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President Snow's mansion glowed a bleached white as Nastasia approached, right hand hooked around Brutus's elbow while he escorted her inside.
"Certainly knows how to throw a party doesn't he?" Brutus commented beside her, drinking in all the splendour with a familiar thirst in his eyes. The pale light from the patio lights reflected against his skin, and signature shaven head, making him look like some form of towering beast. He was a fair bit taller than her even though Nastasia wasn't short at five-foot-ten. Almost brute-ish one would say.
"You should've had him plan your wedding."
Brutus replied with a smug tone, "He did, it was quite the affair. You must've been too busy playing with knives in your nursery."
She glanced sideways as they walked the last few steps to the entrance, music beginning to hum as it leaked out from the doors. "You don't need to remind me you're old Brutus."
He laughed lowly at her tease, "When I've got you on my arm I don't think it matters."
Nastasia smiled. Well he wasn't wrong. Her prep team, true to their word, had done an excellent job, dressing her in a floor length green diamanté gown. Cut-outs ran from her shoulders down to her hip, lacing holding the front and back together, but leaving enough room for her arms and a revealing glimpse of the sides of her chest. Her date was in a much simpler black suit, only a green handkerchief matching the two together.
The doors flicked open as if by command and he turned to face her. "After you darling."
The event was just as grand inside as it proposed from its exterior. She'd visited it many times in the past several years, but every time it somehow managed to seem more extravagant, more full of riches and obscenities than the last. Indoors the marble was less blinding, the colour of bone, with roman-style columns pillaring the vast ceiling that covered the ballroom. Chandeliers of crystals spat light in flecks over the guests, like snowflakes were falling down. This year the colour scheme was a deep red, with everything from napkins to the landing carpet on the balcony coordinated. The roses were red too of course. They were everywhere, the perfume ever-present to Nastasia's senses. It made her want to vomit.
Brutus led her along the edge of the dance-floor, making their way through celebrities and a number of victors. They had made it halfway across the room when she spotted the duo Bruno was looking for.
"Gloss, Cashmere, how are my favourite murderous siblings?" He called.
The siblings looked up from their discussion and beamed. They could only be described as stunning, with matching blond hair and blue eyes, deeply set in tanned skin. Lovers of all things that glittered they were wearing complimentary jewelled attires tonight. Gloss in a dark suit trimmed with sapphires, and Cashmere a midnight blue evening gown with sapphires circling her neck like a enormous necklace.
"Brutus! Nastasia!" Cashmere batted her eyelashes and kissed them each on the cheek. Gloss wrapped Brutus into a thick hug and gave Nastasia peck, following his sisters lead.
Unlike the majority of victors, the district one pair had no qualms with winners from two. Most of the districts were prejudiced against them but from years in the Capitol Nastasia had come to realise that district one was far less hostile. The riches that the Capitol provided them in one had surely softened their animosity.
"It's lovely to see you both," Nastasia greeted them. "You look gorgeous, I'm surprised you haven't been stolen away already."
Cashmere beamed at her and tossed her ponytail back behind her as a light blush crept over her skin. "Oh stop trying to win us over Nastasia we love you already."
Gloss looked pleased and the corners of his mouth crept up. "Well Enobaria's been doing a good job of guarding us."
Brutus laughed. "Where is that woman?"
"Oh she's roaming around here somewhere," Cashmere said. "Look for a gap in the crowds, I think the guests are scared of her teeth."
Their conversation continued, drowned out by other thoughts, as Nastasia raised a champagne glass to her lips and studied the room. She wasn't searching for Enobaria though, her sights were set on someone far scarier than a eccentric victor.
President Snow had yet to appear, but as their host she knew he would be observing them all from somewhere. He wasn't one for parties, in all her years of knowing him had never cared for them or joined in the celebrations. Snow would make his presence know however, at midnight, to remind them all who span the web that they were all stuck in. Nastasia and Brutus had arrived fashionably late so she knew there couldn't be too long left. She took another drag of her drink to numb the thought and calmed her heart which was pulsing feverishly. Now was not the time for that foolishness, for weakness.
A trio of exotic dancers were winding themselves in intricate shapes next to a fruit display and she watched them, their fingertips caressing each other in swirling strokes. She knew exactly how the soothe of hands like those could unravel men and women; it was intoxicatingly powerful. She tore her eyes away.
And then Nastasia saw him. He'd crawled out from whatever hole he'd been residing in and was there on the balcony. Her stomach felt as though it had dropped into the pits of hell. Mindlessly she tapped Brutus lightly on the arm and excused herself from her group, not even twitching as Brutus joked to put in a good word. She downed the rest of her champagne and cast it aside, not daring take her eyes from the President as she slid through the crowds.
