Wicked Idol: A Hellfire Club Novel

Rhys’s fingers curled around my cape as he pulled me closer and deepened the kiss, his tongue slipping between my lips to caress mine. It was instinct as much as anything that had me tilting my face up to offer Rhys more—and that’s when I heard it.
The clatter and crash of a candelabra falling over, and the gasps and shrieks that followed. I broke away from Rhys’s kiss to see Lennox disappearing through the far doors, his stride quick and furious.
From the way people were staring and whispering, it was clear he was the one who knocked over the candelabra.
As if he’d flung it to the ground in anger before storming away.
“Well, then,” Rhys said with satisfaction, his eyes also on Lennox’s retreating form. “I was right.”

“I don’t think he likes seeing me have fun.”
The cipher-like smile only grew bigger. “If he hates you dancing, then he’ll definitely hate this.”
And right there, right in the middle of the ballroom floor with couples waltzing around us and candles flickering everywhere, Rhys kissed me.
Kissed me!

“He is watching,” I said, more to myself than to the tall devil spinning me around the floor.
“He’s always watching you.”
“He hates me, you know.”
Rhys smiled a cipher-like smile. “Maybe.”

“I would’ve thought it was obvious what we’re doing, Sloane Lauder,” Rhys said softly. “I’m proving a point about Lennox.”
My father had trained me better, he really had, but when it came to Lennox, I never could seem to control myself; I swiveled my head and looked to where I saw him last.
And was hit with a golden gaze so malevolent I could practically feel its heat all the way out here in the middle of the dance floor.

“Anyway,” Rhys pronounced, still in that silky voice, “if you don’t think Lennox is looking at you tonight, just watch this.”
Within the blink of an eye, my water was set on a table and I was whisked out onto the dance floor. In Rhys’s arms. Staring up at those near-black eyes glittering from behind his dark mask.

Rhys stepped forward, a tilt to his sharp-edged mouth. We were shoulder to shoulder now. “I’m a dark fairy. From the Unseelie Court. Don’t you know your fairy stories?”

“I’ve seen lions less aware of wounded gazelles than Lennox is of you tonight,” a low, silky voice said from behind me.
I turned to see the devil himself, Rhys Huntington, standing just behind my shoulder, pale, dark-haired, and dressed all in black—black suit that probably cost as much as a regular person’s car, black and silver vest underneath, black silk tie stuck through with a ruby-studded tie pin

His mere presence made me flare with awareness and trepidation; simply knowing he was in the room made my skin tighten and my pulse race. Tonight was no exception, and as I tried to laugh with my friends, as I accepted a few dances from boys I barely knew, I could feel his eyes on me, burning into my skin. Whenever I looked his way, he was already looking somewhere else, but I knew he was watching me. Hating me. It made me tense, electric. Like I was about to spar with my martial arts instructor—certain I was going to lose but eager to prove myself all the same

“Is this about my brother?” Aurora asked. She let go of my cape so she could touch my elbow, and underneath her pearl-studded mask, I could see her golden eyes go soft with concern. The same golden eyes that belonged to her twin brother.
Lennox.
Lennox Lincoln-Ward. A literal, actual prince; the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.
And also the worst. The meanest and the most heartless. Callous beyond belief.

I much preferred to hang back, to watch from the shadows unobserved, to escape notice. It would be essential if I wanted to follow in my father’s clandestine footsteps, but that wasn’t the only reason I did it.
The other reason I hid in the shadows would certainly be here tonight, watching the ballroom with disdain pulling at his beautiful, sullen mouth, candlelight flickering off his white hair and his eerily golden eyes.
He was the same reason I was regretting letting Serafina talk me into this. Last chance, my ass.