Page 139 of Red Masquerade

“No!”

“We only have so long now,” Marcel said in my ear. He began to move us, whirling me around but keeping an arm around my waist. It didn’t take long for me to realize we were heading back to the front door.

I dug my heels into the floor. “Wait!”

It did nothing against his inhuman strength, moving me like I was a rag doll and weighed nothing.

My heels only skidded along the floor, leaving scuffs that would be gone by sunrise. The people dancing around us, the human crowd, parted for Marcel and me, none of them looking at us. Like we weren’t even there.

None of them were looking.

No one noticed my struggle. Like they were entranced.

“Wait!” I shouted again, digging my fingers into the arm around my waist.

This was going so horribly wrong. People were going todie.

And where were our friends? We couldn’t do this alone. Vince couldn’t take him on, one-to-one, I couldn’t bear to see it—

If Vince died—

Marcel laughed, glancing behind his shoulder, eyes focusing on something I couldn’t see. His fangs were on full display, those sharp teeth that had been seconds from puncturing my flesh.

When he looked at me again, his pupils were pinpricks. Crazed, like the madman he was.

“Do you not like being in my arms?” he asked. He didn’t move any quicker, almost as though he was unbothered by the chase. Oozing a confidence that made me nervous, a darkness souring my tongue. “You’re not trying very hard.”

How had the evening turned this way?

It was supposed to be simple—I would lead him into a suite, and Vince and the others would be there, and Vince would take care of it. Marcel was supposed to bedead. But with every step closer to the front door, my heart picked up pace, rattling in my chest, telling me toget out of here.

“Interesting how no one else comes to your rescue,” Marcel said, but the way he said it made my blood freeze in my veins.

What had he done?

“Let go of me!” I growled, unable to even touch my feet to the ground.

“And Lloyd Dixon is here, too,” Marcel went on, dragging me past the threshold into the foyer. The devils above watched on, grinning at the devil who had his arms around me. All the while, the rest of the party went on like nothing was happening. Bursts of laughter all around me, lovers embracing, drunken carousing, with little care for the girl being dragged away against her will.

“Where’s his gal, that beautiful blonde?”

My head snapped up at that, staring daggers into Marcel. “If you touchher—”

“I don’t need to,” Marcel smirked.

He had pulled me all the way to the front door. Vince was still somewhere inside, no one else coming to my rescue.

I searched the crowd, pleading with every god in my head that Vince would appear.

Whatthe fuckhad Marcel done?

I had walked right into a fucking trap.

“I don’t need to hurt your little friend, because you’re going to come with me without a fight.” Marcel looked at me in seriousness for the first time this evening, the deadly side of him seeping through his gaze. Eyes flickering to my neck once more, the tip of his tongue tracing a route along his lips. A threat. “If you come with me, Vince and your friend will be safe. I’ll leave them alone.”

I wanted to scream. To bash my fists against his face.

“You won’t be able to get me out of this house,” I said, hoping he saw how much I hated him. How muchIwanted to kill him. A heat lined my eyes, watery anger threatening to spill. “You’re outnumbered.”