Pecilia was sauntering around the room with one target in mind. She had gotten Wilham to promise he would drag Algernon to the party, and though she knew the success rate of such a thing was probably very low, it was worth a shot and another long scan of the crowd.
She was just about to give up her search when from the back of the room stalked a dark figure who had just adjusted both collars of his jacket to better cover his face as a smirk appeared on Pecilia's. Algernon usually stood out with his dark hair, but the bar was so dimly lit he blended in with everything else. Also, a good percentage of those attending Attwood dyed their hair black anyways, just as Pecilia did. But that was more because her parents had forwardly suggested she stand out as much as she could to get the attention of the Algernon Black.
"Algernon," Pecilia said, snaking her arm through one of his as she took off her mask.
Algernon barely glanced her way. "What." He knew Pecilia quite well after many years of running in the same circle, but that didn't mean he liked her any more than the rest of them, especially when she clung to him as she did now.
"No need to be in such a foul mood," Pecilia said, sweetling her voice as much as she could. "If you want, I can elevate it for you."
Algernon angled his stone-cold face down at her. "Did you have something to do with Wilham stealing my bag and leaving me the stone to get here?"
Pecilia slyly smiled. "I have to give it to him, that was a smarter plan than I thought him capable of."
Algernon shot her one of his well-practiced glares. Too bad for him, she was the master of glares, which she learned from years of being on the receiving end of her father's. And after a lifetime of dealing with them, nothing fazed or scared her.
"Well since you're here you might as well stay for the fun," Pecilia said as she sipped from her glass goblet of orange spirits. Every color of the alcohol corresponded with its effects, and orange relieved nerves.
"I'd rather not." He said, looking at the sparkling drink concerningly. The nectar of the gods was delicious and the feeling it induced was more pleasant than any regular alcohol, but the long-term effects were horrid on the mind and body. "And you might want to be careful with what you're putting inside you."
Pecilia eyed him over the rim of her drink. "Oh, I'm always careful about what goes inside me."
Algernon sighed. He didn't have the energy tonight for any of this. He had already been drained from a long day of human interaction and setting up the greenhouse. So, when he had gotten back late to his dorm to see his bag missing, he didn't just lose his last nerve, it exploded.
"Tell Wilham he has until sunrise to return my bag, or he'll be spending the next month walking on crutches." Algernon tried to push past Pecilia, but she placed herself in front of him.
"Only if you stay with me a little longer," Pecilia pleaded, as a last resort.
"No," Algernon said, making to leave for good this time. He detested being in places like this. Where the spoiled children of nobles drank until they passed out or got drunk enough to fuck each other on every available surface. Truly it was disgusting and the exact opposite of anywhere he would choose to be, but he found himself suddenly stopped in his tracks when he spotted freshly bobbed blonde hair.
Pecilia noticed his staring and recalled how he had seemed particularly interested in the newest member of society at the welcoming ceremony. It was also one of the reasons she brought Lucy. She wanted to test a hunch.
"I thought it might be interesting to see what she'll do here." Pecilia said as they watched Lucy get approached by an upperclassman in a tacky red velvet suit. She had her mask off which Pecilia told her not to do but intentionally forgot to mention why she shouldn't. "Or should I say what will get done to her here?" Pecilia added as they watched Lucy accept the offered pink drink. "Especially if she drinks that strain of nectar." Which was used as an aphrodisiac, an especially powerful one at that.
Pecilia glanced away from the scene and back at Algernon to be struck aback by how expressive his face suddenly showed.
His jaw clenched wire tight as he watched the man lead Lucy to the edges of the cavern to one of the private booths with a deceitful smile and pressuring hand on her back. He was reminded of how innocent and vulnerable she looked up on that stone stage. And now where was that going to get her?
"Algernon?" Pecilia asked with more than a little concern.
"Tell Wilham to return my bag," Algernon demanded as he nearly ran away. Pecilia wondered what triggered him to become so emotional as over all the years she'd known him he never gave any signs he even had emotions. And she had been at his father's funeral.
"Pecilia," Wilham said, stepping aside her when he saw Algernon had left. "How did it go?" He sarcastically asked after having seen the conversation play out in real-time.
