“Aren’t you going to compliment me on my shave?” he asked, smile broadening a fraction. “I used my sharpest knife and made it a close one just for you. I doubt you’d want any stubble scraping all over you.”
“How in the seas would it ever get to scraping itself all over me?” she asked, trying to keep the tone light and hoping he would take the hint.
He did not.
Instead, he leaned forward and caught her mouth with his in a hard kiss.
There were intakes of shocked breath all around them. A lull in the music. A silencing of the rustling of gowns. Or was that all in her head? Some strange buzzing noise was all she could hear. Was this shock? Was this what shock felt like?
And then he was torn away from her.
She had time to reach up her hands but not enough time to grasp at Malcolm before his arm had swung a punch at Sir Patrick’s chin that was hard enough to send him stumbling to the floor. He spat blood as Iona wrapped her hands around Malcolm’s arm and held him back from continuing the assault.
“Mal,” she said, getting a few sideways glances to alert her that she should never address the prince in such a familiar way, no matter her rank within his court. “Your highness,” she corrected herself. “Please. No more.”
Malcolm’s muscles were taut under her fingers. He was as tense as a bowstring, glaring down at Sir Patrick for another handful of seconds before he turned from him. Iona didn’t hesitate to follow when Malcolm headed for the doors leading out of the great hall. She stuck close to him, though she didn’t dare touch him as it was too intimate with all the eyes trailing them.
Once they reached the stairs and she concluded none were close enough to hear, she hissed, “What were you thinking?”
He offered her his arm, but she ignored it, hiking up the skirts of her gown and taking the steps at his pace when he began to climb them.
“You didn’t want him to do that,” Malcolm snapped. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“But you punched him,” she said unnecessarily.
“He deserved it.”
“Yes, but you never…” She trailed off. She hadn’t meant it quite like that, but he paused his step once they reached the landing and turned to face her.
“I never what?” he asked.
You never pick a side, she thought, unable to form the words.You remain neutral for the good of everyone. You never cause waves like this. Not ever.
It had made her want to shake him more than once, but now, as she observed his set jaw and unflinching gaze, she could see the adult in him. The man who had grown far from the boy she had known. The man his father must see. The dragon king who was ready for his crown.
She felt like someone who had been asleep and was finally waking.
“Your hand is bleeding,” she said, eyes on the knuckles that had punched a bruise into the jaw of the man who had violated her.
Before she knew it, she had reached for them, for his hand. The touch of his skin was warm against hers. There was something stirring deep within, but she didn’t want to focus on that. All she wanted was to show tenderness and so she brought his knuckles to her lips, pressing a gentle kiss into them.
She didn’t care about the blood tracing its wetness across her lower lip. All she cared about was letting him know that she would not make him regret his actions, however regrettable they were.
When her gaze met his again, there was a look in his gaze that she couldn’t interpret.
But when he reached up to run his thumb along her lower lip, wiping the blood off it, she felt her chest tighten. Mostly at the thought of losing him. It had never felt so plausible that she might, so the sensation was different, more acute. Two fists squeezing at her lungs, not at the image of him perishing during the moment of transference, but at the image of him leaving her to walk away with another woman at his side. Him taking that other woman in his arms, sweeping her into a dance.
It should only be me, Iona thought.He should dance with no one but me.
The clarity of that statement, however, made her take a step away from him. She released his hand as she got herself out of reach of his touch, staring into the well-known blue of his eyes and knowing, thinking, dreading that it was true. That she had somehow, at some point, begun to fall and now she was plummeting so fast it was making her dizzy.
She reminded herself that she did not need him to catch her.
She was a dragon. She had wings of her own. She could break her fall and spread her wings and leave, rather than stay and suffer the heartbreak that his forthcoming mating bond would entail.
But how could she not have seen it when she had felt it for longer than she could remember? The answer was simple enough: she had never allowed herself to step back and truly examine the emotion. This incessant fluttering in her stomach.
“I will see you tomorrow,” she said.
