Read Online One For Sorrow: The Veil Series, #5.5 by Pippa DaCosta - Free Book Online Page A

underestimating me. I’d never really looked particularly threatening. Akil had once told me that some of the most dangerous things came in small packages. He would know. He’d known all about me—what I was, what I would become.
    Why was I thinking about him? I hadn’t thought of him in weeks. I’d made sure of it by keeping myself busy chasing down rogue demons like this one.
    “C’mon… I’ll find you. This can only end one way.”
    I stepped forward, reaching for the bannister. The hallway tilted sideways, and the floor seemed to wrench itself out from beneath me. I stumbled, heart leaping, and made a grab for the post. I’d have poured demon into my veins if a quaint tinkling music hadn’t pulled me around. Somehow, in that one sweeping movement, between one heartbeat and the next, the hallway changed from suffocating darkness to blazing light with people—people everywhere.
    “What the…”
    Light, noise, and the smell of cigarette smoke and rose-scented perfume washed over me. A woman to my right laughed, bright and breezy, at something her companion said. She wore her hair pinned into neat, tight curls. Her sleeveless dress spilled from her shoulders and fell straight and angular in the thirties fashion. The men wore tailcoats—tuxedos with silk lapels. They chatted. Teeth flashed in bright smiles. And somewhere in the house, a live band played lighthearted jazz.
    How is this possible?
    I clung to the bannister as though it were a life raft, afraid to let go of what I knew to be real, and backed a few steps up the stairs. I knew this couldn’t be real. I knew I was in an abandoned house, but knowing it did nothing to stop the illusion. I saw it, felt it, smelled it. Surely that made it real too?
    “My apologies, ma’am.” Two men jostled down the stairs behind me and carried on their way, talking about the rise in unemployment. Their unusually chipper American accents rang sharp in my ears.
    “This is insane,” I muttered, groping at my back pocket for my cell. I had to call Ryder and say…something. Anything.
    A warm hand clasped mine. Instinct had me about to yank my arm away, when an all too familiar scent of cinnamon and cloves warmed me through. The evocative smell—and its meaning—rooted me to the bottom step. The music changed to an upbeat, fun little tune, and a woman’s voice rose up—
    “…Let a lady confess I wanna be bad…”
    “…Then the answer is yes, I wanna be bad… This thing of being a good little goody is all very well, what can you do if you’re loaded with plenty of hell—th…”
    No. It couldn’t be.
    He moved around me with my hand in his and stepped down a single step to the hallway floor. I saw the chest of the double-breasted tuxedo first and fixed my eyes on his silk lapels. If I looked up and saw his face, saw him. I wasn’t sure what that meant—or what I wanted it to mean. What if it was him? What if it wasn’t? My heart thumped over the joyous music, and around me, the party sounds swirled. It’s not real. None of this is real. It’s demon. It has to be. A demon is screwing with my head. Call it out. Do it now, before… He settled his warm fingertips under my chin and tilted my head up.
    My heart stuttered. The sounds of the party fell away. I looked into his amber-fringed eyes and felt tears pool in my own. “Akil?”
    “Muse.”
    I opened my mouth to ask how—why—but he placed a finger on my lips, tightened his grip on my hand, and led me alongside him, through the partygoers, down the hall, and into an enormous ballroom.
    People greeted him, bid him good evening, smiled as he approached. Men offered to shake his hand, but he didn’t let me go, just smiled and moved on. I let him lead me—drifting through the dream—because that’s what this had to be. A dream.
    “Dance with me.” Not a request. I flinched, remembering how he’d asked me to dance before, a lifetime ago, when we were both so very different.
    The music had changed