This isn’t the first dalliance you’ve had to pretend was different. Special.
Just do what you came here to do. Get what you need.
The violins resume, long and aching. We glide into motion, letting the rhythm pull us forward. The dance is seamless, our bodies moving as one. Graceful, elegant, calculated. The other couples blur around us, reduced to shadows at the edge of my vision.
As we spin, I catch glimpses of my companions. Zyphoro’s sharp gaze. Reon’s jaw tight with tension. Solena, trying and failing to conceal her worry. And Orios, all pensive stares and misplaced jealousy.
They are waiting. Watching. But none of them can help me now.
Only Marlayna can.
The mirror is within these walls. She is my key, my obstacle, my prey.
And judging by the way her eyes drink me in, her hunger barely veiled, I am hers.
Her fingers glide over my neck, long red nails tracing the runes etched into my skin. She licks her lips.
“You wear power well, my prince,” she murmurs, her voice a velvet purr beneath the music. “It fits you as beautifully as this suit. Tell me… do you ever let anyone beneath it?”
I smirk, tilting my head just enough to let her touch trail down the column of my throat. I let her think she’s in control. Let her believe she’s unraveling me.
“So forward,” I murmur. “Do you flirt like this with all your guests?”
Marlayna drags her teeth over her lower lip, eyes caught in mine like she’s falling into a trance.
“Forgive me,” she breathes. “I’ve never hosted a guest quite like you. It’s not every day the prince of the Sundered Kingdoms stands at my disposal.”
“Is that what you think?” I ask, voice low and edged. “That a few guards make me yours to command? That I’ll obey?” I lean closer, close enough to feel the hitch in her breath, the subtle stiffness of her spine. “Is that part of the fantasy, Marlayna? The prince on his knees before you?”
She doesn’t falter. She shakes her head once, slow and sure.
“No,” she says. “In my fantasy, I’m the one on my knees.”
I let that hang between us a beat too long, watching the desire spark in her eyes.
“You must earn that right,” I say.
Her grin sharpens.
“And how,” she whispers, “does one earn such a right?”
“How do we Fae work?” I whisper, a teasing edge to my voice. “With bargains and favors.”
Her laugh is soft and indulgent, like she’s savoring something far more delicious than the dance itself. She leans in, her nose grazing my chin, breath warm against my throat.
“I have a feeling you’ve come with one such bargain in mind,” she murmurs. “Why else arrive in disguise? You need something.”
At least she sees that much. It means I won’t have to play quite as long.
“You have a scrying mirror,” I say, voice low, barely audible over the music. “I want to see it.”
The music swells, the tempo quickening, pulling us into a faster, more intimate rhythm.
Marlayna giggles, almost cruelly, and I’m starting to wonder if she holds more control than I’d like to admit.
“And what do I get in return?” she purrs.
My patience thins. I halt in the center of the dance floor, one hand curling around her jaw, angling her face toward mine. The crowd fades. My gaze snags hers, and her breath falters, knees softening as she sinks deeper beneath the spell I cast.
