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His eyes moved over me, and his expression changed.

Then he growled.

Actually growled.

“Everyone is looking at you,” he said. “Everyone in this room. I would like to fight all of them.”

“You have cracked ribs.”

“I’d still win.”

He offered me his hand.

“Dance with me before I have to prove it.”

So I did.

There wasn’t much he could manage with his ribs, but it didn’t matter. He pulled me close near the middle of the floor, and we moved slowly with the music. His hand rested low on my back, slightly lower than propriety probably allowed, and his thumb traced the exposed skin between two of the velvet laces at my side.

Then he bent his head and told me, in a low voice, exactly what he planned to do once he got me back up all two hundred and twelve stairs to my room.

He intended to unlace the dress with his teeth, get his mouth between my legs until I came, and then fuck me slowly.

He went into enough detail that my face was burning by the time I buried it against his shoulder.

Jax laughed softly into my hair.

Over his shoulder, I saw Ronan.

He stood alone on the minstrels’ balcony above the dais, dressed entirely in black, the high collar fastened to his throat.

Three nights ago, he had been gray-faced on the Archive floor. He was still pale, and there was a carefulness to the way he held himself that hadn’t been there before, but he was upright.

He was also watching me.

When our eyes met, he lifted his glass by an inch.

Nothing more.

I smiled before I could stop myself.

Then I looked down toward the dais.

Kaelen stood beside Delphine Marrow, who was dressed in white and had barely spoken to anyone all evening. He wore formal black, with the Fenhall envoys behind him and his father nearby.

He should have been paying attention to the room.

He should probably have been paying attention to Delphine.

Instead, he was looking at me.

I watched him realize I had noticed. His gaze shifted away at once, toward the musicians, then the candles, then somewhere over my shoulder.

A few seconds later, he looked back.

Then away again.

Then back.