It’s an eternity before he releases me from his gaze and simultaneously shoves the drunk man toward the door. A moment later I’m alone with the masked stranger.

He’d been here all along. Sitting in the shadows silently watching me.

All night I’d felt it. Eyes on me. All night I’d felt that chill. I shudder now because it was him. This masked man. I recognize the sensation, the unease. That sense of being exposed. Alone in a room full of people.

My mouth goes dry. I press my back to the altar, hands clutching the edge of it.

His gaze roams over me leaving goose bumps in its wake. I shudder. He must see it. Must realize I’m terrified. And only when he takes a step back are my lungs able to work again. Am I able to draw breath again.

“You shouldn’t be in here alone,” he says. “It’s not safe for a woman alone when there’s alcohol and idiots about.”

I stare up at him, stupefied.

“Your shoes,” he says.

“What?” I ask, my voice a whisper.

He gestures down and I look at my bare feet, then up at him. I point to where I’d left them. He gets my shoes and carries them back to me. He stands just a little too close, too much in my space like it’s his, like it belongs to him and I’m the invader.

I still can’t seem to move.

“I won’t eat you,” he says in that low, rumbling voice.

My chest shudders with a deep breath. I tell myself to relax. It’s nothing. He just saved me. What I felt, that chill, it’s just my imagination.

“Not yet anyway,” he says, and I know he’s grinning beneath his mask.

I swallow. I’m shaking.

He bends to set my shoes on the floor. I take in the sheer size of him. He’s easily twice as big as me. He straightens and holds out his hand, palm up. Along his wrist I see the creeping of a tattoo. A serpent’s tail.

I’m staring. It takes all I have to drag my gaze up to his.

“Put your shoes on,” he says.

My throat is too dry to speak, to form words or make sound, so I slip my hand into his and gasp at the sudden shock.

He closes his fingers around mine and I feel the sheer power in the palm of his hand as he holds me steady. He studies me for a long, long moment before I blink, lowering my gaze and slipping on my shoes.

“Good,” he says, and I just keep standing there, my hand trapped inside his.

The gong announcing dinner rings. I look up at him.