A/N: This has been sitting on my floppy disk for months, and I finally got around to finishing it. Whoo-hoo for me!

Chapter 8

Quistis calmly studied herself in the vanity mirror, turning this way and that, admiring the way her light gold dress glittered in the light. Around her neck was a string of her best diamonds, and her hair was piled in an extravagant up-do. She had no doubt in her mind that she'd turn heads at the party, perhaps even Mr. Leonhart's.

"You look lovely," Selphie commented from the doorway. She was clad in a short emerald dress that made her eyes sparkle. "You'll be the envy of the banquet."

"Not so bad yourself, Ms. Tilmitt," Quistis replied. "Now, are you ready? The guests will be arriving shortly."

"Yes, I'm ready. Squall better be ready soon, too. I bet he looks great."

"I look terrible."

Down several hallways in a small guest bedroom, Squall Leonhart scowled at himself in the mirror. "This is so unbelievably stupid."

Rinoa, dressed in her usual short black dress, leaned against the frame of his door and smiled. "You don't give yourself enough credit. You look very handsome," she commented blushingly. She stepped over to him, adjusting his collar, and sighed. "All the girls will be after you."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever. So... What will you be doing tonight?"

"Just hanging around. I have the night off."

"I still think you should come," he replied seriously.

She shrugged and laughed nervously. "Parties aren't really my thing, and I don't have anything to wear, anyway."

He shook his head, part of him wishing he could get the chance to see Rinoa all dressed up. She would certainly be better company that Quistis and Selphie. "Well, I guess I better go meet your sister downstairs. Wish me luck."

"What for?"

"For making it through the night without killing anyone."

She laughed nervously, and it was painfully obvious, at least to her own ears. She tensed her body to keep her limbs from trembling, and plastered a pleasant smile on her face. "I'm sure you'll do fine. But good luck anyway. Have fun!"

Before he could say anything more, she had broken into a near run for the hallway, leaving him to frown in confusion. There was certainly something suspicious there, lurking beneath her sweet, quiet exterior, but for once in his career he wanted nothing more than to turn a blind eye to it. He was the king of all fools, he realized as he stood there. He had done the one thing you were never allowed to do in his profession...

"What the hell are you doing just standing there?" a displeased Quistis demanded from his door way. "The guests will be arriving any minute, come on!"

He followed Quistis out, pausing briefly to glance down the hall in the opposite direction, where he'd watched Rinoa disappear just moments earlier. Yes, he'd made the one fatal mistake that he had never imagined himself to fall prey to... he had grown attached to Rinoa Heartilly.

If somewhere in the after life there was a hell, it would most certainly be something like this. He had never seen so many quiet, grave-faced people in one place, except for maybe in those execution rooms you'd see in those old movies. In fact the numerous amount of pale, stiff looking people wandering around seemed to give off the idea that it was a grandly decorated morgue having a secret welcoming party for all its inhabitants.

As if that weren't bad enough, he was certain that he would smell like an elevator full of old ladies or a shoe store on half-off day for the rest of the week. Every woman in the ballroom had found some excuse to shake his hand, embrace him, and when he wasn't looking, a few of them even had the gall to pinch his butt. And the icing on this morbid little cake? Both Quistis and Selphie had practically stayed glued to his side.

At some point, the two had hurried off to welcome some fashionably late guest coming in the door, and he was left to sit alone at one of the tables, downing glass after glass of any kind of alcoholic beverage he could get his hands on. As he slammed another of his drained glasses down on the table, an older woman, perhaps in her early fifties, took a seat next to him. She wore a simple black dress, and the only thing to decorate her face was a scowl. Her snow colored hair was pulled into a tight bun, and her crystal eyes glared out over the ballroom. Squall decided he'd ignore her for as long as he could.

"You look like you're getting' good and wasted," she said at last. "Where does that Trepe bitch keep the heavy stuff?"

For a long moment, he could only stare at her.

"What, do I have food in my teeth? Should I take them out an' clean them?"

"No!" Squall finally managed to choke out.

"Hmph." The woman crossed her arms over her chest and she watched the room with a hawk-like gaze once more. "Well, I'll be damned. The Almasy widow showed up tonight. Thought she'd wait at least a year out of respect if nothing more."

Squall followed the direction of her gaze until his eyes settled on a young, blonde-haired woman that had just entered the room. "I take it you don't mean Seifer Almasy's mother."

"Of course not! She's been dead for quite some time."

"Then you must be mistaken. Seifer Almasy is still alive... or so I was told."

"What idiot told you that? Seifer Almasy has been dead for a year... hell, he died here in this house."

