Nightfall had devoured the sky, draping the chamber and shrouding him whole. Curls pressed into the ceiling where he was forced into a crooked stillness. Even here, hemmed in and hunched, his presence was too much for simple Fae walls.
A hanging plant brushed his temple each time it swayed, the scent of mint coating his senses. It was almost laughable that she kept herbs and trailing vines like she was nothing but a woman with dirt beneath her nails.
Water hissed on tile, steam bleeding through the divide in the door, curling like fog into the room.
She was bathing.
He shifted, creeping forward before he could stop himself, smoke absorbing each step. Lemon and lavender struck him first, sharp citrus cutting through the cracks.
He should leave. He’d come only to see what else she might be hiding. Proof of what she fought, or what she was becoming. Proof of who made her this way.
Not this. Not steam and skin.
His mind commanded retreat. His body ignored it, stopping before the door, curiosity sinking its fangs into him.
She was a wicked contradiction, and the realization settled wrong in his chest.
A Viper’s den should reek of venom and death. Yet her chambers carried virtue, something like preservation.
It wasn’t clean nor the bone-and-blood he’d expected. But it was lived-in, comfortable.
Plants dangled in tangled green and violet, dripping from wooden beams, vines brushing the tops of his shoulders. A porcelain tea set waited on a narrow table, a book at its side, its pages creased at the corners.
He recognized the style as something old, written by Fae who believed feeling was a form of survival.
On the back of a chair hung the dark cloak she had flung off, patched at the hem, repaired more than once. Someone had mended it by hand—poorly—with impatient stitches.
And the bed, though unmade, was softened by a silken throw of ivory satin. Innocence arranged like a disguise. Gentle masking lethal.
His hand moved before thought could leash it, the blanket slipping through his fingers, delicate against his calloused palms.
Satin brushed across his skin as he lifted it, cool as moonlight on steel, his mind rebelling even as his body surrendered.
And with it came her scent, rich, warm, nothing like the tang of rot, but a weave of smoked-sweet amber laced with lavender.
It hit him like a sultry blow as he frowned.
He drew in deeper, dragging it into his lungs despite every disciplined bone in him snarling to stop. The blanket pressed too close, and her scent clung to him, sank through him, seeping into marrow and shadow.
Until the line blurred—
A curse scraped up his throat. This wasnotwhat he came for. He should drop it, burn it, let smoke erase the evidence of his weakness. But he didn’t. He only gripped it tighter.
And the dragon in him, the fume, the fire, the oath-bound wrath, wanted more.
The spell snapped the moment he realized the water had gone still. It was silent…until her chuckle came. A sound that didn’t belong to this room of plants and star-woven fabric.
But one that belonged to her. To what she had undisputedly become.
Ronan flung the blanket aside, spine straightening as he pivoted.
She emerged through the veil of steam, droplets sliding from her hair, tracing cold lines down her jaw, splattering against stone. She crossed from the shadow into the spill of silver light pouring through the window.
Her pupils were slitted, vertical, reptilian. Fangs dented her lower lip where a snarl tore out of her. “You motherfucker.”
The dagger came next, carefully drawn from her hip with the kind of precision that screamed intent.Notpanic. Her tunic clung to damp skin, revealing lines he had no business noticing.
Either she had planned for a fight, or she hadn’t planned to stay in tonight.
