He scrubs a hand over his face, looking away before meeting my eyes again. “We don’t have to do more.”

“Don’t go soft on me now,” I tease.

He barks a startled laugh. “I promise I’m the very opposite of soft right now.” He tips my head back and kisses me softly. “Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

I grip his collar and drag his mouth to mine. This must be what people mean by a spark; I feel like my whole body is on fire, and even though I’ve been told this man is a brutal predator, I don’t care.

He grabs my thighs, and I thread my arms around his neck, and he carries me over to the bed, sitting on the edge with me in his lap. I summon as much poison as I can and push it into him, nipping at his lip until I taste blood.

He kisses me back harder, thinking it’s just passion driving me instead of a desire to kill him. The sweet poison mixes with the iron and salt in my mouth.

I shove him back on the bed and stare down at him. He’s grinning up at me like I’ve hung the moon, his lips streaked with blood.

He rolls us over so I’m beneath him, and my dress bunches up to my waist, baring my dark red garters. He groans as he takes in the sight of them, running his fingers over the patch of skin between the top of my thigh-high stockings and the lace of my underwear. Holding my eye, he bends and places a kiss on the skin there. He grins at the bloody mark left on my thigh. Then, he bites the soft, pale skin, and a pleasant anticipatory shiver tears through me. I want more.

Reality slams into me. This man is an abuser who is somehow immune to my magic. I didn’t even know such a thing was possible.

He must see something in my eyes. He frowns. “What’s wrong?”

I jump to my feet, smoothing my dress back in place, and he sits up.

“Hey, whoa. It’s okay, we don’t have to go any further. I didn’t mean to⁠—”

My eyes dart to the door, and he launches off the bed, hands up like he’s approaching a frightened animal. This is it—where I see the real him.

Only he stays where he is. He doesn’t reach for me.

“I’m late,” I blurt.

He barks out a startled laugh. “Late for what? Am I just one of many suitors this evening?”

I bite back a smile, my cheeks warming under his gaze. “Maybe.”

I’ve officially lost it. I’m flirting with him.

“Can’t say I’m surprised you’re so in demand, but I’m wondering if there’s anything I can say that might get you to stay.”

I shake my head, inching toward the door.

“One more kiss, then? I’m dying for it.”

I choke back a laugh. If only he knew.

I nod, and he steps closer, tilting my chin back and looking into my eyes.

“You’d be wiser to let me go,” I whisper.

He licks his lips like he enjoys the taste of my secrets. “Wisdom is overrated.”

He cups my face and kisses me, slow and deep, like he wants to drink me in until he’s had his fill.

“I could do that all day,” he murmurs.

How many times have I stared at other couples, wondering what it was like to feel something tender without fear of killing someone?

And yet, he looks like he’s at my mercy.

I stumble away and yank on my cloak, bracing myself to fight my way out. But he takes a step back.

I dart from the room, down the stairs, and out into the cool night air, like I’m running for my life instead of running from someone else’s death.

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4HARLOW

My maid, Marie, sets the heated iron on the table to cool. She’s spent the last two hours curling my hair into tight ringlets. She begins to wrangle the coils into submission, pinning them up on my head and topping the updo off with an emerald-encrusted headband.

I stare at myself in the mirror, brushing my fingers over my lips. I haven’t spoken a word about last night to anyone, not that there’s anyone I would tell other than Bea or Aidia. If something is wrong with my magic, the moment I’m about to be sent to Mountain Haven is not the time to bring it up.

Besides, I would have no easy way to explain it without outing my secret. If my family knew what I’ve been up to, I would be locked in a tower like some fairy-tale princess until a prince of their choosing came to claim me.

Though I suppose that’s what today is about. My prince has finally come.

While I didn’t initially want this assignment, I now see it for what it is: a way to earn a favor from my father. I have had a plan since the first time Aidia showed up with the bruise on her face.

Years ago, when the Drained population grew and traveling far beyond the walls became almost impossible, my father commissioned my brother Frederick to use his blessing for manipulating nature, to build a tunnel to the outside world. It was a way to continue trade without losing so many guards and resources to the Drained.

According to the tradesmen who came through before the forest was overrun, the Drained rarely wander into the mountain pass because there isn’t much coverage during daylight. While the sunlight doesn’t kill them, it’s enough to keep them from straying too far beyond the Drained Wood.

For years, I have stared at the key, hanging from the chain around my father’s neck, imagining how it would feel to get far enough away from here that I would feel true safety for the first time in my life. I’ve fantasized about stealing it and disappearing with Aidia to finally find the freedom we’ve always dreamed of. Unfortunately, my father is too controlling for escape to be so simple.

The entrance to the tunnel is cloaked, the route mired with dead ends and magical traps, and it requires the collective magic of several of my siblings just to navigate it, as well as my father’s magic to pull down the wall of holy fire at the end. Like every other resource in Lunameade, my father has made sure that no one can use the tunnel without him.

If I do this, I’ll finally have a safe way out of the city. By the time he realizes he’s lost two daughters instead of one—that I’ve used it to get Aidia away from Rafe—we’ll have escaped beyond the mountain pass, beyond the reach of the Drained, and, more importantly, beyond our father’s reach.

“Are you sure about skipping a lip color, dear?” Marie asks.

I nod. “People like the spectacle of an otherwise invisible magic.”

Marie is the only servant in the whole castle who knows about my power because she helped raise me and needed to know for her own safety, much like Gaven needed to know in order to protect me. She has sworn a vow of silence that sends her into excruciating pain if she were to ever try to speak it to someone outside of the family.

“What do you think he’ll say when he finds out that he can never kiss his wife?” I ask.

Marie arches a brow. “As I understand, most men care more for other bedroom activities anyway. I suspect he’ll live.”

I blow out a sigh. When I turned eighteen, my mother brought a handsome young man to “test” that other activities were safe. She waited in a sitting room down the hall, but it was still the most uncomfortable night of my life. I wouldn’t have gone along with it if I hadn’t been so curious myself.

“Yes, at least there’s that.”

Marie laughs and shakes her head. “Don’t be so morose. You could use some affection, love. You’ve been on your own too long, and while your independence is admirable, this alliance will help Lunameade. Peace is good for everyone.”

Even if my parents want peace, Able doesn’t give a Divine damn about it. The true poison apple on the family tree will someday be head of South Hold and rule over the magical families of Lunameade. I kill for vengeance and protection, but if Able had my gifts, he’d do it for fun.

Marie squeezes my shoulder, a knowing look on her face. She’s helped me get ready for years, but this is always where she leaves me. She can do nothing for this ache—the burn of knowing that I am nothing more than a currency for my parents to trade.