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Creating our own luck involved hours of bickering, shopping, and primping. Our already low coffers—and my patience—were running on empty by the time Grace was done.
“Stop looking at the receipt.” My twin jerked up my chin none too gently. “Bastion is worth it.”
He was worth it. And it was disloyal of me to think that Grace had bought more than she needed to feed her own fashionista itch.
“We have to go,” I said instead of commenting on the clothes, shoes, and jewelry strewn across the bed Bastion wasn’t occupying. “The party started an hour ago.”
“And we’re planning on arriving fashionably late.”
Eventually, though, even Grace had to admit that there was very little left to be done to improve my appearance. The colored contacts she’d lent me made my eyes less startling, but I’d rubbed the edges raw in response to unfamiliar discomfort. My hair didn’t respond to her ministrations. And the dress I’d chosen for its ability to hide a dagger and zip ties would never be a fashion success.
Grace, on the other hand, looked like she’d just stepped off a model’s runway. She spun in high heels, gazelle-like and elegant. I half expected Cinderella’s fairy godmother to swoop in and magic a pumpkin into a horse-drawn carriage to spirit her away to the ball.
Instead, Justice cleared his throat from the open doorway. “Your ride is here. Go get ‘em, tiger.”
He was speaking to his favorite cousin, my presence irrelevant. This stiffness and distance was what came of spending years separated from half of the pack that should have been as familiar as my own skin.
Still, a tremor of excitement buzzed through me when Grace and I stepped out onto the landing together and peered down over the railing. In unison, our hands rose to clasp the jewelry at our throats.
These matching necklaces, unlike the rest of our outfits, were twenty-year-old dime-store novelties. A single wolf paw broken in half, symbolizing our shared past.
As one, our gazes slid to each others’ fingers, then our lips curved upward into identical smiles. It was almost as if we were fourteen again, united in the pursuit of mischief. We were...
...I flinched and Grace grinned as we caught sight of a limousine idling on the cracked pavement of the motel parking lot.
“It’s overkill,” I accused.
“It’s not,” she countered.
Twenty minutes later when we were waved through the Smythewhites’ wrought-iron gate without being asked for our names or invitations, I had to admit: “You were right about the limousine.”
The metal wolf paw was warm against my throat as Grace answered: “I’m always right.”
We exited in a cloud of perfume that cost more than my favorite weapon. Cameras flashed while we strode through the double doors as if we owned the place.
Inside, we slid into the crowd like fish through a current. Well, Grace was the fish. I was awkward and ungainly. As useful as a bicycle to a bass.
Until, that is, someone got handsy with my sister. His fingers slid across her left butt cheek. She jumped, her exclamation overwhelmed by the hall’s roar of conversation.
Amid so many people, there was no one else to notice. Good thing I’d worn my uncle’s gifted dagger.
The blade slid out of its sheath and through the man’s silk shirt as fishlike as any of Grace’s movements. I doubted the pawer knew that his kidney was an inch beneath my dagger tip. He didn’t know that angling my dagger up, the blade would slice into his heart without getting bogged down by muscle and bone.
Still, his face grew as maroon as that essential organ when I allowed the dagger’s tip to just barely pierce his skin. He might not know the specifics, but he definitely got the point.
In reaction, that pesky hand jerked away from my sister like the bitter end of a broken fishing line. The man created a wave of moving bodies as he fled to the other side of the room.
Grace didn’t even glance back at me before she surfed away on his wave’s ripples. She hadn’t noticed my rescue, but that didn’t matter.
I fingered my necklace and I smiled.
***
UNFORTUNATELY, EUPHORIA faded fast as I pushed deeper into the crush of people. Music and chatter, hors d’oeuvres and wine. Someone pressed a glass of bubbly into my fingers. Someone raised his eyebrows, asking me to dance.
“No, thank you.” The man couldn’t make out my words, but he must have understood the shake of my head and the rejection in my posture. Shrugging, he turned around to repeat the invitation with somebody else.
Which is when my skin prickled. Eyes bored into me. Predatory, hungry. I glanced up...and found the stranger from last night leaning against the banister of the staircase’s second-floor landing.
Luke. When last we’d spoken, he’d been rumpled and disheveled. Now, he could have stood in for Grace’s Prince Charming.
Perfect black tuxedo. Curls so much more defined than the shape my twin could tease mine into.
Only his eyes were exactly the same. Piercing. Riveting. As if he had X-ray vision that cut through my body and into my soul.
He was also blocking the exact direction in which I wanted to travel.
Because no one would keep a woelfin’s pelt down here where any random party guest could spill caviar on it. A stranger might twist the fur around their neck as a stole—the way I currently wore my pelt—and carry it away.
In contrast, the second story was the private portion of the residence, a safer place to store something precious. I needed to get up those stairs.
But I couldn’t head there directly. Not with Luke watching.
I shivered. Sidestepped a waiter and three guests. Held my breath while I wound my way out of the atrium and into an interior hall.
Only then was I able to think clearly enough to flesh out my plan. There had to be a back staircase. Somewhere out of the way and easy for servants to lug around mops and vacuum cleaners. Maybe situated in such a manner so food wouldn’t arrive cold if the mistress ordered breakfast in bed?
A waiter with an empty tray excused himself as he walked past me. I followed at a distance until the music of the party transitioned into pots clanging beneath the billow of steam.
The kitchen. And, just as I’d expected, a small, dingy door was nearly invisible beside the wider kitchen entrance.
A servants’ stairwell. I reached forward—
“Can I help you?” The interruption came in a clipped female voice.
My hand slid off the door knob. Turning, I assessed the woman who had spoken with such ruthless authority.
She was a high-level employee, I guessed. Just enough sparkle to her ears and throat so she could mingle, but not so much that anyone would mistake her for a guest.
I couldn’t think of a single reason why she might let me wander up the back stairs and into the personal quarters of my host and hostess.
“I...” I started, wishing Grace was here. My twin was the tale-spinner in the family. She could have charmed this woman so thoroughly we would have been granted a map of the premises.
I, on the other hand, was better at brash and businesslike. My dress chafed under my armpits. Why didn’t it at least have sleeves?
Strangely, my twitch of discomfort softened the woman’s expression. Helped her come to a conclusion I didn’t particularly care to understand.
“He hired two tonight?” She shook her head, then stepped forward and opened the door for me. “Second room on the right at the top of the stairs.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t await further instructions. Didn’t argue that I wasn’t a sex worker and had no clue who she thought was paying me. Instead, I took the stairs two at a time, rushing up and up and up.
At the top, though, I slowed long enough to remove my contacts. I wanted to be fully on my game before I eased open the door.
The entire family should be attending the benefit party. Still, I couldn’t risk anyone noticing as I rifled through their possessions....
The hall was devoid of life. The stairwell where Luke had stood was just as empty.
I shook off the tremor of something dark and bittersweet that coursed through my body. Tiptoed to what I guessed was the master bedroom—one door closer than where the woman had sent me when granting access.
The knob wasn’t locked. I slipped inside, head turned to watch behind me....
And this time, the interrupting voice, although still feminine, was younger. Her words twined in from the balcony along with a tendril of cigarette smoke.
“If you’re looking for Clarence, you’ll have to wait your turn. He hasn’t even paid me yet.”