Squall turned a burning stare on the woman. "You better not be senile, woman."

Her lips tugged upward. "I assure you I'm not. It was last year at Trepe's banquet. They said it was alcohol poisoning, but I don't believe that for a minute. It smells too fishy to me."

It only further proved what he'd suspected all along. Quistis Trepe had been lying to him. But why would she lie about something like that? To try and pin the whole thing on her sister by getting her ex-fiancé involved? The haze clouding his mind began to clear, his professionalism taking control again as he analyzed this new bit of information. He stood up, deciding that he was going to return to his room no matter what Quistis had to say about it.

"Well, I see you've met Mrs. Winters."

Speak of the devil, and she appears in the flesh. Quistis stood before the table, sporting a feigned smile that she aimed in the direction of Squall's middle-aged companion.

"Elisa, nice to see you again," she greeted, extending a hand to her guest.

"That's Mrs. Winters to you too, child," the old woman snapped as she stood from her seat and ignored Quistis' out-stretched hand. "You call this a party? Why in my day..."

Squall didn't hear anything else Elisa had to say, despite the humor of it. His eyes were focused instead on the ballroom doors that had just parted slowly, a timid, reluctant figure quietly stepping inside. The afore mentioned cloud seemed to fall from the sky and blanket his brain once more, as if all the wine he'd had that night chose that one moment to slam into his system. Without bothering to excuse himself from the table, he headed off toward the entrance, his legs moving forward without thought to drive them.

If fear were capable of killing a person she was certain she'd be on the floor by now. She still had no idea what it was that possessed her to come here, where she was forbidden to so much as show her face. And no, she couldn't have taken the easy way out, and just snuck in with the rest of the servants. When she gave into the sudden impulse to defy her half-sister's orders, she went all the way, fixing her hair, dabbing on a little make up and slipping into an old dress of her mother's that miraculously was a perfect fit on her. She bit her lip, studying her reflection in one of the polished pillars and frowned, feeling like she didn't belong here at all. The thin, light blue, spaghetti-strap floor length dress she'd chosen to wear didn't seem to fit in with the sparkling evening gowns of the other women.

She had been standing there for nearly three minutes and Quistis had yet to spot her. She was just about to give in to the urging of her instincts and leave when a warm hand placed itself on her shoulder.

"Rinoa? I thought you weren't coming here?"

Rinoa turned around to face him, her face flushed the color of a sunset sky. The quivering in her chest reminded her of the whole reason she had wanted to come here in the first place, but now that he stood before her, she couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"Are you alright?" he asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

After a few moments of nearly incoherent stuttering, she finally managed to say, "I... I really don't know."

"I thought you weren't going to come."

She smiled shyly and shrugged her shoulders. "I guess I changed my mind." She laughed nervously. "When Quistis sees me she's going to be so angry..."

"She wouldn't do anything in front of her friends, right?"

"No, of course not. But later tonight..."

"I'll protect you," the words slipped out with no permission from his mind. Yes, he wanted to protect her, but what made him say it aloud? Was it the look of fear in her eyes, or his slightly clouded judgment? It didn't matter. Suddenly, she was the only thing on his mind.

Her blush only deepened beneath his intense stare, and, summoning all her courage, she lifted a fragile hand to him. "Well, if you want me to stay then... you have to dance with me."

"I don't dance."

"Yeah, I bet," she replied, a rare tone of mischief in her voice. "I bet you'll only dance with someone you like. That's it, isn't it? Do I have to hypnotize you into liking me?" she questioned, raising her hand before his face.

He brought his own hand up to grab hers and lowered it slightly, away from his face. "I already feel hypnotized," he murmured.

She cocked her head to the side slightly. "What?"

He shook his head. "I... didn't mean to say that out loud."

"I see. Well, if you don't wanna dance, I'll just find someone else," she retorted, starting to walk away. She didn't get very far as he still held her hand, and had tightened his grip on it, pulling her back.

"Fine. But just one."

She nodded in silent agreement as he gently led her to the dance floor, which was occupied by a few other young couples at the time. She slid her arms around his neck, shivering slightly as his hands came to rest on her hips. The only other time they'd been this close was during their 'accidental' kiss, and at the moment, she was having trouble keeping herself from another accident.

"So, have you had fun so far?" Rinoa asked.

"What do you think?" he asked, his voice a husky rumble against her ear.

