Heat unfurled around my chest and into the hand holding hers. I could feel her pulse pounding, could see flecks of gold I’d never noticed in her near-black eyes. I’d touched her before, but only in moments when she needed me. Stepping out of a carriage, working through a panic attack, shifting back into her human form.
Never like this. Never simply because wecould.
But we couldn’t.
Too close. She was too close. She was marrying the king, and we were surrounded by hundreds of people. She?—
Her eyes drifted to my lips.
I wasn’t breathing. My thumb skimmed the pulse point at her wrist, causing her gaze to snap back to mine. When she let out a breath, I smelled hints of cherry on her lips.
“Dance with me,” she murmured.
Fates, this woman.
My fingers itched to grab her waist, to see what her body would feel like swaying against mine in the shadows of the flames. Tucked away where no one could see us, where empresses and kings and curses didn’t exist. Where I could slide my lips along her neck, maybe taste the wine still lingering on her tongue?—
I threw up yet another wall on those thoughts, then barricaded it with steel. What was Idoing? She was going to be another man’s wife. I had a daughter, a territory to consider, and people to watch over.
It was the alcohol. Exhaustion and stress and alcohol. And thatdress.
There had to be distance between us. There were lines that couldn’t be crossed.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Clarissa,” I said softly, releasing her hand and taking a step back. She blinked, and hurt flickered across her features.
Another voice rang out from the center of the festival.
“Everyone gather ‘round, gather ‘round,” a man in overalls cried out. “It’s time for the annual sacrifices to the Fates!”
31
Clarissa
“Idon’t think that’s a good idea, Clarissa.”
The tension snapped like a bowstring.
What had I beenthinking? He was right—the wine was too strong. I could feel it souring in my stomach as he led me to the central bonfire where the sacrifices were to be made.
“Dance with me.”My cheeks heated. I was never drinking again.
Perhaps on a subconscious level, I knew this impending marriage to Galen would close as many doors as it would open. Any urge to fill that void of physical touch would have to be done in secret or behind whispers and judgmental stares. I would never be able to give away my affection freely, to love out loud the way someone deserved. Not while I was Empress Clarissa Aris Grimaldi.
I was tired and anxious, and maybe the wine made me cross a line, grappling for some sort of contact, a last-ditch effort to be close toanyonebefore my life changed forever. Before I’d never get the chance to be with someone in any way that mattered.
And now I’d made a fool of myself in front of my fiancé’s best friend.
He’d infuriated me in the beginning, but I wasn’t lying when I said I’d misjudged him. My mind had been breaking him downpiece by piece without me even realizing it over the past few days.
Thorne was kind and understanding, never pushing too far, even when he’d seen sides of me I didn’t let a soul see back home. Even when I’dhurthim. The love he had for his daughter was palpable. And for all his cockiness, I couldn’t help but think he was rather…innocent. Something truly difficult to find in this world. But he trusted easily and was quick to see the good in others, to give them the benefit of the doubt—perhapstooquick. His heart was so big, so ready to give to everyone around him, and that wasn’t something I was used to in a world of secret rebellions and power-hungry Veridians.
I wasn’t sure when I’d stopped looking at him as the handsome, privileged, vexingly arrogant advisor and started seeing the protective, compassionate spirit beneath.
But I knew one thing for certain.
I shouldn’t have been looking at all.
“While we have faced hardships this year, we’ve still been blessed by the Fates with good health and a good harvest,” announced the same man who had beckoned revelers closer. The festival calmed as people shuffled in, large pockets forming on either side of him, Dion, and Vespera. The three of them stood on a small circular stage, right next to an unlit bonfire. This was the largest of them all, with logs reaching at least three times my height.
