a lot older than me and I want him as my uncle. I like him so much because he saved me and my mum."

I stumbled for half a beat. "He saved you?"

Axe nodded, solemn as sunrise. "When my dad tried to harm my mother and I, he saved us. Mum says we were very lucky." He wrinkled his nose. "He was very strong."

The image pierced me. I glanced back toward the sideline without meaning to.

Rion’s head tilted. Even at this distance, I could see the ghost of a smile cut across his sinful mouth.

"What’s with the stare?" the words slid into my mind, intimate as a fingertip tracing my name on a window. "I thought you didn’t want to dance with me."

I nearly tripped again.

Instinct made me reach back along the invisible thread, hunting a reply, and ran me face-first into the familiar wall. One way. He could speak, I could not. I hated it. I settled for narrowing my eyes at him over Axe’s head.

"Do you like him too?" Axe asked.

"What?" I looked down at the boy, blinking. My heart did a very unhelpful thing against my ribs.

He watched me with expectant eyes, the look of innocence angling for a yes.

"I heard he saved you, too," he said with a thoughtful look on his face. "You are that woman, right? The one he brought from aboveground."

I smiled in spite of myself. "Yes," I said. "He saved me."

"So you like him, then?"

"Oh." Heat licked the edges of my face under the mask. I could feel Rion’s attention tighten in the distance, the invisible net of it tugging.

"Well, uh, I do like him..." I said, aiming for light and landing somewhere near strangled.

As a person, I wanted to add. As a general concept. Certainly not in any particular, ruinous way that would have me thinking about the warm line of his throat or the sound his voice made in my head. Goddess.

And surely he couldn’t hear us over the music, over the drum, over the crowd. Surely I was safe inside the noise.

"Axe!" a woman’s voice called in the middle of the dance.

A figure slipped between dancers with the ease of someone used to working through crowds. She wore decent clothes—the cut simple, the fabric good, hands clean but bearing the faint polish of metalworkers: tiny nicks, a sheen you can’t wash off.

A festival mask hung around her neck, pushed up so I could see the worry easing into a smile as she took in her son and his companion.

"Mum!" Axe bounced. "This is Aunt Pretty. We’re dancing."

My mouth twitched. "Vivien," I offered. "He’s an excellent partner."

"I hope he wasn’t a bother," she said, though pride threaded her apology. Up close, the resemblance was clear, the same eyes, that determined little chin. "This one has no fear and twice the charm."

"None at all." I glanced down at Axe.

"I’m Lowen. We have a shop around here, Axe Brassworks." Her smile tipped wry. "If you need help with anything, you can visit. A way to thank you for looking after my boy."

"Thanks. I’ll vist when I can."

"You’d better," Axe said with pride. "We have lantern frames that look like wolves. You might see lots of things you’d like. I can give you a gift!"

"Oh, a gift?" I grinned. "I’m sold."

"Come on, little alpha," Lowen said, offering her hand. "Let the lady have fun."

"Goodbye, Aunt Pretty!" Axe flapped his free hand at me, then leaned in. "Don’t worry. I will duel Uncle Alpha for you."

"I—please don’t," I said, laughing. "He’s very tall and strong just like you said."

"When I grow up, I’ll be stronger and bigger! You will see!" Axe said, then allowed himself to be led away, turning to wave at me twice more before the crowd folded them from sight.

The laugh shook my shoulders. Then I took a breath, tipped my head back, the laugh dying into a smile.

I decided I needed a drink or a dessert, but before I could slip away from the dancing crowd, he was there in front of me.

Rion’s eyes burned behind the mask. His mouth tilted, not yet a smile, but one starting to bloom mischievously.

"So, you like me?"