Canines slid long when his smile deepened, biting into the corners of his lip. Blood smeared against my own as I wiped them with the back of my hand.
“Someone here is out to get you,” he stated. “That was pain magic. And not mine.”
I shivered.In the middle of a ball?
“Well, that’s convenient.” My eyes narrowed. “You’re sure it wasn’t your not-so-inconspicuous fog?”
His hand found mine, pulling me back into the flow of the dance, spinning me to the pulse of the strings. “If not for myfog,” he said, low and edged, “you would be writhing in the infirmary.” His thumb brushed my lower back. “Or dead.”
I breathed out a laugh, swatting his hand away. “Oh look, my savior. Try not to choke on the glory. Or do,” I muttered. “I’d love to watch.”
The scar fading into his upper lip curled, just barely, when he forced back a smile.
Bastard.
Mina’s eye caught me then, and I flicked two fingers in the air toward her. Champagne, and the damn strongest she had.
Maybe he thought he had me cornered here, smug in the crowd, so sure I couldn’t strike. And maybe he was right. But if I couldn’t kill him tonight, I could still at least play.
Black nails curved into his shoulder, the other hand locking around his arm. Gods, his muscles were stone sewn beneath sun-browned skin. My grip loosened, stroking down the curve of his bicep.
Unintentionally, or maybe entirely on purpose.
Duke and Callum were built like champions, sculpted by the Gods for good behavior. Ronan felt like he was built forwar. Perhaps even the embodiment of a God himself.
His scent dragged—spice, salt,fire. All taking over me at once.
I breathed it in too deeply, frantic, like my body wanted more than my mind could manage. Closer I leaned, my nose nearly brushing where his shirt hung open, a gold chain glimmering against his chest before reason jolted back into me.
A throat cleared nearby and my eyes snapped open. The ballroom moved on around us, partners spinning, music spilling.Wehad stopped moving.
I straightened, scrunching my nose. “You,” my tongue clicked against my teeth, “smell weird.”
His brow arched just as Mina slid between us, pressing flutes into our hands. He didn’t look at her, didn’t look away from me. “Weird?”
“Yes.” I lifted my glass, bubbles rising. “Like burnt spice. It’s off-putting.”
“Off-putting,” he echoed, stare dragging over my mouth, my cheek, my throat. “And yet you tried to breathe it in like salvation.”
The music swelled to something darker and elegant, the kind of melody meant to disguise danger as grace as the crowd dissolved around us.
With an unexpected gentleness my fingers caught the chain, running along its curve until they snagged on a kink. It looked as if it had broken and then been melted back together, almost seamlessly.
“You’re enjoying this,” I said to him, dropping it back against his chest.
“Wouldn’t you,” he caught my hand before it fell, his lips skimming over the top of it, “if the most dangerous thing in the room let you hold her?”
My lips twitched as I ripped my arm away. “Careful. You might start to believe your own charm.”
He leaned closer, breath skating the shell of my ear. “Charm?” A low chuckle as he pushed a curl behind my ear, eyes catching on the gold daith piercing. “No. Purely survival.”
Whatever heat and hate lived between us snarled, and I tilted the flute to my lips, letting the champagne run a slow path down my throat. The glass in his hand sat untouched, the stem a fragile twig between his fingers.
Lazily, I gestured toward his drink. “None for you?”
He exhaled, long, suffering, like the entire realm, or maybe just me, had already drained him dry. “I thought we’d reached common ground,” he murmured, glancing at his flute. “That’s not playing fair.”
Tendrils bled from his boots, crawling, brushing against my ankles. I stepped back, it shoved me forward, back into his radius.
