Aemonn extended his hand out to me. “Let us honor your reign by finishing this night as it began—together.” He paused at the center of the dance floor and twitched his fingers in a beckoning motion. “Come.”
My teeth ground together at being summoned like a dog to heel. I tried to remind myself that everything about this night had been a calculated performance, and this was no different. I swallowed down my pride and started toward him.
“Honey,” he crooned, “may this be the first of many evenings we spend as—”
A brooding shadow slid into my path.
“My Queen. A dance?”
Luther held out his palm, and my heart thundered. My hand was in his before I could think through the wisdom of so publicly snubbing Aemonn for the man he hated most.
Luther wove his fingers through mine and nestled our joined hands close to his chest. His other hand pressed high on my back, gently coiling me in until my soft curves melted into his hard lines, then slid beneath my hair so his fingers brushed against my skin.
His touch was the changing of the seasons, the dead, cold grey of winter thawing and giving way to the colorful hope of spring. The promise of something new, something exquisitely alive.
It’s just lust, I told myself. Physical attraction. You’re lonely, and he’s… very pretty to look at. Nothing more. It can’t be more.
The rest of the world seemed to fall away as we plunged into a spotlight of our own creation. The musicians, the crowd, the angry sputtering from Aemonn—even the room itself tucked behind a shadowy veil, leaving the Queen and her Prince, forged together as one.
Looking in his eyes was a gamble I was certain to lose, so I tucked my chin, my temple resting against his cheek. I hooked my other arm over his shoulder, and a shiver rippled through him as my fingers grazed the nape of his neck. The power of knowing how my touch affected him made me acutely aware of every place our skin connected.
Lust. Physical attraction. Nothing more.
“Is everything taken care of?” I asked, my voice coming out more husky than I’d planned.
“Yes. The woman from Umbros made them believe they no longer wished to attack and sent them home.”
“She can do that? Plant ideas in their head and make them believe those thoughts are their own?”
He nodded. “I knew the Umbros magic was powerful, but seeing it in action was unsettling.”
“If that power is unleashed in a war…” I shuddered, and he pulled me closer. “They’re going to be furious when they realize what happened. What if they come back?”
“I let them keep their blades, but I had their other weapons and explosives dumped into the Sacred Sea. They won’t be able to try another attack like that any time soon.”
Luther spoke of the rebels more as a nuisance than a threat. While I was grateful he didn’t seem to share his kinsmen’s desire to see them all slaughtered, a part of me worried he did not see how dangerous the Guardians were—and the lengths they would go to see their plans fulfilled.
I blew out a long breath, my heart conflicted. “What do we do now?”
And when did this become a ‘we’？ I wondered.
“We stay focused on the Challenging. If the Umbros Queen believes she can control you with what her Descended learned, she’ll want you on the throne. Any move she makes will come after the coronation.”
I tried to clamp down on my burgeoning dread. I had once thought surviving the Challenging was my greatest obstacle, but between Iléana’s threats, the Guardians’ war, and the Umbros Queen’s plans, surviving long enough to be coronated might only be the beginning.
“Eleanor told me about Marthe Hanoverre’s accusations,” he said tightly. “I’m sorry I was not there to step in.”
I bristled a bit. “I handled it.”
“I know. Very impressively, I hear. Still… I should have been there.”
“You can’t fight all my battles for me, Luther.”
“I seem to remember you claiming me as your High General.” He pulled back to look at me, his features warming. “Fighting all your battles is quite literally my job.”
I dipped my face to hide my smile, and a low chuckle rolled out of him, the sound of it raising goosebumps on my skin. My fingers curled, my nails gently scratching against the back of his neck. His grip on me tightened.
“You’re still not my advisor.”
“Patience, my Queen.” His thumb stroked a slow trail up my spine. “The most precious rewards come from the battles most fiercely fought.”
My body was a sparkling chandelier, every nerve ending alight in a symphony of flames that flickered with each unsteady breath. The feeling of being in his arms—the rightness of it, the overwhelming sense of being safe and protected. Accepted.
Loved.
I inhaled sharply. My pulse broke into a sprint.
Lust. Physical attraction. Nothing more.
It can’t be more.
“Henri.”
I wasn’t sure if I thought it or said it aloud, but the shift in Luther’s posture told me Henri’s name had spilled from my lips. His back went rigid, and cool air rushed between us as he shifted to give me space.
“I sent him home. I didn’t think his spending the night in the dungeon would serve either of you well.”
Indeed. It would have driven the knife of my betrayal so deep, it might never be dislodged. Perhaps that would have served Luther’s interests—and yet he’d put me first. Put me and Henri first.
“He’ll forgive you,” Luther said quietly. “If he loves you, he’ll understand why you did it.”
I shook my head. “I’m not so sure. Maybe there are some things love can’t survive.”
“It can. If the love is true, there’s nothing it won’t endure.”
“How do you know?”
When he didn’t answer, I lifted my eyes to his—a critical mistake. The depth of the emotion I saw there crested over me and pulled me out with the tide.
I was drowning in this man. From the moment I met him, I had been kicking against the current and holding my breath, struggling to get back to the safe, familiar surface—but every look, every touch, dragged me deeper still. I felt the burning of it in my lungs, as real and visceral as if I were plunging into the Sacred Sea itself.
And maybe it made me weak, or a traitor, or a fool, but gods did I want to close my eyes and sink forever.
My throat squeezed tight with emotion—for all the things I should want, but didn’t, and all the things I did want, but couldn’t have.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered, my walls cracking open and exposing the raw nerve of my deepest, most vulnerable fears. “About the mortals and the Guardians. About my magic, the Twenty Houses, the Challenging. About Henri, and…”
About you.
“Diem,” he murmured.
My shoulders drooped. “I pretend like I know what I’m doing, but it’s all a fraud. I’m letting everyone down—”
“You’re not.”
“I am. So many lives are at risk, and I can’t stop making mistakes. How am I supposed to take down the Crowns and stop the Descended when I can’t—”