"You stink of alcohol." She shot back. Although, she was happy to have someone there to help her look less like she had just been completely rejected.
Wilham haded her his glass. "Let's make you stink of alcohol as well." She took it and drank as she glanced back to Lucy. She had a feeling something was going to happen over there, but she left it up to fate to deal with. She laughed at her own thoughts. Fate, she repeated to herself, mocking the word. She looked over to Lucy who was a bug caught in a spider's net. Fate is as real as all the fake feelings everyone here got from these drinks. With that, she wondered whose hands Lucy's fate would be in tonight.
Lucy finally noticed the intended destination of her partner when she was just before one of those dark red private booths. And from what she saw, those dimly lit areas meant one thing. And she wanted no part of it.
"No," Lucy said as she was pushed along. "No, thank you."
The boy eyed her with a thin smile. "Just come, you'll enjoy it." He tried to usher her into the booth by force, but Lucy planted her heels.
"I'd really rather not." She swung around to walk away, but he blocked her escape.
"How about just a few minutes?" He grabbed her hips to send shards of disgust into every nerve of Lucy's body. "And if you want to keep going then-" His hand started to lower and Lucy wanted to push him off, but this was a new type of enemy, one she'd never before had to defend herself from and instead she froze. Jared had taught her only how to fight physical attacks but this kind of thing she was unprepared for, even though it felt more unwelcomed than any physical pain she had ever endured.
"Enough." A deep voice cut through the scene to say what Lucy couldn't. The voice was accompanied by a hand around her wrist that pulled her free from the other's unwanted hold.
"She's here with me." Lucy had to prevent herself from falling by putting a hand on the new man's chest. When she looked up to see her savior, she could only see some of the details of him because the dim lighting kept everything about him covered in a cloak of darkness as much as his black mask did. But he was tall and lean with a tightened and well-defined jaw. Lucy tried to put together all the visible parts of him into one image but couldn't recall why he seemed familiar.
The unwanted man looked to the other. "Well, this place is made to spread love, so let me have a turn aft-"
"No." His voice came out even but grim and left no room for discussion as his hold on Lucy's hand tightened, though oddly it did not disgust or scare her as the other man's did. Instead, it felt reassuring. Even the smell of him was calming. With a fresh clean scent like flowers.
The man looked annoyed but complied, thinking better than to challenge someone bigger than him over one timid girl. He walked away to try his luck with a new victim.
The savior waited until he was out of sight before relaxing his clenched muscles and freeing Lucy's arm.
Then he turned to her.
"Are you some kind of perverse fetish chaser who gets off on being preyed upon by lecherous perverts?"
"Excuse me?" Lucy asked so stunned by the unwarranted and scathing insult, that she wondered if she'd heard him right.
"You should leave." He said, deciding that this was the end of the night for her.
"No," Lucy said, more to defy his rudeness than actually want to be there.
At her defiance, he pressed forward.
"Why?" He asked as his eyes cut her down through his mask. "Do you have other plans of being nearly assaulted tonight?"
"No! And I don't have any more plans of being insulted by you either."
His eyes narrowed in confusion, wondering why she so ardently refused him. And while he took her in, he knew exactly why that man had approached her. She seemed like an easy target, vulnerable, innocent, and misleadingly complying. He also thought her lips had a pleasing pink hue and full shape to them when they lightly pressed together on her angry face, a face most men would love to approach.
"You know you're supposed to thank the person who saved you." Algernon responded, being slightly less rude when he became distracted by her appearance.
Lucy's eyebrows squinted together. "I didn't need saving."
His voice and eyes lowered. "Is that so?"
"Not by-" Lucy was cut off when her savior very easily pushed her down onto the booth with one shove of his hand to her shoulder. She fell onto her back because she was off-centered and caught off guard, but she had been able to outstretch her hands in front of her and onto the boy's hard chest after he followed on top of her.
When Lucy was able to recover from the shock she said, "Get off." And uselessly pushed against the heavyweight of his body.
"No." He said, mimicking her defiance from earlier. He grabbed both her wrists in one of his hands and pinned it down above her head. She huffed at his smug satisfied smile and couldn't help but notice how close and perfectly positioned his lips were above her own. She veered her face away while her cheeks ran red hot.
