I look up from the text I'm not really reading. "She requested?"
"Yes, sire. Said she's tired of eating alone."
Something shifts in my chest, a knot loosening that I didn't know I was carrying. We've been circling each other for days now—polite, careful, maintaining the fragile truce we built in the training yard. She drinks her tea every morning. I watch from doorways and balconies. Neither of us pushes for more.
But she's asking for dinner.
"Tell her I'll be there."
The guard bows and retreats, and I sit in the dying light of my study, trying to remember the last time anyone requested my presence for something other than matters of state.
The main dining hall is absurd for two people.
It was built to host a hundred courtiers, back when the Vhal'kar held court in the old style and visiting dignitaries came to bend the knee. The vaulted ceiling soars high enough to accommodate dragons in their half-shifted forms, and the massive hearth at the far end burns with dragonfire instead of common flame—blue-white and eternal, never needing wood or tending. The table could seat fifty and still have room for servants to move between the chairs.
I stand at its head and feel ridiculous.
Should have suggested somewhere smaller. But she chose here, and maybe she wanted the space, the formality, the safety of neutral ground.
I'm considering sending word to move the meal when she appears in the doorway, and every thought in my head scatters like startled birds.
She's wearing a dress.
I've never seen her in anything but training leathers and borrowed sleep clothes, practical things that let her move and fight. This is something else entirely—dark green fabric that flows like water when she walks, clinging to the curves of her hips before falling loose to the floor. The neckline dips low enough to show the shadow between her breasts, the slope of her collarbones, the claiming mark I left on her throat still visible as a silvered scar against her brown skin.
My mouth goes dry. Lower, something tightens with sudden, urgent heat.
The dress moves with her instead of restricting her, and I find myself tracking every shift of fabric, every glimpse of the body underneath. Her hair is braided back but loose strands have already escaped, framing her face in dark wisps that make me want to brush them back, tuck them behind her ear, trace the line of her jaw down to her throat.
Her feet are bare against the stone floor.
That detail undoes me more than the dress itself—the defiance of it, the wildness she refuses to surrender even when she's trying to be civilized. I think about those bare feet wrapped around my waist in the armory, her heels digging into the small of my back while I drove into her. Think about the sounds she made, the way she bit my throat hard enough to scar, the hot clench of her body around mine.
The bond hums between us, and I feel it like a physical pull—her presence tugging at something deep in my chest, my beast stirring with interest, wanting to close the distance between us and bury my face in the curve of her neck.
"You came," she says, and her voice carries across the empty hall.
"You invited me." I have to clear my throat before the words come out steady, have to force my eyes to stay on her face instead of wandering down to where the fabric clings to her waist. "I wasn't expecting—you look?—"
"Like I lost a fight with a wardrobe?" She crosses toward the table, bare feet silent on the stone, and I track her movement like a predator watching prey. Or maybe like prey watching a predator. I'm not sure which of us is which anymore. "Bessa insisted. Said if I was going to request a formal dinner, I should dress for one." She tugs at the fabric, and the motion pulls it tighter across her chest in a way that makes my hands ache to touch. "I feel ridiculous."
"You look beautiful."
The words escape before I can catch them. She stops mid-step, and I watch color rise in her cheeks, watch her breath catch just slightly.
"I look uncomfortable," she corrects, but her voice has gone slightly rough, and I can smell the shift in her scent—something warmer underneath the blood and wilderness, something that makes my beast want to purr.
She takes a seat in the middle of one side of the table, and I'm grateful for the massive oak between us. Grateful for the distance it forces, the barrier it provides. Without it, I'm not sure I could keep my hands to myself. Not with her looking like that. Not with her scent filling the hall like an invitation.
I take the chair across from her, and even in the middle of the table we're too close. Too far. Both at once.
Servants appear with food—roasted game birds, root vegetables, fresh bread, wine the color of garnets. They withdraw quickly, leaving us alone with the meal and the vast emptiness of the hall.
We eat in silence for several minutes. Not uncomfortable, exactly, but weighted. Like two people who know they need to talk but haven't figured out where to start.
She speaks first.
"The memorial stones." She doesn't look up from her plate, her voice carefully neutral. "You carved all of them yourself?"
