“Only a little dance,” Aleksander supplies.
Anger blazes across Jasce’s features as he grinds out. “I didn’t ask you.”
The chieftain picks up his wine goblet and swirls the liquid. “It’s just a dance, Jasce.”
Jasce pulls me close to his side. “Mywife isn’t your entertainment.”
Jerrod swirls his liquid again and again, his stare never leaving his son. “Your wife is whatever I want her to be.”
“She’s not,” Jasce says, his words like ice. “If you try something like this again, I will dismantle your palace brick by brick.”
Jerrod laughs.
“Test me.” The gold flecks in Jasce’s eyes flash as the torches heighten, their flames doubling inside their brackets and raising the temperature in the room. I shrink against Jasce as the men rub sweat from their brows, but not Jerrod. His focus remains fiercely locked on his son.
“Do you think I fear your magic, Jasce?”
“I think you fear it so much your tiny, hardened heart is quivering inside your chest.”
Fury smolders from the chieftain as he stands. “Leave us, or I will be compelled to give your birthright to Aleksander.”
“Do it,” Jasce grinds out. “And he will march your armies to their deaths.”
With those words, Jasce grabs my arm and pulls me from the room. I don’t speak as he leads us down the corridor and into an alcove.
He brings me close. “Are you hurt?”
Tears blur my vision as I keep my gaze adverted, not wanting him to see my weakness. He grips my jaw, turning me back to face him.
“Are you hurt?” he repeats, his voice thick with concern.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.” He brushes his knuckles across my cheek. “You were crying.”
“I wasn’t.” I sniff.
“Jerrod will never do anything like that to you again.”
“But he’s the chieftain,” I argue, knowing what a man in power is capable of.
Mother never defied Grandfather. It was forbidden.
Defiance meant being lashed. Asha received ten lashes when she insisted that I join everyone for dinner on my seventeenth birthday.
“I don’t give a fuck who he is,” Jasce says. “He will not make you the object of his entertainment.”
I think about something Jasce said and bring my hand boldly to his surcoat, to the area where his flame rests beneath the material. “Does your father have magic?”
“No.”
“But you do. I feel the heat.” Boldly, I press in harder, feeling that undeniable warmth. “I have never felt crimson magic before.” His dark eyes lower to mine as I continue. “It feels alive. Reckless. Volatile.”
He lifts my chin even higher. “It is all of those things when I’m near you.”
I think of all those moments that have passed since he found out I’m not Lyra. All those nights when I thought about him, wondered why I’m drawn to him.
His gaze lowers to my mouth, resting on my lips, teasing them with the thought of him kissing me. Instinctively, I lift to my tiptoes, needing this.
