Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

Anouk sank back into her chair and rubbed her temples. The wine was already going to her head. She took another sip and a few drops sloshed onto the wedding dress on the table. “Oh, merde.”

Rennar took the chair next to her, picked up the dress, and, with a gentle whisper, made the stain vanish.

“Why must you be so infuriatingly calm about all of this?” she snapped, and she wasn’t talking about the dress. “You heard Petra—?we’re facing ruin and you just dance and drink!”

He swirled the wine in his glass and looked moodily into the liquid. “I’ve been alive five hundred years, Anouk. This isn’t the first time someone has shrieked about impending doom.”

“It’s the first time someone cut you in half.” Her eyes fell on the glossy mark where he’d repaired himself after being cut in two. “I don’t buy this nonchalant act of yours. You’re frightened. You’ve just never learned how to look afraid.”

He flinched. He set down the glass and took her hands in his. For once, the arrogance was gone from his face, and his blue eyes searched hers. “Very well. You want me to tell you that for the first time, I’m uncertain about the future? I am. But I’m certain about you.”

He kissed her knuckles. She bristled at the intimate gesture, then relaxed. Maybe they were in this together. Maybe his centuries of experience did count for something. He let go of her hands, but on impulse, she grabbed his hands and pulled him even closer.

He looked surprised.

She whispered, “Rennar, turn them back. Please.”

His hands tightened in hers. His features were just as tense. “You’ll get Cricket in a few days, after the wedding.”

“What about Hunter Black and Beau? Forget the deal. It was just a game, like you said. I failed the Baths—?that doesn’t mean Hunter Black should be doomed to a lifetime of being muzzled. And Beau was always supposed to stay human, not me.”

“Beau,” he said slowly, “is in love with you. And I am marrying you. Only a fool would bring him back. At a minimum, he’d stop the wedding. He’d probably try to poison me.”

She couldn’t argue with that.

But Rennar had been grumbling with the reluctance of someone who hated to concede but knew he was going to. He filled her glass with champagne. “You’re impossible. Drink this.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to turn Hunter Black back for you, purely out of the goodness of my heart, and the least you can do is make a toast to my honor.”

A smile crept onto her face. It felt good to smile again. She clinked her glass against his and downed the champagne in one heady sip. As the bubbly warmth spread through her, making her the slightest bit tipsy, she thought back to the kiss in the Cottage’s confectionery. Before she knew what she was doing, she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his cheek.

“To you,” she said softly.

Chapter 21

Anouk’s kiss left a drop of champagne on Rennar’s cheek. He wiped it away, as flustered as she’d been by the kiss in the dessert pantry. He drained his own glass and then stood, snatched up a fork, and tapped it loudly enough against the crystal to silence the surrounding chatter. The Goblin drummer, oblivious in his headphones, still pounded away. Rennar cast a quick whisper to silence his instruments. The Goblin’s eyes shot open in surprise when his drumsticks turned to putty.

All eyes were fixed on Rennar. Queen Violante gave him an unabashedly flirtatious look, and Prince Aleksi listened respectfully, but most of the Royals watched with the stiff faces of guests who were forced to listen to something they’d rather not hear.

“A speech? Now?” Luc whispered as he surreptitiously came to stand behind Anouk.

“Not a speech.” Anouk shivered as she looked around at the cold stares in the ballroom and found that more than a few sets of eyes were focused on her. She’d nearly forgotten this party was to celebrate her own engagement.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Rennar began. “Royals and witches of every realm—?and Goblins—?today, as you know, we come together to celebrate my impending nuptials. The last time we all gathered for a Royal wedding was eighty years ago, when Prince Sorin married Princess Marieta of the Barren Court. It is my hope that this wedding will unite not only my bride and me, but all of us. There are still those of you who refuse to acknowledge the threat posed by the Coven of Oxford and what has befallen the Court of Isles, but I promise you, a great danger hovers at our doorsteps. The only way we will protect our realms is if we unite our forces.”

The Royals’ faces remained eerily still. No smiles. No smirks. No frowns. Over hundreds of years, they had learned to perfectly hide their emotions, and they gave no reaction now. Standing in the center of his palace, Rennar, too, wore a mask of indifference. He cut a striking figure in his frost-gray suit. Every person in the room hung on his every word, though they all pretended otherwise, and it was hard for Anouk not to fall under his spell too. She snatched up her champagne glass and sniffed it, feeling suddenly uneasy. Had he enchanted it?

Luc leaned down and whispered, “Not exactly the tone I’d expect from someone planning to surrender his power once all of this is over.”

Anouk whispered back, “He’s willing to step down. It doesn’t mean the other Royals will do the same without a fight. He’s not a fool.”

Luc made a noncommittal snort.

“But let us not dwell on such troubles tonight,” Rennar continued. “There are times for war and times for power, but let us put such times aside.”

“See?” Anouk whispered to Luc.