Please, I think, before I portal away.
THIS DAMNED DRESS
Gods help me.
I asked Astria to find a gown suitable for the event at Creetan’s Crag. The celebration lasts hours, and my people are known for wearing intricate, unrestricted clothing. I haven’t gone in decades. I barely remember what is considered appropriate. I know nothing about dresses, really. I never really paid attention to them, until her.
I could feel my general’s curiosity, but she agreed without question.
Now, the evening of the event, I make a mental note to either go down on my knees and thank Astria ...
Or kill her.
Isla is standing in front of me in hardly any fabric at all, inmy realm’s color, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. The dark fabric barely covers her chest. A slit in the skirt shows the smooth skin of her thigh, almost up to its apex and I have to remind myself to blink while I stare at her.
She is stunning. Singularly, uniquely, stunning.
I want to show off her beauty to the entire world.
I want to kill anyone who glances in her direction.
I want to lock her in my room forever.
I want her in a possessive, tender way that frightens me.
Because I shouldn’t wantanythingthe way I want her.
The Creetan’s Crag celebration is a sort of masquerade. We are disguised. She is wearing a mask, but those green eyes ... I would know that color anywhere. Those eyes haunt my dreams.
They haunt mylife.
“Do I look Nightshade?” she asks, sounding a bit panicked, as if she thinks the closeness of my study is because something is wrong.
Yes, I think.
The dress was a damned mistake.
She looks like my wife.
I banish the thought instantly.Wife?What am I thinking? First the thought of the necklace ... now this?
Nightshade rulers don’t take wives.
They certainly don’t takeWildlingwives.
Though here she is, looking like she would fit perfectly beside me.
Fit perfectlyin every sense.
I fight to keep my voice from sounding strained as I say, “It’ll do.”
The sword can sense my powers. There is a chance it will be there tonight, so I’m not supposed to use them. As a precaution, I portal us to a location more than three miles from Creetan’s Crag, and we walk the rest of the way. As we draw closer to the celebration, there’s screaming—
My arm juts out in front of Isla, on instinct. My blood goes cold. Roaring fills my ears—
But, as my vision settles, I see that the woman who was screaming ... is now smiling. She’s embracing someone in front of her. A friend.
My pulse is still racing.
