Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

But I’m stopped by well-meaning snobby people who want to chat.

Where are you from?

Will you be attending Cambridge?

Will you be at the polo match this weekend?

Will you come to tea?

Eleanor, I see, manages to skirt the crowd and sit alone in the corner with a cup of what looks to be tea. I wonder if it is spiked. Then I wonder what the purpose of this party is at all… other than to force me into interacting with people.

Why would she do this? She has to know I’m not ready.

Dare’s words come back to haunt me.

The hawk is coming, and you’re going to get eaten.

Who is the hawk? Him?

I twist to find him, and he’s still on the veranda, joined by a blonde girl. She knows him, that much is apparent. She’s holding onto his arm and my belly tightens, bile rising in my throat. She’s possessive and he doesn’t push her away.

I turn my back.

Eleanor is watching Dare, too, a look of mild distaste on her face, but it’s the same look she always has with him. She hates him for some reason, that much is apparent. But why?

I’m being watched, and I scan the sea of faces to find Sabine shuffling along the back, dressed in black.

Her eyes have found me in the madness and we’re all a bit mad, aren’t we?

I swallow hard, and turn away. There’s no one here I can trust.

No o

ne.

No one.

No one.

I make a run for the bathroom.

Because I need to hide.

Once inside the quiet powder room, I sink to a seat on a velvet bench, my breath shaky.

I don’t belong here.

I don’t belong here.

“You don’t belong here, do you?”

It’s like the calm voice reads my mind.

The voice belongs to the voluptuous blonde who was hanging on Dare’s every word.

Startled, I look up at her.

She stares back at me coolly, but not unkindly.