Two girls. Two secrets.
Only one can survive.
Years before Nelle Wychthorn plans her escape, Tabitha Catt may unearth something in a Horned God's lair that is the key to freedom.
Desperate to save her beloved aunt from a dark curse, Tabitha is out t...
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Tomas arrived in a truck, bringing a delivery of fruit from his estate's orchard—something he did often, and the reason why he'd been here last week. After the elders and parents had retired to bed, my friends had coerced me into sneaking to the Servants Hall to celebrate my twenty-first birthday with wine and dancing to Madonna and Roxette. That evening Tomas had been a little off, a little too loud and brash, maybe due to the wine he'd consumed which Marissa had procured from her family's personal collection to celebrate the occasion. Tomas had never noticed me before, but that night he sure had.
Dashing off from Mr. Whiskers, I bolstered up my courage to greet Tomas, giving him my best smile—wide and enthusiastic. "Tomas!" I was pure skittish nerves. Excited and apprehensive all at once.
"Hey," he said by way of greeting, shooting me a brief glance through the open car window. He angled his head from side to side as he inspected himself in the rear-view mirror, pouting his soft lips slightly, running a hand through his floppy blond hair with its frosted tips before ruffling it.
Gorgeous.
He had full lips, glass-cut cheekbones, and dreamy deep-blue eyes framed by thick long lashes that even I was jealous of.
Internally, I sighed and my body melted.
Tomas eased out of the truck, slamming the door shut behind him. He was wearing matching acid-wash denim jeans and jacket. His white running sneakers crunched through the gravel as he made his way to the back of the truck to unhitch the tailgate. Shrugging free from the jacket, he draped it over the side of the truck, leaving him in a mustard yellow t-shirt. Sunlight struck off the gold chain around his neck that dangled as he reached forward to drag an apple crate from the truck's deck.
The back of the mansion was busy with servants flowing in and out of the kitchen, heading to the chaos in the center of the lawn. Their arms were laden with more glasses and tankards, or barrels of beer that needed to be set up for the oncoming dance.
Tomas's beautiful blue eyes slid my way, then his gaze grew strangely perplexed as I picked up a crate myself and chatted inanely about the rosy-red apples he'd brought with him. Really, I had no idea what I was doing gushing over apples—ridiculous—I was too tied up in nervous knots to check what was spilling from my mouth.
I followed him to the back door of the kitchen, placing the crate down beside his, and hurried to catch up to walk side-by-side. He replied in his lazy drawl to my rapid-fire questions about his day as he made his way back to his truck, dragging another crate from the deck and handing it to me before grabbing his own. I glanced at Tomas's arms banded around the apple crate, and a strange disappointed feeling swirled through me when I realized they weren't corded with muscle or inked with tattoos like Mr. Whiskers were.
