The other man throws his hands in the air, aggrieved. But I don’t care. “You are no longer required,” I command, dismissing him, never breaking my gaze with Elyssara.
We begin to move, swaying in our own time, music be damned.
“I will suffer no rival, Duskae. Not in war, not in love, not even on a fucking dance floor,” I breathe, pressing my forehead to hers.
She can’t hide the smirk that lifts her lips, and that’s when I know.
“You fucking played me, didn’t you?” I say, finally realizing her little game.
“Like a fiddle, Your Highness,” she answers, voice all cheek and audacity. “You are nothing if not predictable when it comes to your claim over me, Kael. Thought I’d have a little fun with it.”
I huff a laugh, tipping my head back, smile spilling across my face.
“The playing field is not fair when you walk in here in this fucking dress, my love,” I defend myself with no defense at all.
“Oh, it’s the dress, is it? That’s your defense? Nothing to do with your kingly possessiveness?” she presses, her fingers dragging up my neck and through my hair.
A shiver wracks my body under her touch.
“Very little to do with the dress, actually. It’s what’s underneath it, and the woman it belongs to,” I breathe into her neck, blazing kisses across the top of her shoulder.
An unguarded laugh rips from her throat, and I do nothing but watch as we rock and sway out of rhythm with the music, but perfectly together.
“I’m trying, you know,” she says, all playfulness stripped from her tone. “I’m trying not to let the past own my present.” Her voice is raw, vulnerable—and it offers me a rare glimpse into her. I knew the past would not be so easily discarded. No, the past has a way of growing teeth, clawing us back when our guard is down. Joy seems to be an invitation for the past to revisit. A reminder that we are never truly free of it.
Her eyes are glassy and pained, as if the hurt lingers just a heartbeat away.
“I know,” I breathe. “We’re making new memories,” I promise.
“New memories,” she agrees.
Ronyn’s shaggy mop of chocolate-brown hair splits between us. His stupid grin wide with cheek and the promise of foolishness. “These trousers are a bloody prison for my balls—they may never recover,” he starts, breath ragged from dancing. “But the women here are calling me a Dravari warrior and I’m not letting that go to waste, balls be damned.”
He claps us both on the shoulders in camaraderie.
“It’s gonna be a good night—I can feel it,” he bellows, the stench of liquor heavy on his breath.
“You say that every night,” I throw back, incredulous.
He flings his hands out in dramatic flare. “Exactly—andeverynight is a good night,” he exclaims, as if it’s all so obvious and simple.
“What of Jax?” Elyssara demands, voice giddy with laughter again, all woes forgotten. Ronyn always has a way of bringing this out in her. I see why he does it—why this is who he believes he has to be for her. It’s how he protects her.Saves her—even from herself.
“Well, she can join in, obviously. It would be a true shame to withhold myself from the masses. The more the merrier, as they say,” he croons with a wink.
Fucking Ronyn.
He spins off toward the nearest cluster of noblewomen, hips moving with a reckless swagger that would embarrass most men but somehow only makes him more magnetic. Elyssara shakes against me, trying to bury her laughter in my chest, and the sound warms something sharp in me I didn’t know needed softening.
The music swells, the hall alive now—voices rising, wine spilling, feet pounding in time to the strings. Nobles are leaning too close, whispering, watching us. For a moment, I almost let it be what it is: a night of light and laughter before the storm breaks.
But instinct gnaws at me, despite Elyssara’s body resting into me in the way I’ve craved.
A wrongness in the room.
A missing note in the music.
I scan the edges of the hall, the balcony above, the arched doorway near the stair. Ronyn, Teddy, Rubi, Jax—they’re all still here, loud and laughing, and filling the room like fire. Teddy and Jax are in a squabble over something—they always are. Siblings, of a sort. Rubi and Ronyn command the dance floor—both just as alluring and charismatic as the other.
