Lucian Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Lucian Nightshade had attended this ball for two hundred years, and tonight he needed a stranger. The curse in his blood demanded cruelty from him, and cruelty had made him famous. Every woman in the ballroom already knew the stories. Every woman except one would be the same. He watched the doors from the balcony and waited for a face that had not yet learned to fear him. Below, the Moonlit Masquerade Palace filled with the town's oldest families. Candles burned in iron sconces. Masked dancers moved in slow circles beneath a chandelier the size of a carriage. A woman in a red gown passed near the stairs, saw Lucian, and steered her daughter the other way. He had expected that. He had counted on it, once. Now it tightened something in his chest. "You look like a man hunting." Xavier stepped beside him, jacket half-buttoned, boots scuffed against the marble. His younger brother never dressed for these things. He never had to. "Every girl in this room has been warned about you since she could walk. You know that." "I know." "Then stop." Xavier's voice dropped. "Whatever you're planning. She isn't a cure, Lucian. She's a person. And she's already lost one year of her life to you." Lucian did not answer. He had wiped her memory to protect her from what he was. He had written it down afterward on a torn page and hidden the page in his desk, because he needed one honest record of himself somewhere in the world. Xavier remembered everything Elena did not. That was the price of having a brother who loved the same girl and could not say so. The doors opened. Elena Salvatore walked in alone. She wore black boots under a dark gown, a choker at her throat, no mask. She looked at the chandelier the way someone looks at a sky they have never seen. She did not look at Lucian. She did not know to. He went down the stairs. Halfway across the floor, a older man caught Elena's sleeve and spoke close to her ear. Lucian saw the name shape on the man's lips. His own. He saw Elena's polite nod. He waited for her face to close. Instead she laughed. She actually laughed, and shook her head, and stepped away from the warning as if it were a coat that did not fit. She turned, saw Lucian for what she believed was the first time, and tilted her head. "You're the one they keep telling me to avoid," she said. "Yes." "Why?" "They have reasons." "Are the reasons true?" He held out his hand. "Dance with me and decide." She took it. Across the ballroom, Xavier set down his glass and walked out. Lucian felt the door close behind his brother like a lock turning. The rumors had failed to scare her. Now there was no one left to stop him from ruining her again.