Being ignored annoyed Algernon and so he lifted his free hand to her waist, wrapping his hand around the side of it. He was surprised by how small it felt and even more shocked by the low noise of surprise it elicited from her lips. He smiled. "Still don't need help?"
His nearly whispered question entered Lucy's ear to cause every hair on her body to rise. She glared at him for it.
Algernon pulled himself back where it pleased him so thoroughly to see her cheeks grown red and goosebumps spread across her body. And he wondered why he was enjoying this much more than he should.
Maybe he liked it because it was opening her eyes to the dangers, she was vulnerable to by being so open and trusting. He concluded, however, he for certain was not doing it because he liked the feeling of her angry pretty gray eyes glaring into his.
Algernon's thumb started slowly circling up Lucy's waist and was slightly lifting the thin fabric of her dress up as he did, getting it past her knees and further up still. The higher it rose the deeper the feeling of heat sank in Lucy's body and when the tops of his fingers just grazed the last rib below her breast she sucked in a pinched breath.
Algernon smiled a devilish grin as he leaned in closer, and his nose filled with the scent of her. It was a more enticing smell than he realized because as soon as it grabbed a hold of his senses, he started mindlessly drawing nearer to her as his fingers just reached the very bottom of her breast.
"If you ask nicely," Algernon said as her dress pushed up to the tops of her inner thighs. "I might let you go."
Lucy bit at the insides of her cheeks to try and suppress a very unwelcome and confusing fluttering in her chest.
"Tell me," Lucy said after gathering enough of herself back. But she had to be very careful with how she moved her mouth because even the slightest lift up might cause her lips to brush his. "Do you have a fetish for saving girls just to put them into an even more dangerous situation under your control?"
Algernon smiled so wide it made the sacks under his eyes bunch up. He might have laughed if the situation were different, but at the moment it was hard to focus on humor when there was a much harder, more intoxicatingly feeling swelling his body.
"I think I might." His eyes slowly moved from Lucy's lips to her eyes as his fingers started to move inward towards the center of her chest.
Lucy's eyes drew to his lips and watched them carefully invaded the space near her own, until he was so close that her pinned hands were in reach of his face, and she was able to grab his mask off.
Algernon instantly jumped back after being so jarringly snapped out of the moment.
Lucy held the mask as she sat up to examine his face in the dark lighting. But it was barely visible and the shadows he had backed into hid him well. She tried to find recognition in his eyes but couldn't make out any color in the dimness, or it might be that his pupils were so dilated there was no color to be seen. Her heart skipped a beat when the darkness reminded her of eyes she had only seen once before.
"Have we met?" Lucy asked, but she could already tell that it was who she thought it was.
Algernon didn't reply as he silently cursed himself for getting carried away. Instead of an answer, he took his mask back without resistance from her. Once he placed it on, his entire demeanor changed. And when he spoke to Lucy again it was like he was speaking with a stranger.
"Don't drink anything offered here to you," Algernon warned. "And keep your mask on."
Lucy was left staring at his back where it didn't take more than a second to vanish amongst the many bodies of the room. To say she was left feeling strange wasn't entirely true. She lifted a hand over her heart where she felt it softly beating in a steady rhythm above what it usually did. It felt more pleasant than strange, and somehow content.
"What an interesting scene." A boy said, from a hidden distance away. He looked at where Algernon had disappeared into the crowd and the blond-haired girl he fled from. He lifted a glass of red liquid to his lips and the gold thin banded cuff he wore at his wrist flashed in his vision. He looked down with a smirk as a thought played through his mind. "Could be very interesting."
"Why are you talking to yourself?" His longtime friend asked with the sharp bit his tone always held. "It's weird."
"Why are you here Rowland if you can't even work up the courage to talk with a girl?" He replied with cheerful rudeness.
His friend fumed with anger and punched his shoulder right where he knew it would hurt. "Shut up! I'm not afraid!"
Luke held onto his throbbing shoulder but didn't retaliate when he saw the looks of the people around him would be punishment enough for Rowland who was turning beat red with so many eyes on him. Instead, he looked back at the girl and made a mental note to remember her face, as he was sure Algernon Black already had.