“Don’t you like it?” I ask.
“Like it?” He leans forward, placing his mouth by my ear. “You look utterly, ruinously beautiful. If I didn’t know better, I’d think a goddess had escaped from the Eternal Realm to come slum it with us mortals. It’s all I can do not to rip that dress off you and have my way with you right here.”
A ripple of desire shudders through me at his words, coursing down my body and settling between my legs.
“I think your court might have something to say about that,” I comment, trying to sound amused and in control.
“Who cares?” he says, drawing back but keeping his voice low. “Right now, half of them are desperately wishing they could be as beautiful as you, and the other half are fantasizing about fucking you.”
I lick my lips, only turned on more by his coarse language. That’s one of the irresistible things about him. Even when he seems at his most untouchably royal, there are still hints of that roughness underneath, peeking out when he says something that would scandalize any proper lady.
“They are, are they?” I reply, a little breathless. A rogue part of me wants to hear more, even if I know it can’t go anywhere.
“Yes. But there’s only one person who gets to fuck you,” he says, his voice almost a whisper and his eyes practically black. “Understood?”
“You don’t get to decide that,” I push back.
“Oh, I do,” he says with a hungry grin. “I ruined everyone else for you, Ana. I showed you what true pleasure could be, and now you’ll settle for nothing less.”
I want to snap back with a sharp retort…but I can’t. Because maybe he’s right. How many nights have I woken from a dream in which our bodies were entwined, with me moaning his name? Too many. It’s never anyone else in those fantasies, only ever Leon possessing me until I’m totally undone.
And if I can’t escape the hold he has over me, where does that leave me? Taken apart by a prince who’s promised to another. The fear of it—of the pain—snaps me out of the haze of desire, and I withdraw from Leon’s arms.
“I’m tired of dancing,” I say stiffly and walk away to find Tira. What I’m really tired of is wanting Leon and not knowing if that wanting will destroy me. I can’t stand to spend any longer playing this game with no way to know how deadly it will turn out to be.
The music stops abruptly when I’m just a few feet from the dance floor, and I look up at the sound of someone clapping their hands to get the guests’ attention.
“My dear lords and ladies,” Lady Naia stands beside the band, surveying the crowd. Her blue eyes alight on me for a second before moving on. “What would a ball be without some entertainment? It’s time for the shadow waltz.”
A collective wave of excitement runs through the crowd as everyone rushes onto the dance floor. In the clamor, I frantically search for Tira and see her in the back of the crowd with Alastor. I dart toward them.
“What’s happening?” I ask Alastor.
“I was just explaining to Miss Holms here,” he says.
“It’s very fae,” Tira says with a roll of her eyes.
“The aim of the game is to capture someone else’s shadow and dance with it in the waltz,” he says, speaking quickly as he weaves in between the nobles. “The most important thing to remember is that you mustn’t be left without a shadow partner by the time the waltz is over.”
I open my mouth, about to ask exactly how one “catches” a shadow, when the band starts playing again. The music is different this time. Eerily lively, with the unmistakable fizz of magic about it. I watch in awe as Tira and Alastor’s shadows detach from their feet and rise up off the floor, becoming dark, hazy figures standing entirely separate from them. I jump when a me-shaped shadow appears at my own elbow. There’s something creepy about the featureless beings, hundreds of them materializing around us as every guest doubles.
I reach out cautiously to touch my shadow, but as soon as she’s found her feet, she darts away, skipping into the crowd with a mischievous air about her. Alastor’s and Tira’s shadows do the same, dancing off into the throng of bodies—both real and not.
“They don’t make it easy,” Alastor explains. “They’ll try to evade you.”
Already, the crowd is moving around us, everyone searching for a shadow to snag.
“What happens if we’re left without a partner at the end?” I ask hurriedly.
“Public humiliation. You get some kind of trick played on you,” Alastor says.
“That doesn’t sound like the kind of fun you’d want to have at a ball!” I snap, eyes darting around me in case a shadow wanders my way.
Alastor shrugs just before a large fae lord pushes between us.
I focus on the task at hand—I’ve really had enough public humiliation for one evening. A shadow dances past me, but it’s startlingly fast, and it’s gone before I can even reach my hand out.
Some of the nobles have already snagged partners and are spinning their shadowy companions around the dance floor. It’s obvious the fae’s quick reflexes give them an advantage over me here, and I discover I can’t pull the shadows toward me with orbital magic—they’re not solid enough for that.
