He held out the rose to her again. Deah stared at the flower, and I shifted to one side so that I could look into her dark blue eyes. Her emotions slammed into me a second later.
Lingering, numbing boredom from dinner. Pinching hurt from her father’s harsh words and high expectations. Rock-hard confidence that she was going to beat Katia and win the Tournament of Blades again. Sharp worry that someone was going to catch Felix in the greenlab. But most of all, I felt how much she cared about Felix. The hot spark of her feelings for him was like a firecracker exploding in my heart over and over again.
Despite her longing, Deah didn’t take the rose. Instead, she shook her head and stepped back. Her eyes dulled and dimmed, and that hot spark was snuffed out.
“You should leave,” she said in a sad, tired voice. “This is never going to work. Not with you being a Sinclair and me a Draconi. You should go before one of the pixies sees you—or worse, Blake or my dad. Maybe it’s a good thing that Katia’s back in town. So we can make a clean break now, before things get any worse than they already are.”
Felix’s smile wilted, and he dropped the rose to his side. “You don’t mean that. Not really.”
Deah shrugged, her face blank. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing does except the fact that my father and brother hate your Family. There’s no getting past that, Felix. No matter what you think.”
“But—”
“No,” she said in a firm voice, shaking her head and making her blond hair fly around her shoulders. “Don’t tell me again that nothing matters but us. That’s not true and you know it. Too many other things matter. And how we feel about each other isn’t one of them.”
Felix kept staring at her, his eyes dark with hurt, pain, love, and longing.
Deah sighed again. “Just leave, okay? And don’t come back. That’s what’s best—for both of us.”
She turned to go, which spurred Felix into action. He dropped the rose, stepped forward, pulled her into his arms, and planted his lips on hers.
Deah stiffened, her hands coming up to his chest as though she was going to push him away. But then, her fingers curled into his shirt, and she swayed forward and melted into the kiss. Her arms snaked up and around Felix’s neck so that she could pull him closer. They broke apart and stared into each other’s eyes, both of them breathing heavily.
Then they kissed again, as close together as two people could possibly be, their lips crashing together again and again as though their lives depended on it.
Guilt flickered in my chest at spying on such a private moment—along with more than a little jealousy. I wished I could kiss Devon like that. Hold him like that. Or that I just had the courage to tell him how I really felt about him, to take a chance and see what might happen between us.
But I pushed aside my feelings and turned away from Felix and Deah. I still had a job to do, one that was far more important than hiding in the shadows mooning about Devon.
Because if I didn’t figure out what Victor was planning, he would destroy us all.
I slipped deeper into the greenlab, careful not to make any noises that would alert Felix and Deah to my presence. But they were too wrapped up in each other to notice the whisper of my sneakers on the flagstones, and I left them behind and reached the far side of the greenlab.
I peered through this set of glass doors, but the hallway beyond was deserted, so I stepped outside and hurried on my way. I rounded the corner and finally reached my destination—the double doors that led into Victor’s office.
The gold knobs were shaped like snarling dragons, and I gingerly tried one, half expecting it to come to life and bite off my fingers. Of course, that didn’t happen, but the door was locked, so I pulled out my chopstick lock picks and went to work. Less than a minute later, the door snicked open. I waited, listening for noise and movement on the other side of the wood, but I didn’t hear anything, so I felt safe enough to slip inside, shut, and relock the door behind me.