A searing shiver had started in her mind and it was sizzling all the way down her spine. Her head felt hot, blistering. She was blind, blind to everything in the room bar the dictator watching them all and the strings that came attached, now tangling inside her mind. She was burning alive with no water to douse the flames in her consciousness.
And then Nastasia turned straight into the path of the man she hated second only to President Snow. Into Finnick Odair.
Finnick Odair had been managing very well at pretending that he was having the time of his life until he saw Nastasia Caso.
It was his best quality, other than his looks, charming a crowd with a sultry comment and flash of his pearly whites; the role he played as the only district four male victor. But every time he saw her he couldn't keep the facade up. She had the uncanny ability to snake right under his skin.
And there Nastasia was, barely an inch stopping her from colliding into him, as he dropped the last step on the staircase, her emerald green gem dress winking light from the chandeliers back at him. She was as haughty and alluring as ever.
"Finnick," she said in her usual mildly amused drawl, "fancy seeing you here."
He felt it, that radiating charm on her words as she spoke and he forced himself to look to her eyes. They flashed gold, mesmerising against her deep tan and ink-black hair. Finnick knew she'd had them artificially altered in the capitol and he focused on that link as his hatred of her simmered back to the surface.
"Nastasia," he replied evenly, retaining his grin to the best of his ability, "a delight as always."
Nastasia Caso was dangerous in a way that the other victors of the hunger games weren't. They were all killers, but she was the only one he was afraid of. She'd won two years after Finnick and had manipulated the other tributes, the entire career pack into murdering each other. Planted suspicions into their minds so deep they burrowed their knives into each other. They'd stabbed each other in the back and left her standing.
After the games, her popularity had been startling. The Capitol loved how charming she was, with her sarcasm and sardonic humour she played in interviews, her effortless beauty that never faltered. She was, in every sense, a villain. Yet she had them dangling on her every word.
It was common knowledge that she was President Snow's prized victor from the games and the rumours that spread about her were as tantalising and dark as she was. Nastasia Caso, the seductress. The spy. The assassin. Finnick wouldn't have paid any attention to them if it wasn't for his own secrets he'd uncovered about her. For once the Capitol didn't exaggerate.
He'd encountered Nastasia a number of times among his years as a victor and he was well aware that his loathing for her was mutual, not that he thought she actually liked anyone.
"Commiserations on your tributes," she said not sounding sad at all. "They didn't even make it past the cornucopia this year did they?"
Finnicks smiled as he mocked her. "And yours are here tonight of course."
Nastasia raised an eyebrow. "My girl nearly killed Katniss. If it hadn't been for that boy from five she would be parading round, not the lover-birds. But then we did get two for the price of twenty-four this year so maybe that makes it worth it?"
She snickered as she said it as if she found the whole thing hilarious. Scornful witch.
He glared at her. "They aren't pawns for your amusement Nastasia."
Her eyes glazed over at him as though they were bored. "Please, we're all pawns," she scoffed. "You've just got to know how to play the game."
"You're despicable."
"Why thank you," she said. "Would you like some lessons? It could add some dimension to your playboy personality."
"No thanks, I think if anything I'd just become more of a nymphomaniac."
Nastasia scowled at Finnick so harshly he wondered if those golden eyes could in fact scorch him. He smirked back. An uneven glint stared him down but she blinked it away a moment later and recomposed herself.
"Well I've relished our little chat," she said with a tone dripping with sarcasm, "but if you would let me pass that would be splendid."
"Slithering off to your president?" Finnick couldn't help himself as she stepped past. "You do enjoy being his pet don't you?"
Nastasia caught his arm before she crossed, breathing down his neck with a whisper, "Yes. And for your sake let's hope I don't go hissing things about you into his ears."
She dropped his arm and stalked past him. Finnick watched her as she went, every ounce of his blood boiling. Her green dress trailed behind her as she strode up towards, indeed as he had expected, President Snow waiting on the second floor. Finnick's hand quivered slightly as he ran a hand through his blond hair and adjusted his bow-tie on his suit. He wasn't sure that she wouldn't follow through on her threat, he never was, but he'd made it eight years in the Capitol toeing the line and he was the most desirable living victor.
At least he wouldn't see Nastasia again for a good six months before the next games rolled around, with a quarter quell this year guaranteeing something extra horrendous. He turned to a group of Capitol guests giggling wildly at him and approached with a stifled sigh and a dazzling grin.
That was what he'd thought anyway.