Page 41 of The Poison Princess and the Lord of Misrule

I rest one finger on the center of his chest, just above his heart, feeling his muscles tense. I lean in and rest my lips lightly against the shell of his ear, and he goes still. His jaw tightens, his hand still at my waist curls into a fist.

“The binding feels good, My Lord.” My lips graze his ear as I speak. “I confess, the dance seems to have loosened more on me than my laces…making me curious about what other talents you posess.”

As I pull back, his pupils are blown. Hispalm comes up to cup my jaw a little too hard, his thumb dragging across my lower lip. Something violent and hungry darkens his gaze.

“Drink with me,” he says.

I let my fingertip drag slowly down the front of his doublet, falling away as he turns to fetch an open bottle of wine. Half a heartbeat—that’s all the time I have. When his eyes leave me, drawn to the wine, I remove the vial and place my hand over my own goblet.

Three drops.

I watch as he refills our goblets on the table, and I’m trembling when I bring the edge of mine to my mouth, not taking a single sip. Our eyes meet above the rims, and I don’t waver.

This whole time, I’ve felt Ren’s attention on me, watching, as I’ve kept Aldric fixed only on me. I don’t dare let my gaze wander to him.

Aldric sets his goblet down, his grin lazy and certain. He takes my face in his hand, drawing me closer, the rings on his fingers cold against my flushed skin. “To my bride.”

I allow him to draw me closer, my hand out of sight behind him as I switch the goblets on the table.

“To my king,” I say in return.

He drinks. Long and deep. His throat works as he swallows the wine down, and over the rim of his goblet his eyes hold mine, dark and hungry and assured that he has broken something open in me.

And as dangerous as this game is, I allow him to believe it.

Because in less than an hour, once those three drops have brewed in his blood, the cruel king of Kravenholt will be slumped over, and his bride will be in a forgotten library.

Aldric turns back to the court, his hand finding my thigh. “Let us enjoy this night of folly, my Threnmere girl.”

Chapter 13

Seravyn

“Come to me.”

I’ve replayed Ren’s words over and over, waiting for my moment to slip away from my chambers. The feast ended the moment the last drunken lord stumbled out, the guardsmen locking the palace up tight.

The great hall has been left vacant and silent. But all around, the evidence of a night of folly and debauchery remains. Come morning, it will be cleared away as if it never happened. But there’s still a few hours left before dawn, and no regrets for bad decisions made in folly.

And I rush toward mine.

Ren is waiting.

I walk silently through the long corridor, craving the hot press of his mouth at my throat, the desperation in his voice. I’m already imagining the library door closing behindme. The way Ren will look when he sees me. The way his hands will shake, like they did in the garden as he held his fingers to my lips. When they held me in the alcove, restraint nearly spent.

I turn the corner at the end of the corridor?—

And draw to a stop.

The door to the small antechamber is open. The candlelight within flickers, casting shadows onto the stone floor. Sounds echo—a low moaning, gasping—and I’m frozen in place, unable to look away at the scandalous sight.

My heart leaps in my chest. I should turn around right now, walk away. Take the long route through the southern corridor to the north wing. Leave before he sees me…

But some terrible, hedonistic thing in me urges me to step closer, to get a better view. The chamber is lit by two guttering candles. There’s a long oak table in the center of the dim room, and a woman is bent over it.

Her gown is crimson—the same dark crimson as mine. Cut in the same style, with the same laces that Aldric drew tight. The high slit of the gown is pushed up to the small of her back. Her dark hair has been pinned in the same coiled way mine is pinned. Her face is turned away from me, pressed into the table, and from this angle, in this light, she could be me.

And I know, with a sudden blow to my stomach, she is meant to be me.