Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,98

her waist, gesturing to the gawking crowd, and said in a tone that was part encouragement, part command, “Please, you are my guests. Enjoy the music.”

Awkwardly, those nearby traded glances with their own partners, and soon the floor was filling with bustled skirts and coattails. Cinder risked glancing toward where they had abandoned Adri and Pearl—they were both standing still amid the shuffling crowd, watching as Kai expertly guided Cinder farther and farther away from them.

Clearing his throat, Kai murmured, “You have no idea how to dance, do you?”

Cinder fixed her gaze on him, mind still reeling. “I’m a mechanic.”

His eyebrows raised mockingly. “Believe me, I noticed. Are those grease stains on the gloves I gave you?”

Mortified, she glanced at their intertwined fingers and the black smudges on the white silk gloves. Before she could apologize, she felt herself being gently pushed away and spun beneath his arm. She gasped, for a moment feeling light as a butterfly, before she stumbled on her undersized cyborg foot and fell back into his embrace.

Kai grinned, coaxing her back to arm’s length, but he didn’t tease her. “So. That’s your stepmother.”

“Legal guardian.”

“Right, my mistake. She seems like a real treasure.”

Cinder scoffed and her body started to ease. Without sensation in her foot, it felt like trying to dance with a ball of iron soldered to her ankle. Her leg was beginning to ache from carrying it, but she resisted the urge to limp, picturing ever-graceful Pearl in her ball gown and heels, and wished her body into conformity.

At least her body seemed to be memorizing the pattern of the dance steps, making each movement slightly more fluid than the last, until she almost felt as if she knew what she were doing. Of course, the tender pressure of Kai’s hand on her waist didn’t hurt.

“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “About her, and my stepsister. Can you believe they think I’m the embarrassment?” She made it sound like a joke, but she couldn’t help analyzing his response, bracing for that moment when he asked her if it were true.

If she really were cyborg.

Then, as his smile started to crumble, she realized the moment had come far too soon, and she desperately wished she could take the comment back. She wished they could go on pretending forever that her secret was still safe. That he still did not know.

That he still wanted her to be his personal guest.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kai said, his voice lowering even though the noise of laughter and tapping heels had filled the air around them.

Cinder opened her mouth, but her words snagged in her throat. She wanted to refute Pearl’s claim, to call her a liar. But what would that get her? More lies. More betrayal. The fingers of her metal hand tightened on his shoulder, the hard, unforgiving confines of the limb. He didn’t flinch, just waited.

She wanted to feel relief now that they had no more secrets. But that wasn’t entirely true either. He still didn’t know she was Lunar.

She opened her mouth again, unsure what she was going to say until the faint words came to her. “I didn’t know how.”

Kai’s eyes softened, little wrinkles forming in their corners.

“I would have understood,” he said.

Almost imperceptibly, he inched closer, and Cinder found her elbow crawling up his shoulder in a way that felt impossibly natural. Still, he did not back away. Did not shudder or tense.

He knew, but he wasn’t disgusted? He would still touch her? Somehow, unbelievably, he still even, maybe, liked her?

She felt she would have cried if it had been an option.

Her fingertips tentatively curled around the hair at the back of his neck, and she found that she was shaking, sure he would push her away at any moment. But he didn’t. He did not pull away. Did not grimace.

His lips parted, just barely, and Cinder wondered if maybe she wasn’t the only one having trouble breathing.

“It’s just,” she started, running her tongue across her lips, “it isn’t something I like to talk about. I haven’t told anyone who…who…”

“Who didn’t know her?”

Cinder’s words evaporated. Her?

Fingers stiffening, she eased them out of his hair and settled her palm back on his shoulder.

The intensity in his gaze melted into sympathy. “I understand why you didn’t say anything. But now I feel so selfish.” His jaw flexed, his brow turned up with guilt. “I know, I should have guessed after you told me she was sick to begin with, but with the coronation and