It made sense, didn’t it?
Arcas could be a sort of release for her—but what if shedidfeel more for him? The shock of it alone might have muddled her mind in her dreams.
Arcas edged in closer, the smoky scent of him drowning her now.
“Your mother seems to think we’d make an advantageous match.”
“Of course,” she said quietly, his heartbeat picking up as he moved closer still.
“I think we’ve got the physical chemistry for it.”
Arcas leaned over her, his long lines stretching against her soft curves. She had to crane her neck to hold onto his gaze, a light pink blush rising over her as she wondered what the muscles in his neck felt like flexing against her hold.
He exhaled. “But, I cannot tell how youfeel… and I’ve found I’m rather fond of hearing what you think.”
He was too close now, too near for her to concentrate on assembling the scattered thoughts that floated away from her. Perhaps she would have felt differently in a garden where the air blossomed with early sweet florals instead of the curling heat between their mouths.
Perhaps she wouldn’t have felt her pulse quicken beneath her skin, just a breath away from his fingertips.
But then again, even in her dreams, hadn’t she choked on the same suffocating tension?
And at any rate, she wasn’t there now.
She was very muchinside, pinned against a wall, drowning in the strange alchemy of the Plutonian prince once again.
“I will not come any closer,” Arcas murmured, his voice dropping into a devastatingly low register. “Unless you ask me to.”
Blood rushed to the surface of Lunelle’s skin, painting her in a pale pink as she sifted through an explosion of racing thoughts.
Maybe Arcaswasexactly what she needed.
He wasn’t tied to her by Fate’s mysterious strings, but just maybe the freedom to move forward and crash into him was worth more to her in that moment than the gods making the choice for her.
He must have felt it course through the slip of space between them. The decision she made, the giving over of herself. He must have heard it in the way her breath caught against her throat—his crooked grin certainly implied he’d noticed the shift.
“Your move, starling,” he whispered.
Lunelle pushed into her knees, rising to meet him with a slow caution that dissolved entirely by the time their lips met.
Arcas found her hip through her dress, wrapping gently around her as she leaned into his touch. She let him rain over her, wandering over his chest, dancing quietly along his neck, searching for any space to hold onto him.
The crawling sear of his kiss sent all but one thought scrambling off into the ether as he backed her further into the wall—a near-silent whine leaving his throat that lit something inside her she had not kindled in a very long time.
It was that last remaining thought, however, that stopped her from inviting him into her bed—or hells, throwing her dress off in the library—that pushed her away from him after another moment of indulging his kneading fingers and hungry kiss.
That final thought—an unmovable, demanding thing—echoed off her skull as she bid him goodnight and darted into the hallway, letting the dark consume her.
The thought that as long as she did not open her eyes, she would not have to mourn the sapphire gaze staring back at her when she might have preferred emeralds.
The seamsof the terrace warped and rolled in on one another as she moved across the glittering stone patio. The lanterns were not blue, but a softer, quieter lilac.
“Lunelle!” Mirquios said, setting down his pen. “It’s the middle of the night.”
It was indeed silent in the hall behind them. Not even Lura or one of the king’s many courtiers lurked in the shadows. But Lunelle was on guard after her interaction with Arcas.
“I’m too tired to sleep,” she said, a weak smile unfolding as he stood.
“I wish I did not understand what you mean. I was thinking of taking a walk to clear my mind. Would you like to join me?”
