If her beauty was dark, Lucien’s was bright. He was all careless elegance, with tousled blond hair that shone like gold and an ivory suit with the top two buttons of his white shirt undone. The bones of his face were arranged in a way that was both handsome and austere. He had an aquiline nose, finely drawn lips, and a certain gauntness to his cheeks that spoke of greater age or infirmity than the rest of him showed.
Looking past Lucien and Elisabet, Tana finally saw Aidan. He was underdressed, slouching against a wall in a black silk shirt over black jeans. Tana wondered if Midnight had picked out those clothes for him and then wondered if they’d been borrowed from Rufus.
Steeling herself, she walked over to him, giving a wide berth to any other vampire she saw.
“Tana!” Aidan said, looking incredibly pleased to see her right up to the moment when she punched him in the face.
He staggered back, and several people glanced over, tittering. Elisabet was looking her way again, which unnerved her, but not enough that she regretted hitting Aidan. She didn’t regret it a bit.
“Ow,” he said. “I think one of my fangs knocked into my cheek. That really hurt.”
She put her hands on her hips and just stared at him. She knew that he was stronger than her and about a million times more deadly, but he was still Aidan and he still hated it when someone was mad at him.
He rubbed his chin, where her fist had struck. “Come on, Tana. I wasn’t going to keep it. I just wanted you to stay a little longer. You know how I hate going places alone.”
“You are such a jerk,” Tana said. “Seriously. A huge, unbelievable jerk.”
“I know,” he said, looking both repentant and impish at once. “But you got all dressed up and came to a party, so don’t you want to have a good time? I mean, you’re already here.”
“You’ve got Midnight to party with.” Tana stuck out her hand, palm up. “Hand it over. Now.”
“What if we hang out for a while first? I’ve got stuff to tell you that you’re going to want to hear.”
“Please.” Her anger was draining away, turning to fear. He could keep her in Coldtown forever. She couldn’t make him give back the marker. She couldn’t make him do anything.
He sighed, watching her expression change, then reached into his back pocket and, keeping his hand cupped over it, put the marker into her hand. “You better be careful not to let anyone see it.”
She let out a breath, surprised and indescribably relieved. Despite his red eyes, despite everything, she supposed he was still Aidan, still her ex-boyfriend, still her friend, still a person. The same boy she’d met in art class, the same boy with the floppy hair who was always in love and always sincere, even when he was joking. She shoved the disk into her lion’s head purse, but not before sneaking a look to make sure it really was the marker. “Thank you.”
“The only reason I took it is because I wanted a chance to talk to you again, when things were less awful. To get you to forgive me for everything I’ve done.”
She didn’t bother pointing out that making her even madder in the service of getting forgiveness didn’t make a lot of sense. It didn’t matter now. “It wasn’t your fault. Well, some of it wasn’t your fault.”
He smiled. “Did you know Gavriel’s at this party? That’s what I was going to tell you. I saw him before, but I don’t think he saw me.”
Tana turned her head without really meaning to, but all the faces belonged to strangers. She saw the terrifying vampires in the black suits talking to Lucien and Elisabet, and despite her stupid, hopeless desire to see Gavriel one more time, she hoped that Aidan was wrong. Those vampires were hunting for him. She remembered their whispered voices through the door. She remembered the sting of their teeth against the back of her leg and the dead staring eyes of her classmates. No matter what Gavriel was capable of, she didn’t want him to have to face them.
Aidan nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I was going to say hi and all, but when I got closer, he was gone. I didn’t see where he went.”
Tana did not want to consider what Aidan might have said to Gavriel about her.
“We should go,” she told him. “Is Midnight with you? Because I think this party is going to get very unsafe in a minute.”
“She’s here looking for a new place for us to squat. She wants to find us a family of vampires. Nestmates or some crap like that, she calls them.”
“What about Rufus and Christobel?” Tana asked.
He shook his head. “What about them? She’s going to keep killing humans. She says that when their hearts stop, their souls drag you halfway to eternity as they die and for a moment you’re like some dark god staring down at the world. She scares the hell out of me, Tana. I don’t want her to be the only friend I have here.”