Authors: Nicole Williams
“Bryn—” He planted his hand on the small of my back, and I couldn’t extinguish the look of horror that flashed across my face. Taking a quick scan of the five faces surrounding me, it didn’t look as if any of them noticed my repulsion; although something that looked like empathy may have glinted across the eyes of the woman beside Julius.
“You already know Draco and Julius.” Each man bowed his head and smiled formally at me as John continued, “This is Yasmin, Draco’s wife.” He motioned to the exotic woman and she smiled at me curtly, as if inconvenienced by the formalities. “And this is Savannah, Julius’s wife.”
I was met with a warmer smile when the second woman was introduced to me. Savannah appeared to embody refinement, elegance, and civility. When she opened her mouth to greet me, the creamy southern accent that flowed from her lips revealed where her refined disposition came from. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
Appearing satisfied the three of us woman would no doubt find something to chatter mindlessly about, John herded Draco and Julius into their own threesome of a circle to discuss something in low voices.
I smiled politely at the two women in front of me. Yasmin turned her head to the side, pretending to be more interested in the just-arrived couple entering through the door.
Savannah disrupted the silence. “I’ve heard so much about you from Julius. I was quite eager to meet you.” I looked at her with confusion, but whether she acknowledged it or not, she did not address it.
“Now that we’ve met, we must all get together soon.” She winked at me, and touched one of Yasmin’s arms that sat showily on the bottom half of her hour glass shaped body. “What do you think Yasmin . . . it’s been awhile since we all went shopping in Paris?” she asked, and while it seemed like something someone would say with sarcasm, Savannah sounded anything but.
Yasmin turned her head to Savannah for a quick second, shooting her silent response of disapproval, and went back to turning her interest elsewhere. It was Patrick who caught her attention this time, and she appeared much more interested with this excuse of a distraction than she had the first.
A sisterly feeling of protectiveness tore at me when I noticed the faint, upward curling of her lips—her eyes ablaze with something that resembled inappropriate thoughts.
Patrick didn’t seem to notice the striking female looking at him with a conquering kind of want. Whenever his eyes turned to us every ten seconds or so, they watched me with the same vigilance his older brother did. I was sure William’s present absence from the event was the reason for Patrick’s observation—William had bestowed the title of my personal security guard on him.
“Making friends already?” John asked me as the three men returned to us. Yasmin smiled ruefully in answer and let out a quick reply, “Hardly.”
“If you’ll all excuse us, I’d like to introduce Bryn to some more guests,” John announced, exchanging a look with Draco that made me wish the remaining twelve hours before I was out of this place, would pass by quickly.
John made the rounds with me in tow for the next hour, introducing me to the rest of the Councilman’s wives—all just as gorgeous and sophisticated as the first two I’d met. The Councilman were just as imposing in casual conversation as they’d been when we first met in the formal setting of the cavernous room hidden below us.
When John turned to chauffeur me to another cluster of guests, I saw him.
I knew my ability to pick him out in a crowd was probably due to my bias, but I noticed there was more than just my pair of eyes viewing him with enthusiasm. Perhaps the eyes of those still single woman wistfully imagining a Betrothal tonight to the quiet, fiercely handsome man visiting with a couple near the grand piano where a pianist played a melancholy nocturne.
William in a tuxedo was nothing I’d imagined it would be—my images were an utter disgrace to the brilliance blinding me. Swoon-worthy was an understatement.
There was something deeply satisfying—and torturous, as well—gazing at this man with the most casual of gazes, so if anyone was watching, my eyes would not give us away. Would not give away that it had been all over for me the day I met him, that I’d never see another man but him, and that my life, along with my love, belonged to him forever.
I didn’t hold a teensiest portion back for myself. The gift of my life and my love for him were one; they held no distinction from one another. My love for him was my life, and my life was loving him. If ever either one was called upon one day to save him, I’d readily give them in exchange for his life.
As if feeling the intensity of my thoughts, he glanced up from his current company, and without needing to search through the room full of strangers, his eyes fell upon mine and he allowed the fullest smile possible given the surroundings. His eyes glowed with the emotion his smile could not convey. I placed my hand over the sapphire stone and returned the careful smile that was full of silent thanks. His response at my thanks was less careful. He beamed with pride from my apparent fondness for the necklace circling my neck.
My happy thoughts were interrupted by a resounding clang and the reverberations that flowed from the large gong positioned outside the open doors of the ballroom. Someone announced that dinner was being served in the grand ballroom and requested everyone make their way in to seat themselves.
I’d never been in this room before; its doors had always been closed, hiding whatever was behind them. Knowing the vastness and artisan-like beauty of the foyer where the party began, I was not expecting to find anything more grandiose within the ballroom.
I was immensely mistaken. John escorted me through the soaring double doors of the ballroom and I gaped at the expanse of the room in front of me. It didn’t seem possible the Manor could hold a room of this size.
It seemed as long and wide as a football field and its sweeping ceiling ran to the height of the three-storied estate. On the walls were expertly painted murals depicting different scenes and landscapes. If not for the expansive wooden dance floor taking up the center of the room, one might mistake the masterful artwork and the room holding it, to have been a museum.
A patterned wool carpet bordered around the dance floor, where rows of rectangular tables awaited the incoming guests. The room glowed from the three crystal chandeliers blooming like orchids above the dance floor and from the gentle candlelight radiating from the white pillared candles in their tall hurricanes.
At the opposite end of the room, four sets of French doors were open, revealing an expansive outdoor patio area also lit by candlelight. There was a small orchestra playing in one of the back corners of the room, playing the same tune the pianist was in the foyer, and from the notes I heard playing over the ivories behind me, the two musical parties were keeping stride with one another— note for note.
