Ella winced and hoped Maeren hadn’t noticed the bed move. Jakobav shifted beneath the furs. His hand brushed against her breast, grazing her nipple through the thin fabric of his shirt, and a jolt shot through her chest like lightning. She went rigid, every nerve screaming as her nipple hardened, traitorous and unbidden.
His hand froze and then he pulled back, but the heat of him lingered, impossible to forget. Jakobav cleared his throat, his voice rougher now. “Thank you, Maeren. If you’re finished rambling, we’ll discuss this later.”
The woman glared as she turned toward the door, cloak swishing behind her. She paused at the threshold. “Perimeter duty tonight. Thane and Soren are riding out with me. We’ll carry extra supplies in case it takes us beyond the borders. I’ll send word if anything stirs.”
The door shut.
Ella threw the furs off and shoved him hard, pain lancing her side. “What in the hell was that?” she practically shouted, her cheeks burning hot enough to scald.
He raised his hands. “I was trying to protect you.”
“By smothering me in your sheets and burying me alive under furs? Gods, Jakobav, if that’s your idea of protection, remind me never to see what you call mercy.”
“I kept you hidden. Trust me, it’s for the best. You’re not ready to meet the First Guard.”
“Hidden?” Her laugh was sharp enough to cut. “You pinned me, sweated all over me”—her voice wavered, breaking despite her fury—“and then you touched me.”
“Ella,” he said, rough, almost defensive, “that wasn’t my intention.”
“I don’t care what you meant.” She pushed herself upright, fire in her eyes. “You don’t get to touch me.”
The words came out harsher than she meant, too raw to hide, and heat rushed up her throat as soon as she heard them. The quiet stretched until it became unbearable. His gaze shackled her, cold and unrelenting, as if he were sifting through every layer of her for answers she couldn’t afford to give.
Finally, he gritted out, “Trust me. If I had touched you on purpose, your reaction would’ve been very different.”
Ella’s retort came quickly. “That’s a bold assumption for a man hiding someone under his blankets.”
He didn’t miss a beat.
“I could feel your curiosity. If not for the scowl on your face, I might have mistaken it for lust. And with that scent”—his mouth curved in the shadow of a smirk—“Maeren probably thought she’d caught me in something far more indecent than hiding a girl in my bed.”
Ella’s face burned hot enough to rival the firelight.
She knew, gods help her, that some part of him wasn’t wrong.
Why was the future king of Dravaryn, her enemy, affecting her this way? She couldn’t let him in any further, couldn’t let him burrow beneath her defenses, and the need for a subject change clawed at her like desperation.
Ella forced her voice lower, steady despite the tremor running through her veins. “You hid me from your second-in-command. She was giving you a scouting report that revealed more than you wanted me to hear.”
Jakobav’s jaw clenched. “Yes.”
“And what she said about a creature and its blood, what does that mean?”
“She shouldn’t have said anything. Not when I was giving her every signal to stop speaking,” he ground out, his restraint unraveling.
The words sealed it. Her suspicions weren’t wild imaginings. There was more to the centuries-old feud between their kingdoms, more to the whispers about Dravaryns holding onto powers forbidden since the Fae vanished. Proof enough that their traditions dripped with secrets, and that they still practiced the archaic ritual of the Claiming.
To be fair, she did not know what the Claiming ritual truly entailed, only that success granted a new ability and failure exacted a price no one spoke of openly. Nor did she know the real reason it had been outlawed by every kingdom except this one. She suspected it was something barbaric at worst and unsavory at best.
Her thoughts tangled and spun. If the kingdom of Dravaryn still kept so much hidden, what else had been concealed from Orchid? What truths had she been fed as lies? Her parents and tutors had always suspected Dravaryns wielded strength beyond mortal limits: brute force, whispers to stone and steel, maybe even shields no army could break. But what if there was more?
And what if Jakobav was not just a brutal prince sculpted by violence, but something else entirely?
She looked at him then, the man who had saved her from certain death, fed her, threatened her, touched her, and her chest tightened with questions she dared not speak.
Jakobav’s gaze caught hers, dark and steady, as if he could strip those questions straight from her bones, his voice dropping to a low murmur, soft as smoke and just as dangerous.
“Careful, Ella. Curiosity can kill faster than any blade.”
