Mine.
Yeah, right. In my dreams.
Awestruck, I skim the curve of her cheek with the callused pad of my thumb. Then, wonderingly, over her plump lower lip. I may be literate, but I’ve never been good with words, and I can’t summon any to describe the feeling of touching her.
Wake up.I think it, but I don’t say it.
“Hey!”
I yank my hand back guiltily like the time I was caught touching a priceless statue. Hadn’t been at the castle for more than a few hours and I was already on the cusp of getting thrown back out into the streets for being a dirty urchin who dared to soil a work of art.
Alistair pushes me aside. He yanks her into his arms and says, “Princess, I order you in the name of the king to awaken,” before pressing a hard kiss to her lips.
Hot, furious, envy floods my system. In battle, that rush of adrenaline is a godsend. Now, with no outlet, all I can do is steep in the toxic brew.
In the periphery of my vision, the girl’s arm that had dropped bonelessly to dangle above the floor twitches, then rises to his chest in a feeble effort to push him away.
My stomach drops through the floor.
“Who are you?” a fluttery, feminine voice says. “Where am I?”
He did it. Alistair fucking did it. I’ve never hated him until this moment.
Alistair beams. A second later, the blue light winks out, plunging us into darkness.
6
Briar
Gradually, then in a rush of consciousness, I become aware of warm skin on mine and jerk away from the contact. Or try to. My muscles feel strangely weak. When I push up to sitting, the air expanding my lungs causes them to ache as if it’s the first time I’ve inhaled properly in years.
I gape at my surroundings in confusion.
“Who are you?”
Why are they staring at me without saying anything?
One looks familiar. A relative of the prince I nearly married, perhaps. The other…
He is like no one I have ever seen.
“Where am I?”
The second man stands back from the dais my…coffin or bed, I’m not sure which word best describes it, sits upon. His broad shoulders are framed in dark armor crafted of dark scales that shimmer in the low light. His hair is constrained in a loose knot tied at the back of his head, but pieces of it have escaped to frame his sharp jaw. He would be arresting even without blood smeared on his high cheekbone.
He takes two steps, a rolling, hypnotic gait that I can’t tear my gaze away from. Electric awareness sings over my skin. I can’t decide whether it’s fear or something altogether different.
Him. He’s the one.
Not the handsome man with dark blond hair that glints like the gold braid on his blue jacket, though he is the one who takes my hands reverently.
“Rose, darling.”
Abruptly, the light beneath my coffin-bed winks out.
There’s a tense moment of silence. Pulse galloping, in the absence of anything familiar, I clutch his velvet-clad arms with all my strength.
“There, there, darling. I’ve got you.” I feel him move, and his next words are directed at his companion. “Kill. Find a light.”
