For a while we didn’t say anything, which was its own kind of luxury, sitting in the middle of clan noise in companionable silence.
“You must miss your family,” Fieran said quietly, not looking at me. “On a night like this.”
I had never dreamt of my wedding as a girl. I thought of what it would be like to have my family in the celebration, though. I thought of Tay’s face when I’d seen him at the banquet, strong and bright-eyed and real, healed in a way I’d been afraid to believe in. I thought of Lidi, back in Stonehaven, braiding flowers into her hair with fingers no longer deft with magic.
“Someday I’ll have a real wedding.”
“Someday when you actually want to marry me, and you aren’t just doing it to save my life.”
“How much wine have you had, Fear?” I asked.
His free hand rose and his fingers brushed my cheek, gentle and unhurried. The noise of the clan faded to something distant. Rees breathed heavily across both our laps.
I could lose myself to this man, this clan.
“I would tell you I wanted to marry you sober, as a priest. I would tell you I wanted to marry you, drunk, crawling to you on my hands and knees.” His thumb moved, slow and deliberate, across my cheekbone.
“You’re a madman.” I looked at him properly, the way I usually avoided doing at close range because it never helped me think clearly. The lamplight caught the angle of his jaw, the highlights within his thick, dark hair, the gold of his eyes. He had a way of looking at me when we spoke as if I were the center of the world, the only person whose voice he wished to hear.
But he looked at everyone that way when he was invested in conversation. His focused attention was one of his many devastating charms.
“You’re the one who makes me so.” He leaned closer, and my entire body tried to strain toward him.
My hand rose to his shoulder, which was warm and solid through his tunic, though I wasn’t entirely sure if I meant to push him away or pull him closer. “Fear.”
“Cara,” he said back, in the dark, sexy tone he used when he was being deliberately unhelpful. “What are you thinking of?”
I didn’t have a follow-up. I had started saying his name without knowing what I intended to attach to it, which he knew and which was evident in the amusement that was doing something unfair to the line of his mouth.
His hand slid back into my hair, gentle and certain. He let me close the distance.
His mouth was warm and unhurried, the way his hands had been, and he kissed me like we had all the time to savor touching each other. He kissed me, slow and controlled, and then less controlled, and when my hand fisted in his shirt, he made a faint sound as if he were on the verge of unraveling.
As if a mortal girl could unravel the dragon prince.
Into the space between our lips, I murmured, “I’m thinking about what a lot of work you are.”
“Mm.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear with the same unhurried care he’d done everything else. “And yet.”
And yet. That was the entirety of my problem.
I was on my way to kissing him again when there was a hammering at the door. Another Bismyth shifter moved toward it, but Asrael stopped him with a gesture. Asrael swung the door open, blocking the entrance with his body.
Ander stood at the doorway.
He had several Amber shifters behind him, all of them still armed from the Hunt and looking as if they might still use their weapons again. But for a moment, none of the clan tension registered in his face. His gaze went straight to me, and what crossed his expression was sheer relief.
Then he saw Fieran’s arm around me. His gaze dropped to my hand, and his eyes narrowed when he saw the ring. But still, relief was written plain across the handsome lines of his face.
“You brought her into Bismyth. Stole her from my clan though I won her fairly.” He said the words without the heat I’d have expected.
“I’m coming back to Amber.”
Ander’s gaze slipped over my face and back to Fear. He always seemed to seek out Fear, even though he found with his presence nothing but exasperation. “You’ve married her, and yet you’re sending her back to me?”
“The plan requires it,” Fieran said mildly.
“She’s safer with you.” His gaze found mine, blazing with intensity, and my chest tightened. “Keep her in Bismyth. We have too much of the queen’s attention at the moment.”