She couldn't help but press herself closer against him, reveling in the moment she had only dreamed about before. His scent washed over her, causing a tidal wave of warmth to crash through her body, and his arms around her made her feel safe in a way that she never had before. Not Quistis or anyone else could harm her here... not here in this blissful, heavenly warmth wrapped so lovingly about her. Hesitantly, she dared to lay her head on his chest, and smiled when he didn't resist it.

"How many other girls have you danced with this way?" she wondered aloud.

"You're the first... and the last."

Her heart slammed into her chest at the implication of those words, but she quickly reigned in her emotions before asking, "What does that mean?"

"It means that no one else could con me into dancing," he replied with a tone of humor she'd never heard him use before.

She snuggled even deeper into her chest, laughing partly at herself and her quick assumptions and partly at him. Her eyes had been closed, as she had wanted to simply feel the moment, without the distraction of the world around her, but for a moment, just a moment, she allowed her eyes to slide open, and spotted a very angry Quistis headed her way. Rinoa tore herself away from her safe haven in panic and immediately lamented the loss.

"Shit! I am in so much trouble," Rinoa whispered, slowly backing away.

"She wouldn't leave her party with all the guests here, would she?" Squall asked.

"No, but..."

Before she had a chance to finish, she found herself being led out through the doors she had only recently come out of, with every eye in the ballroom following her the entire way.

"She's gonna kill me for this!" Rinoa couldn't help but laugh as he pulled her along. They finally stopped in the hallway near their bedrooms, Rinoa giggling slightly, and Squall himself was fighting off a smile. He wasn't sure what had come over him. This was nothing at all like the kind of thing he would've normally done, it almost didn't feel like it was him standing there at all. He wasn't sure if he should blame that on the wine he'd had, or the woman standing before him. "Well... what now?" she wondered quietly.

"Go some place I can keep an eye on you... have to keep my promise."

Her smile only grew as she looked up at him, her heart pounding so fast that it made a faint, delightful little pain in her chest. "You'll have to sleep sometime." The upturned corners of her lips dropped a little as she added, "But that's okay. You care... that's enough."

Her eyes fell from his, sparkling with the unshed tears of a terrible burden. The pain in her chest built into something that spoke of betrayal, and it closed so tightly around her that she was just opening her mouth to excuse herself from his intoxicating presence when his hand upon her face startled her back into reality.

"No, it's not enough," he spoke, so close now that the bitter edge on his breath brushed against her lips, sending thrills of excitement and anticipation through her body. "You deserve so much better than this..." Skin just barely brushed skin at this and she began to tremble, only fear of sudden rejection keeping her desires at bay. "You do something to me that you shouldn't..."

"I'm sorry," she managed to choke out.

"No," his lips pressed briefly against hers, forcing a whimper from her throat. "I don't want you to stop."

She had only a second to wonder if it was real, this seeming seduction from the single man that haunted her every fantasy, before his lips sought hers once more with a blind and heated hunger. With a finger beneath her chin, he tilted her head back, ravaging her mouth as deeply as possible while she clung to him, hands fisted in his jacket. Her body smoldered both inside and out, a primal need scorching her senses and burning away any rational thought she might have had. If she'd been of sound mind at the moment she might have felt embarrassed at the desperation she was constantly moaning into his mouth, but then she couldn't hear anything but his own throaty growls as he abandoned her mouth so that she wouldn't suffocate.

She sucked in air, leaning weakly against him as her mind swam with ponderings over what his reaction would be if she dragged him straight to her bed right then and there. Her thoughts were shattered as his mouth assaulted her neck, mouth unbearably hot against her skin as it paused to suck gently at her pulse point before moving up to her ear and whispering her name in a sigh of pleasure.

She shuddered again, control slipping from her grasp. "Squall... I... I want..."

"Anything," he murmured, gently raking his teeth across her ear lobe. "Anything you want..."

"You're..." the fog slowly dissipated over her mind until she could finally form at least one coherent thought. "You're too good for me." And there it was again, closing back in, tightening around her heart once more and squeezing a sob from her chest. "I can't do this to you..."

"What are you talking about?" he inquired, face flushed their recent activity.

"I did it, Squall... I killed Seifer..."

A/N: Sorry for the wait and all. I'm going to try and wrap this story up quickly. I want to go ahead and get it out of the way because it's been dragging on for quite some time now, and because I want to get a few stories out of the way so that I can post a new one I had an idea for not long ago. So, there will only be a few more chapters to this at most, as it's getting increasingly difficult to write.

Also, I realize Squall is OOC. Thus, the alcohol as something of a cover for it, because it's true that alcohol lowers your inhibitions. And we all know that deep beneath all that inhibition, he's really just an animal... Rawr.