John led me to the far end of the ballroom and slid out one of the chairs for me near the center of the long table, where my back would face the dance floor. He slid my chair forward as I took a seat, and while he walked around the long table, I craned my neck back to watch for William. He trailed in, one of the last remaining guests to enter.
His eyes quickly and easily found me. Just as quickly—and before my breath could be completely taken away—his eyes roamed around the rest of the room, content I was accounted for.
It was then, when I tried to pry my eyes away from William, I noticed the majority of the guests were standing silently behind their selected seats; their heads turned in reverence towards the far end of the ball room where I was sitting.
Following their stares, I discovered what, or whom, they were waiting for. The six remaining Councilmen—John was now standing behind his seat across from me—had just finished seating their wives and were skirting around the long edges of the table at the distinctly prominent head of the evening dinner. I felt uneasy being one of only seven others seated in the room brimming with hundreds of bodies.
Something beyond the horror of Hades hit me as I looked down the row to my right at the six other seated Immortals—the wives of the Councilmen—the ones who’d been selected with great care and concern for the powerful men standing across from them. I was glaringly out of place sitting beside these six women who were so revered by the respectfully standing guests and their powerful husbands.
Who was I to be sitting with them—so new an Immortal, only a couple weeks of knowledge and understanding for the Immortal way compared with their decades, if not centuries of wisdom and adherence to our ways? What was I, a mere guest in John Townsend’s house, doing sitting across from him on the evening of an honored Immortal tradition—the Betrothal Ball?
An invisible force hit me with such power I physically felt my internal organs crushing under its power. My airways constricted and I felt the blood leave my upper body and pool in my legs.
Despite the known embarrassment and scene it would case, I prayed for the release of fainting to find me—to release me even momentarily from the epiphany I’d just had. The very reason I was seated with the other six women. The seemingly inconsequential puzzle pieces of the last two weeks came together in a cataclysmic rendering.
The formal introduction of the Council and all their peculiar questions, the pleased looks of anticipation on John’s face, his request of Patrick’s presence on William and my overnight mission, the car, the necklace, this horrid dress . . . my mind flew through every image of the last two weeks; piling up what should have been so clear to me. The images and clues I should have picked up on that had put me in this very seat tonight—across from John Townsend on the evening of the Betrothal Ball.
As if by some miracle, I saw him from the corner of my eye coming to rest behind a chair that stood two down and across the table from me. My terror-filled eyes met his, and his calm expression cracked when he saw me.
It only took a second or two for his eyes to read mine before I saw realization cover his face. His eyes didn’t leave mine, despite the horror contorting the muscles of his face, and I was thankful for that; for they held me in the only remaining confines of solace that were left in my life. Had his gaze shifted from mine as I knew it should to keep the watchful stares unsuspecting, I would have surely lost my sanity and broke down a millisecond later.
His eyelids dropped as his face contorted and I knew what he was thinking. He was cursing himself for missing the same signs and hints—that seemed so obvious with the luxury of hindsight—as I had.
He winced, and his face contorted with a pain so extreme it looked like something was pulling him apart from within.
Seeing him this way made me forget my own anxiety and I focused on nothing else but extinguishing the torment tearing him apart. The torment that hissed its accusations at him—how everything he’d done to keep me safe and out of harm’s way, all the pretences and careful measures taken—had been utterly useless from the very first day I entered Townsend Manor.
It had been all over the moment John saw me and realized what he wanted, and nothing could have changed that—no matter the elaborateness or the strength of the defenses built up around me by William’s diligence. John wanted me—and there was nothing, or no one, that could stop him.
Another wince shuddered through William as the evil inner voices continued their onslaught. I couldn’t stand to see the pain anymore. I didn’t care if we were found out, if I let my feelings be known for him, and his for me. What did it matter now anyways? There was nothing else besides the pain of the man I loved in front of me, and my basic need to make it right.
I slid my chair back while keeping my eyes on him, when Draco—at the center of the seven men—thundered, “Ladies and Gentlemen.”
The room became silent and all eyes shifted to the Chancellor . . . all eyes except for two sets.
“Welcome to the Betrothal Ball. I’d like to personally thank John for hosting tonight’s event and for the lavish hospitality we’ve all been met with.” Draco raised a glass filled with champagne at John. “And I’d like to propose a toast to tonight’s upcoming Betrothals. The Council, as always, has put a great deal of thought and consideration into tonight’s promises of Unity, and I’m sure you will all be pleased with the announced Betrothals.”
I noticed John stand taller (if that was possible) at this, but my eyes were not going to leave William’s.
“And as always,” he spoke with great heaviness and conviction, “what the Council wills, may no one challenge.”
He raised his glass again, and everyone else followed in suit (everyone again except for William and me). Draco shouted out, “Cheers!” and then lifted the glass to his lips.
The resounding chorus of cheers didn’t shake my stare, nor did the seven men across from me who took their seats in an air of tradition. I hadn’t noticed anyone besides William, until the person standing to his left—separating him and John—placed his hand on his shoulder and leaned in to whisper something to him.
Whatever he’d said to his older brother had been persuasive enough for William to remove his gaze from me, and to partially reassemble the mask of indifference on his face.
My eyes drifted away from him after his left mine, as I was able to find the serenity from within I needed to keep from falling apart, but not before John could notice my emotion-filled stare.
His eyes flickered over to where William and Patrick sat, watching them with curious interest for a few moments, until obviously content they were paying me no attention, his gaze drifted back to me. The anticipation in them was not as constrained as it had been before. His eyes now pulsed with it, making no attempt at disguising the longings that ignited them.