He brought their entwined hands down between them, level with his hips, and tugged her forward. With his lips at her ear, Luc whispered, “It’s not that I wasn’t impressed.”
She felt the brush of his lips against her earlobe and forgot her embarrassment. She forgot the run-down ballroom and her dwindling time before Marco came to fetch her.
“But don’t risk yourself for me again,” Luc said, his breath hot against her ear. She angled her head toward him, wanting nothing more than his warmth.
“You risked yourself for me,” she said. “By finding me in the park. Coming for me when Vincent could have been watching your every move.”
He sighed, nuzzling her temple before letting one of her hands go. He stepped back.
“Have you healed?” he asked, rubbing his thumb along the center of her palm. “I wish I could know without asking.”
That was what was different about him. He couldn’t sense her. She felt the loss of that connection, too.
“I’m fine now,” she assured him.
He kept hold of her hand as he started walking, avoiding a pile of old sheets in the middle of the dance floor. He kept on toward the grand, Rococo-style double doors that led to the building’s main corridor. She didn’t know where he thought they could go with the few minutes they had left together. Ingrid wanted to follow Luc through the house anyway, perhaps up the stairs to Lennier’s rooms. She wanted to stay with Luc in this decrepit, timeless place while the rest of Paris dealt with Axia’s imminent return.
“What if Vincent is right?” she asked. Luc stopped on the threshold and she continued. “What if Dusters are dangerous? What if we end up belonging to Axia in the end, doing her bidding, the same way Grayson did after she released him from the Underneath?”
Her brother had had moments of clarity when he’d been under Axia’s control. He hadn’t wanted to harm her or Gabby, but he also hadn’t been able to stop himself. What if the same thing happened to her? To all the Dusters?
“You don’t belong to anyone,” Luc said. He seemed to abandon his plan to take her somewhere within the town home and instead stood with her between the open ballroom doors, one of which hung perilously loose on a single hinge.
“Ingrid, you have more power than you give yourself credit for. I saw it just now; we all did. Axia is evil. You … you’re good. She will not win. She will not take you away. You won’t let her, and neither will I.”
Ingrid felt the muscles in his hand and arm go rigid when she tried to get closer to him. He held her back, even though the low burn in his eyes said he wanted something different.
“Marco is coming,” he whispered.
It couldn’t have been five minutes already.
“I need to know something,” Ingrid said, hating that she felt rushed now.
Luc furrowed his dark brow and waited for her to ask her question.
“Vincent accused you of taking a human.” She forced her gaze on Luc to stay steady and not drift away with nerves. “Have you?”
Luc held still. He didn’t smile; he didn’t tilt his head in consideration. He didn’t do anything but hold her gaze and her hand with absolute security. She felt the heat of a blush staining her cheeks, and she didn’t know if it was from the intensity of his emerald stare, the humiliation of having been so forward, or the sudden fear that he was going to break her heart once and for all.
Luc lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips gently against the back of it, as a gentleman might.
“I have,” he answered softly.
She could only part her lips and whisper his name before Marco’s heavy steps echoed through the ballroom. Luc released her hand and drew away, sending one thoroughly annoyed glance in Marco’s direction. See her home safely, Luc’s silent bidding seemed to say, and then he was gone, retreating through the ballroom doors and into the dim corridor.
Ingrid remained where she was until Marco cleared his throat. He said something sarcastic, she was sure, but the effect was lost on her. She could think of nothing, hear nothing, other than Luc’s voice: I have. He’d taken a human. He’d chosen her. Luc loved her still, even without the gargoyle-human bond.
As Ingrid followed Marco from the courtyard and through the arcades, into the quickly purpling twilight, she could not smile, not even with her heart so gloriously full. Because what Luc had just said—what she had just asked of him—could very well get them both killed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN