Sephia frowned.
“They’ll be kinder toward you in time,” Tarron assured her.
She nodded despite the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t want to care what they thought of her or her relationship with their prince. She had never made a habit of caring what people thought about her.
But shehadto care this time, if only because she couldn’t afford to have anyone doubting her.
She was the Stolen Bride of Middlemage. The Peace Offering. The Treaty Keeper. She was playing a part, and perhaps she hadn’t been playing it well enough.
She took a deep breath. Her eyes focused on those distant onlookers, and the words floated out of her on a nervous, shaking breath: “Kiss me.”
Tarron dropped her hand, as if in surprise, but otherwise didn’t reply.
Sephia steeled herself and tilted her face back toward him. Her breath caught when she saw the way he was looking at her—like she’d…awakenedsomething. Something dark and hungry and dangerous. It frightened her.
But she couldn’t back down now.
“Kiss me and make them believe that I’m your bride-to-be,” she whispered.
He hesitated for such a long moment that she thought he would deny her.
Then he lifted a hand. Brushed it across her cheek. Threaded his fingers through her hair and wrapped them around her head, holding her still, forcing her gaze to his. His grip was powerful. Possessive. She thought of all the stories she’d heard of the fae’s insatiable lust, of the brutal ways they claimed both willing and unwilling lovers, and her heart thudded painfully quick in her chest.
But though Tarron’s grip was powerful, and his strength unyielding as he backed her against the wall, his lips were surprisingly feather-light when they pressed against her own. It was a gentle, chaste kiss. Over in a fiery instant, but the feel of it lingered even as he leaned away.
She braced a hand against the wall behind her, steadying herself. Her body was tense, her heart still racing, and the prince seemed amused by this.
“If you want it to look convincing,” he said, the words falling quiet and hot against her ear as he leaned forward again, “then you should relax.”
She tried. She wanted to relax into him, into another kiss that was deeper, harder than the last. But the thought of doing so was entirely too tempting in ways that it shouldn’t have been.
She was losing her head over a simple kiss, and it was…embarrassing.
This was supposed to be a trickto fool onlookers.
And yetshewas the one who suddenly felt like a fool.
The sound of approaching footsteps rescued her from her foolishness.
Someone was calling for the prince a moment later; Sephia turned to see a silver-haired fae approaching—one of his senior advisors, Tarron informed her before excusing himself to go speak with that advisor.
He returned to her side after a minute, his eyes distant and his mouth drooping in the corners.
That frown…was it only because he was disappointed that they’d been interrupted?
Or was it something worse?
Why did she suddenly ache to know what was troubling him?
“I have some business to attend to,” he told her. He hesitated, and then added, “It could wait. If you...“
“No,” she said, perhaps too quickly. “I mean—I’m fine. You should go take care of whatever you need to. I wanted to go back to my room and rest, anyhow.”
He searched her face for a moment—for what, she wasn’t sure—and then he nodded.
Sephia walked the rest of the way to her room alone. She kept her head high and ignored all of the eyes still watching her, and the whispers that started once she’d passed by. Those whispers were louder, and the occasional laugh braver, now that the prince wasn’t at her side.
She was grateful to finally reach the sanctuary of her room.
