Queen of Steel: Throne of Lies

Chapter 21 - Masquerade Mayhem

Allistair's POV

As I stepped out of the restroom, my heart stuttered at the sight before me. Tahlia was advancing across the ballroom like an avenging angel, her eyes blazing with rage, her beautiful features contorted into a ferocious scowl. Merciless purpose radiated from her with every clipped stride.

"Oh Shit," I muttered under my breath, an icy fist of dread clenching my gut.

She had witnessed the altercation with Haysmith. Of course she would be furious - I had promised to keep a low profile this evening for the sake of her ambitions. Yet fate seemed intent on thwarting us at every turn.

Tahlia closed the distance rapidly, her glare so scorching I was amazed I didn't spontaneously combust. Before I could open my mouth to explain, she grabbed my arm in a vise-like grip and yanked me towards the nearest alcove.

"Tally, please, let me—"

"Outside. Now," she hissed through gritted teeth.

I clenched my jaw but obeyed. Denying Tahlia when she was in this mood would only lead to further explosive confrontation. It was better to allow the storm to crest before attempting to reason with her.

"What in the blazing hell were you thinking?" Her finger jabbed into my chest, the sting of it negligible compared to the knowing I had disappointed and angered her so. "Have you utterly lost your mind?"

I prepared to lay bare the truth - how I had intervened solely to protect Rosemary from Haysmith's vile intentions towards her. As a gentleman, it was my duty.

But that justification was merely a smokescreen. The real reason I kept such vigilant watch over Rosemary, the driving force that had me ingratiate myself into her orbit, stemmed from deeply troubling intel. Hints, however tenuous, that she harbored a shocking connection to the Steelman family - one capable of detonating Tahlia's entire world.

One look at the gawking crowd spilling through the alcove doors, however, and the words turned to ash on my tongue. Tahlia's wellbeing was the axis around which my entire world turned. I would let nothing disrupt that orbit, even if it damned me in her eyes for a time.

"Tahlia, I can explain—"

"Explain what? Explain trading blows with that reprobate like a couple of warring Neanderthals in front of every influential figure in Hopevale City?"

I winced at the venom in her tone, all too aware of how this spectacle must have appeared. A black mark on the pristine record of accomplishments she portrayed on her race for the SteelCo Chair.

"Tally-"

The alcove doors flew open to admit Antoine, Tamara, Tessa, and...Lucian Drago. Why was the slithering snake here was beyond me.

Before I could protest their intrusion, Tahlia rounded on me once more. "Well? I'm waiting for this marvelous explanation of yours, Allistair William Lockwood."

As much as it scorched my soul to have Tahlia view me with such contempt, I could not bring myself to burden her with this potential truth. Not without irrefutable proof to shelter her from the devastation.

Because if Rosemary, the woman Tahlia so openly disdained, proved to be....what I tought she was...it would atomize what remained of Tahlia's world into fragments too shattered to reassemble.

Clearing my throat, I temporized. "Haysmith was out of line. I did what any gentleman would do when a lady's honor is impugned."

Tahlia's lips twisted in a mocking sneer. "Is that what you call it? Because it looked more like petty machismo on display."