Page 89 of A Cruel Kindness

Distantly, I thought of how Lucky and Clover felt. Did they know we were gone? Were they okay?

The second the straps of my heels were laced, I all but sprinted out the door. I could feel Soren close, maybe right around the—

Ah, there he was.

The weight of relief was so shocking I almost fell over.

But once it cleared, able to see him standing in front of me, an entirely different emotion started forming.

He was … well, it was just that—he … he was in a suit. A perfectly fitting, well pressed suit that made him look equal parts devilish and strong.

When my eyes finally made their way up to his face, he was looking at me with a shocked expression, his jaw slack as his eyes bounced all over my form.

Slowly, I turned, needing to show him the fact that I’d left our Mark exposed when his had to be covered.

Before I even made it back to face him, he was at my back, pulling me flush to his chest while his nose brushed through the fall of my hair. “It’s like you’re trying to make us miss this party entirely.”

He’d made jokes of that nature before, but now they felt serious, foreshadowing. “I wouldn’t be mad about that,” I whispered.

“Bell,” he said, sounding like he was in physical pain.

I twisted myself to face him, my skin warming pleasantly when his hand slipped from fabric to my bare back. I reached up and brushed my hand over his hair, then down to his face.

He wasn’t wearing a bandage anymore. His cut over his brow was now nothing more than a line of pink skin. Even if it had been an open wound the day before.

He was clean shaven, but he’d kept in the nose ring. Good.

“Are Clover and Lucky okay?” I asked, the question slipping out while I was distracted by taking in the line of his jaw.

I felt Soren’s laugh under my fingers. “They are okay. Even here, they know we’re safe.”

I breathed out in relief and Soren used it as an excuse to pull me to him tighter. We stayed there for a moment just … holding each other.

It wasn’t until Laura walked out of my room and her eyes went wide, like she’d caught us fully in the throes of passion, that Soren took a reluctant step away from me. His hand simply slipped a few inches up my back.

This was so unnatural, tempering how I wanted to be with him. I’d never noticed how conservative court was before this because I’d never had anyone that I wanted to touch like this.

I was grateful that all the courting I was subject to had to stop at a light kiss on my knuckles.

“I’m meant to escort the Princess to the ball,” Laura said uneasily, not looking at Soren.

“Great,” he said, smile in his voice. “You can escort us both.”

Laura wavered, but eventually turned down the hall.

“How did you shake your family?” I asked as we walked, my voice at a whisper.

“The tunnels,” Soren responded. Ah, the tunnels. I’d had fun exploring those when I was younger. It was a complex system that routed through every Royal bedroom and to a few closets, moving down to an underground bunker that would house us if there was ever an attack on the palace.

It was also convenient for sneaking around.

“There you are!” Soren’s mother chastised, finding us after a few minutes of walking. That sparked a moment of nostalgia, remembering how many times I’d heard his mother say that exact thing when Soren had been hard to control in his teenage years.

I’d always been … fine, I had a small crush on him. I was living in rather comfortable denial of that fact for years, until I was forced to confront it.

From his mother actually.

The moment I’d turned sixteen, I’d been subject to countless Royals or other powerful families waxing poetic about my beauty. I liked the way I looked, but my first reaction had always been that people were lying to me, a result of my mother's years of criticism.