Chapter 196 — Not a Threat

Chapter 196: Chapter 196 — Not a Threat

~ Raven ~

Dante stepped forward, and Raven moved with him.

For the first few seconds, following was about as much thought as she could spare for anything else. His hand remained warm against her waist while their joined hands rested between them, and somewhere beyond his shoulder she remained painfully aware that several hundred people were watching her do something she had never actually done in public before.

She took another step, then another, allowing Dante to guide her into the first turn without catching his foot, losing the rhythm or doing anything else likely to make the entire academy regret looking.

That was surprising.

They moved again, and when nothing disastrous happened the second time either, some of the tension sitting between Raven’s shoulders began to ease. By the time the other opening pairs started joining them, she had stopped waiting for humiliation.

Dante seemed to notice too. His gaze dipped briefly toward their feet before returning to her face, amusement beginning to pull at his mouth.

"You can dance."

There was enough surprise in his voice that Raven almost felt offended.

"Apparently."

His brows lifted. "Apparently?"

Now that she was reasonably certain she would not fall over, Raven allowed herself a smug little smile. "This is actually my first time."

Dante’s next step came half a beat late.

Barely anything, probably not enough for anybody else to notice, but Raven felt it through the hand against her waist.

He looked at her properly. "Your first time dancing?"

"Yes."

"You’re lying."

Raven’s smile widened.

She had spent the previous evening discovering exactly how humiliating dancing could become when attempted alone, but Dante did not need to know that. As far as Raven was concerned, everything before tonight had simply been research.

She gave a careless little shrug. "Honestly? It isn’t as difficult as I thought it would be."

For several seconds Dante merely looked at her, most likely trying to decide whether she genuinely believed the nonsense leaving her mouth.

Then he laughed, his shoulders loosening as he shook his head. "You are something, Rivers."

Raven decided to take that as admiration, mostly because she preferred it that way.

The next turn came easily enough that she stopped thinking about it, and after that the rest followed.

That was when Raven finally started enjoying herself.

The ballroom blurred gradually into warm light, music and moving bodies while Dante smiled whenever he caught Raven looking too pleased with herself, and she found she did not particularly care.

For years Raven had known evenings like this from the edges. She knew where servants waited when glasses emptied, which passages needed to remain clear for trays and how long nobles usually stayed on the floor before drifting away for another drink.

She had simply never known what the music sounded like from the middle of it.

Dante turned her again, a little faster this time, and when he pulled her back Raven laughed before she could stop herself.

Something shifted in his expression at the sound, only slightly, but Raven noticed anyway.

She ignored that too.

Tonight was going remarkably well, which probably meant Valerius was quietly preparing something awful for later.

For now, however, the opening sequence ended without anyone collapsing, fighting or attempting murder.

An excellent improvement.

The formal arrangement began loosening as more couples stepped onto the floor, and Raven had barely managed a proper breath when somebody stopped beside them.

"A dance?"

She turned.

Rowan Ashbourne stood there with one hand extended.

Raven stared at it for a moment before looking up at him. His expression remained perfectly composed, as though asking her to dance was the most ordinary decision he had made all evening.

For some reason, Raven looked toward Dante.

Amusement appeared across his face immediately.

Her eyes narrowed. "What?"

Dante smirked, released her waist with infuriating ease and nodded toward Rowan. "Go."

Raven hesitated.

His smile deepened. "Ashbourne isn’t a threat."

Heat climbed straight into Raven’s face while Rowan’s eyebrows rose slightly beside them.

"I did not ask whether he was a threat."

"No," Dante agreed far too easily, before adding, "Hale isn’t either."

For one terrible second Raven could only stare at him.

The implication sat there between them, smug and completely uninvited.

Neither Rowan nor Nikolai concerned him.

Not where she was involved.

The arrogant bastard.

"Fuck you," Raven muttered.

Dante laughed as Raven placed her hand in Rowan’s before her face could become any warmer.

Rowan led her away, his expression composed despite the faint amusement in his eyes.

Raven caught it immediately.

As he guided her into the dance, Rowan glanced briefly toward Dante. "Prymont seems very confident."

Raven looked back once.

Dante was still watching them, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

"He usually is."

"That much is obvious."

Raven faced Rowan again with a quiet sigh. "Can we dance before his ego gets any bigger?"

A trace of amusement finally broke through Rowan’s composure.

"I doubt we have that much time."

Rowan danced exactly as she probably should have expected him to. There was nothing careless about him, no sudden movement simply because he thought her reaction might entertain him and none of Dante’s irritating habit of watching her as though he already knew what she would say before she said it.

He was steady, controlled and surprisingly easy to follow.

For several moments they moved without speaking, which Raven found almost suspiciously peaceful.

Then Rowan said, "Congratulations."

She glanced up at him. "For surviving the speech?"

"For Second Seat."

That caught her off guard.

"Oh."

"Try not to sound so shocked."

Raven’s eyes narrowed slightly, but there was no mockery in his expression.

"Thank you."

"You earned it."

She looked at him again.

There was no polite noble variation of for someone like you hidden beneath the words. Rowan simply said it as though it were a fact, and something about that felt stranger than it probably should have.

Before Raven could decide what to do with the feeling, he added, "You handled tonight well too."

She stared at him. "I said ’fuck’ into an amplification sigil."

"Yes."

"And that counts as handling it well?"

The faintest trace of amusement touched his mouth. "I said you handled it. I did not say elegantly."

A laugh escaped Raven. "Asshole."

"I’ve been called worse."

That, she believed.

Their dance ended not long afterward, and Rowan had barely released her when another hand appeared between them.

Nikolai smiled as he offered it. "May I?"

Raven smiled back.

"Of course."

She placed her hand in his, and Rowan stepped aside without argument as Nikolai drew her back into the moving crowd.

By then the Ball had lost most of its ceremonial stiffness. Students filled the floor in greater numbers, conversations rose around the edges and Raven could finally look around without feeling as though half the academy was waiting for her to make another official decision.

She relaxed into the movement.

Her gaze drifted over Nikolai’s shoulder until it found Brielle.

Raven nearly missed her, mostly because the woman currently dancing with Lucien Marchmont looked suspiciously unlike the Brielle Vance she knew.

Lucien said something Raven could not hear.

Brielle smiled.

Then she actually laughed.

Raven stared.

Goddess.

He really did have game.

As though sensing the attention, Brielle glanced across the ballroom and caught Raven watching.

The smile vanished immediately.

Raven looked away before Brielle found a way to threaten her from the opposite side of the room.

That made her think of the others.

Tessa was somewhere with Julian, which left Thalia.

Raven searched until she found her near the far side of the ballroom.

Alone.

A young man approached her just as Raven noticed, and for one brief moment she thought she had finally understood all those strange glances toward the entrance earlier.

Maybe this was who Thalia had been waiting for.

Then Thalia shook her head.

The man tried again, leaning slightly closer as he said something else. Thalia answered with an apologetic smile and another shake of her head until he finally took the hint and walked away.

Raven frowned.

Thalia did not relax afterward. If anything, she looked more on edge, her attention returning immediately to the room as she searched through the crowd again.

Raven tried following the direction of her gaze, but Nikolai turned her before she could work out what had caught Thalia’s attention.

The ballroom moved around them, and Raven came smoothly around—

straight toward Dante.

His eyes were already on her.

There was enough heat in his gaze that Raven forgot what she had been looking for entirely.

Then Dante reached out.